Episode 277: 3 Places to Find Paying Clients as a New Virtual Assistant

Full Episode Transcription:

[00:00:00] Are you struggling with finding new clients as a new virtual assistant? I know that’s a big struggle for a lot of us, even if you’re not new, because where do I actually go to find, like, good quality clients? I do have an episode or two that I’ve done about this in the past, but I had someone asked me this question recently and I’m like, I should probably do an updated episode sharing my thoughts. So, in this episode, I’m going to share with you three places that you can find paying clients as a new virtual assistant. Number one, right off the bat, my favorite place to find virtual assistant clients is business Facebook groups or entrepreneur Facebook groups. Same thing. This is where businesses are coming in all the time hosting, looking for specific help in their business. They’re posting exactly what they need and literally all you have to do to apply is comment on the post. Sometimes they’ll have like a form they included that you can go fill out. Sometimes they’ll say, feel free to DM me. If they don’t say feel free to DM me, I wouldn’t immediately message them. You can say in your comment when you apply, is it okay if I message you and then if they respond and say yes, then you can message them, but I wouldn’t just message them unless they give you permission. So, it’s really just as simple as applying on the post and you don’t want to just say, like, hey, I’m interested message me. You want to actually speak to their business a little bit. So go and do some research, click on their profile, see if in their like little about section under their Facebook photo, see if they have their Facebook business page listed or their Instagram or their website.

[00:01:48] Go learn a little bit about their business and then speak to that in the comment when you apply. There are seriously probably hundreds if not thousands of business Facebook groups that you can go and join if you just type in the top like entrepreneur or female entrepreneur, like in the search bar, a bunch of different groups will come up that you can join. And you just want to look when the list of groups comes up. It’ll say how many members it has in it, and it’ll usually also say like how many posts have like been posted in that group within the last week. So you just want to look for something that has like a good amount of activity, so you know it’s a group that you’ll actually probably find leads in.

[00:02:33] Okay, so that is where I have landed 90 percent of my virtual assistant clients. That’s where so many of the Virtual Assistant Mama Academy students have landed their first clients, all of their clients, etc. But yeah, it is just a great place to go because businesses are actively seeking help for these different services. Now, another really good place to find paying clients as a new virtual assistant is Instagram. Instagram’s a little bit more of a long game in that you want to be posting somewhat consistently, I’d say like three times a week on your own Instagram account. That way, when you’re networking with businesses on Instagram, if they go to your profile, they see that you have like a deep amount of stuff you’ve posted. And it can be simple things like answering a question about the service you offer. Maybe walking them through what it looks like when they hire you, the things that you can help them with in their business. It doesn’t have to be reworking the wheel. And if you posted a post, like, I don’t know, 20 posts ago, you can redo it again, maybe revise it just a little bit, but repurpose. You don’t have to, like I said, you don’t have to rework the wheel all the time. So with Instagram, you can go into different business hashtags and go start networking with the businesses that are using those hashtags, start liking their posts, start responding to their stories, start commenting on their posts. Just build that relationship and then they’ll see that your name keeps popping up. And they’ll start to realize like, oh, hey, if I need help with this service, this is going to be my go to. Or maybe I don’t need help with this service, but I know somebody who does. This helps so much because when they’re ready to hire for the service that you offer, they know you’re already familiar with their business. They know you’re already tapped into their community. They’re more likely to hire you because you’ve already shown an interest in their business. You can also do what’s called cold pitching, like once you’ve taken a good amount of time to build that relationship that you’ve been commenting on their posts, you’ve been, like, responding to their stories with, like, I don’t know, something you learned from them or whatever it is.

[00:05:00] You can eventually say, you can send them a message and be like, hey, I’ve been really loving everything you’ve been talking about. I love this that you taught me. I’ve been implementing it in my life this way. Have you ever considered outsourcing, insert whatever service you offer, and then just pitch them to say, I would love to help you with this. If you don’t need help with this, I would love any referrals you could send my way. And there you go. So Instagram, it’s. Like I said, it’s a little bit more of a long game because it’s not usually businesses actively going out and saying, like, we need this, but a lot of times businesses don’t even know exactly what they need help with, especially if they’re newer business. So you can reach out to people to offer your services, but I really recommend building that relationship 1st for a while. I’d say, like, 3 weeks minimum. Because you don’t want to just cold pitch businesses that you don’t even know at all. Okay, and then the 3rd place that is a really great to find paying clients as a new virtual assistant is on tick tock.

[00:06:09] So you can kind of do the same exact thing, especially if you want to be a tick tock manager, but it doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to be a TikTok manager. You could be a website designer, a social media manager in general, a Pinterest manager, just share a couple quick TikTok videos a week on your page about whatever service you offer, and then go and network with businesses that you would love to serve and help them with whatever service you offer. So just like with Instagram, you would just go into TikTok hashtags and start networking with those businesses. A whole lot of the virtual assistant world is networking, and it’s not like, like I said, it’s not being sleazy and saying, Oh, hire me. Oh, hire me. Oh, hire me. No, it’s building relationships with people and then offering your services. A lot of people think they, they’ll say like, I’m not good at sales. I can’t pitch myself. But you know what? As moms. We are selling things every day. This is actually something I heard on The Peace on Purpose podcast by Leslie Burris, who I absolutely love. And she talks about how moms are the best sellers because we have to sell our kids on everything.

[00:07:24] If you want your kids to eat their vegetables, you have to sell them on why they should eat their vegetables. If you want your kids to Get out the door quickly. You gotta sell them and get them excited for where you’re going so that they’ll hurry up and get their booties out the door. Okay, so moms are great sellers. You just have to reframe your mind to think of like, I’m not selling them on something that they don’t need. I’m not selling them on something that it’s just gonna help me. No, it’s gonna help their business. It’s gonna help them make more income and it’s going to just help them grow. Okay, so, yes, being a business owner, being a virtual assistant, you do sometimes have to pitch yourself, but in the long run, if you’re consistent with it, you’ll get those recurring clients, and then you don’t have to pitch yourself nearly as much as you would have had to, like, in the beginning. Okay, now, briefly, I do want to mention two places that I don’t recommend looking for virtual assistant clients, and that is Upwork and Fiverr. Now, these will say, like, it’s a platform you can get on to find freelance clients, but the problem with these platforms is, one, you have to pay, like, you have to buy credits from Upwork or Fiverr, and then you have to spend, like, so many credits to apply to a position, so you’re paying these companies to apply to the positions that you might not even land.

[00:08:55] So, I really don’t recommend that, and a lot of times these projects They don’t pay enough. They are not paying what they should be for these roles that they’re looking to hire for. A lot of the people who are on these sites, they’re from other countries that can charge a lot less because their cost of living is a lot less. And so they’ll hire from just like different countries that can charge way less. But then that leaves you stuck if you decide to go down and only charge. That little bit. I’m talking like only a couple dollars an hour. How many hours are you going to have to work to actually make a decent living? So don’t do that. Stick with business Facebook groups, Instagram, TikTok, you could also even do like linked in indeed have some, but. Just stick with one platform at first, maybe add in a second later, and just be consistent with it. And if you are consistent for like, I’m talking a month, two months, you will start to land those clients. You will see that snowball effect come into play and It’s only up from there. Okay. So real quick, let me recap the three places that you can find paying clients as a new virtual assistant. Number one is business Facebook groups. Number two is Instagram. And number three is TikTok. As always, if you have any questions about any of this, you can come into our free Facebook community. That’s facebook.com/groups/virtualassistantmama. You can also send me a DM on Instagram @arianna.vernier. I’m an open book. I’m happy to answer your questions And just support you in any way I