How to Become a Virtual Assistant (Guide)

After reviewing all of the best virtual assistant guides, here’s the best one that I’ve found by far. It’s a 16-minute watch (or you can read the written version by scrolling further down) and it’s a phenomenal crash course about becoming a virtual assistant!

As someone who has hired a lot of virtual assistants in recent years, I’m fairly savvy about hiring and working with virtual assistants. So if you have questions about becoming a virtual assistant yourself, feel free to click the chat button in the bottom right of this page to start a conversation!

Also, if you’re looking for more info, check out this list of 100+ services you can provide as a virtual assistant.

All credit to Gillian Perkins for creating this content and here’s the free Virtual Assistant 30 Day Plan that she references in the video.

The Written Version:

Hey there, my name is Gillian Perkins and welcome to my youtube channel if you’re new here, I’m so glad that you found me and I hope that you’ll consider subscribing because I make two videos every single week about intentional living entrepreneurship and success, and I would love to have you join me for the next one.

In this video, I’m going to be sharing with you a 30-day plan for becoming a virtual assistant. And the reason that I wanted to share this with you guys today is because I know that many of you are interested in starting an online business, but you’re not quite sure what kind of business to start, and becoming a virtual assistant is a great option.

Don’t think that you can do it from home? It pays pretty well and almost anyone can do it if they have at least basic communication and organizational skills. In this video, I’m going to be sharing with you a plan for week by week exactly what you need to do to get your virtual assistant business off the ground, start attracting clients and start making money during the first week of the process.

There are quite a number of small specific steps that you need to take in order to really start your business as a virtual assistant. Because there are several different steps going to put all of that into a PDF for guys and you’ll find the link down below in the description box. You can download that so that you can check all these steps as we complete each of them.

1. Assess Your Current Skills

So in order to complete the step, just make a list of all of the skills that you have that you might be able to offer to clients, and if you need some examples of what skills clients might be interested in, then make sure you download that PDF that’s linked down below because I put a list in there of the most sought after skills for virtual assistants to have.

2. Learn Some New Digital Skills

The second thing you need to do during that first week is to then learn some digital skills. So you know what goals you have you know that you can write blog articles and manage people’s email inboxes. But perhaps you don’t know how to manage people’s calendars, so you need to do some research, you take a short online course and learn the skills you need in order to be able to provide the best service for your clients and to be able to charge the rates you actually want to earn.

So even if you have the most minimal of skills you still can probably charge at least $10 per hour. But if you learn some additional skills that will increase your value to potential clients, and allow you to raise your rates as high as perhaps $25 per hour. And by the way, if you’re wondering how much you can charge as a virtual assistant just keep on watching because later on in the video kind of towards the end. I’m going to get into how to price your services and how to attract clients, and I’ll get into that in a minute.

3. Create Packages and Pricing For Your Service

The third step to do during the first week is to create some packages for your service and price them. So basically what this means is you’re just gonna make a list of the services that you can provide, perhaps a certain number of hours of those services and then get a price. So for example, you might say, 10 hours of virtual assisting services per month, and then list the different skills that you would include in that package.

And then say, the price for this package is $100 or $200, and then that is a price per month. I would recommend to create two or three different packages, one of them, with a minimal number of hours. So the smallest number of hours that you would want to work with a client, and that might be five or 10 hours per month. And then one or two that have more hours per month, perhaps, 20, or 40, hours of work per month.

Typically, of course, the smallest number of hours per month is at the highest hourly rate. And then if someone wants to purchase more hours of your services every month, then you might get a little bit of a discount on the hourly rate. So you might say 10 hours of your time per month is $200. But if the person wants to purchase 40 hours of your time per month, then instead it would only charge, 600, or $700.
Creating these packages for your service will make you seem much more professional and make it easy and obvious for clients to understand how they feel.

4. Create a Simple Website

Step number four, and this is again something you do during the first week, is to create a simple website, this doesn’t need to be anything elaborate and you can use a really easy service like Squarespace or Wix or Weebly. Because, like I said, it can be a very simple website. You just need to have a page that tells a little bit about you and about your background, a page that tells about your packages and the prices, and then a page that has your contact information so that potential clients could get in touch with you.

5. Start Networking in Facebook Groups

And step number five, the last thing you need to do during the first week, and this is start networking in Facebook groups. Facebook groups provide a great way for you to connect with online entrepreneurs who have growing businesses. If you aren’t already aware there are literally a few hundred of these Facebook groups where entrepreneurs go to connect, get advice from each other, get recommendations and referrals. And you can join these groups, join in on the conversation, which can help you to start establishing relationships with people who later on, turn either into clients or might turn into people who can refer clients to you.

Alright, so that is everything for the first week of the process. And then, like I mentioned before, that is the week that has the most small steps in it, so don’t feel overwhelmed because weeks two, three, and four, don’t have very many steps in them at all, but they’re more things that take just longer amounts of time.

But just to recap during that first week, the five things that you need to accomplish are:
1. Assess your current skills.
2. Learn some new skills.
3. Create packages and price them.
4. Create a simple website.
5. Start networking in Facebook groups.

6. Find Clients To Work For (For Free)

Now during week two, you just have one main task, and that is simply to find some clients who you can work for free. Now, I know that that might seem counterintuitive and I also know that not everyone recommends doing this, but I think that it is very helpful for you as a new virtual assistant to do a small amount of work for free. I’m talking about working for maybe three to 10, different clients for free for a small number of hours. There are three main reasons that I think you should do this. The first one is because, if you’ve never worked as a virtual assistant before, getting a little bit of experience working with clients under your belt will help you be so much more confident and also will mean that when you start working with paying clients, you will be able to provide them with the best service possible, and they’ll be much more likely to be pleased with the work that you do for them and to actually refer their friends to you.

The second reason why I recommend that you do some work for free is to get some testimonials. It’s much easier to sell your service when you have some positive testimonials that you can put on your website and share with potential clients. It really gives proof that you know what you’re doing, and it helps convince people that you would be a good hire.

And then the third reason why I’d recommend you do some work for free is to get referrals. After you do some work for someone for free, not only is there a good possibility that they might hire you to do more work for them on a paid basis but if they are impressed with your services, they also can be a great source of referrals and can direct new customers your way.

Now as an up and coming virtual assistant it’s actually pretty easy to find some clients who are interested in working with you for free, and that’s because you have a wide range of very applicable skills that can help so many different types of entrepreneurs and different types of businesses. So you’ve already gotten into these Facebook groups and you’ve started joining in on the conversation. So now all you need to do is share that you are starting up your virtual assistant business, and you’re looking to earn some testimonials, so you would like to work with some clients for free. And then perhaps share in the post some different skills that you can provide to customers, and then ask people if anyone is interested in taking you up on you doing some free work for them.

If you share this free offer in a few different groups, I am sure that you’ll get quite a number of different people who are interested in taking you up on it, and this will enable you to start getting those testimonials and those referrals, and that experience that you need in order to be successful. If you want a little bit more help with this part of the process, then I have a free guide that I think you’ll find really helpful. It’s called “Establishing Credibility From Scratch,” and it’s all about really leveraging this free work to get you the most advantage with building your business as possible. So in it, I share about how to actually get the free clients. I also share about how to get them to write testimonials for you and referrals. I’ll leave a link to it down below, and like I said it’s completely free. Okay, so that wraps up week two. Like I said, you only need to focus on that one thing, getting some clients, and working for them for free.

7. Get Your First Paying Clients

Okay, so now moving on to weeks three and four. During this two week period, you only have one task, and that is to get your first paying clients. Of course, this is an ongoing process, but during this two-week period, I want you to really get your hustle on and focus on getting those first clients because the first clients that you get are always the most difficult to find.

There are four ways that I would recommend that you find your first paying clients.

The first one is the most straightforward, you can go on Freelancer websites like upwork.com or freelancer.com. I’ll leave links to several of those down in the description below, here’s what happens on these websites people who want to hire other people, other businesses, put job offers on these websites and they post about a project or position that they need filled in their company. This might be that they’re looking for a graphic designer or a video editor or a book editor, all sorts of different things, including virtual assistants. So head over to those websites, create a profile as a virtual assistant, list your different skills, upload your resume, put a nice profile picture on there, and then start looking for job offers for virtual assistants.

Now the challenge here is that it is a numbers game. So yes, you will have been in quite a number of hours responding to dozens of postings with your proposal as a virtual assistant, but once you get a client, there is likely to be quite a number of hours of work in it for you, and it might continue on for many, many months after that time. All that to say you won’t have to keep doing this every single week. For a few weeks, you will have to write a lot of proposals, but then after that, you’ll be able to slow way down and just respond to a few postings every week to keep your roster full. Also, keep in mind that the more clients you successfully sign on any one of these sites, the higher your ranking and reviews will go, and the easier it will be for you to successfully sign clients in the future.

The second strategy that you can use to sign clients during week three and four, is to tell everyone you know what you’re up to. Now I know that this isn’t always the most comfortable thing because I mean it’s new and talking about yourself can be awkward, but really, if you’re not telling people that you are offering virtual assistant services, then how do you expect them to hire you? So the easiest way to do this is just shoot an email out to all of your close friends, acquaintances, and family members, and just kind of share a general life update. Tell them what’s been going on in your life lately and that you’re getting started as a virtual assistant and what that even means, and then just tell them, “Hey if you know anyone who might be interested in hiring a virtual assistant then send them my way.”

Now, of course, this might not turn into anything, but you never know until you try it, and as a virtual assistant, you only need so many clients at any given time, so every single new client really counts. And also, even if this doesn’t turn into any clients immediately it certainly might turn into some clients in the future. And at the very least, it will get you more comfortable and more confident, talking about what you do, and talking about what you have to offer.

My third recommendation for how to get some paying clients is to ask for referrals. Now you are kind of doing this when you’re talking to your family and your friends and you’re telling them what you’re up to. But I mean, more specifically, more directly. You’ve been making these connections online in these Facebook groups. So reach out to some of these people who you’ve met, who you’ve connected with, and just ask them, “Hey, do you know anyone who might be hiring a virtual assistant?” I know that this is so obvious and maybe sounds too easy. But really, those who asked, are those who receive.

And then my fourth and final tip for you on how to get your first paying clients is to ask people if they are hiring. Now, as a business owner, I frequently get emails from people who offer all sorts of different services, whether that is photo editing or virtual assisting or people who create audiobooks, all sorts of different things, they email me and they say, “Hey, I do such and such. Would you be interested in this service?” And more often than not, I don’t even answer because I get so many of these emails, and I don’t really have time to get pitched all day, every day. But there is one way that you can do something that is similar with much better results, and that is instead to reach out and ask someone who you’re interested in working for if they are hiring.

Now, this is basically the same question, but simply reframing it makes all the difference in the world. And that’s because as a business owner, it makes you feel recognized. It makes you feel like, oh, people see me as a legitimate business, and they’re interested in working for me. And that is just a much more comfortable way to start off a relationship. So reach out to some people, perhaps people you’ve connected within a Facebook group, or perhaps people who you see running online businesses who you’re simply interested in working for. Send them an email, or better yet, give them a call, and simply ask them, “Hey, are you hiring?” Maybe, “Are you hiring for this specific position?” and by doing that you can get a great start to a potential relationship, and it’s basically a really non-threatening way to pitch them.

Alright, so that brings us the end of the seven steps that you need to follow in order to get started as a virtual assistant and actually start making money working for yourself.

Just to recap, before we go, here are the seven steps.

First, assess your current skills. Second, learn some new skills. Third, create packages and price them. Fourth, is to create a simple website. And Fifth is to start networking inside Facebook groups. Step number six is to work for clients for free. And then step number seven is to get your first paying clients.

I’d recommend that you do those first five steps, during the first week, and then during week two, focus on getting some clients who you can work for free. And then during weeks three and four, getting your first paying clients. Of course, you can take more time to do these steps, and they’ll still work just as well, but I encourage you that you can get them all done in 30 days if you really want to get your business off the ground and start making money working for yourself.

If you’d like a checklist of these seven steps along with some helpful suggestions of how to actually complete them, then make sure you check the description box down below or you can download that PDF checklist for free.

So I’m really curious. Are you planning to become a virtual assistant yourself? If so, leave me a comment down below in the comment section, tell me exactly why you’re interested in becoming a virtual assistant, and how it would positively impact your life. Thank you so much for watching this video. I hope that you found it extremely helpful. If so, hit that thumbs up button to let me know and to help more people find it. And of course, subscribe to my channel here on YouTube so you don’t miss my next video. I make two videos every single week, and I would love to have you join me for the next one.

Now that we’ve come to the end of this video if you’d like some more ideas for jobs that you can do working from home, then click right over here for a list of a whole bunch of them. Thank you so much for watching. Again, my name is Gillian Perkins, and I hope that you have an amazing rest of your week.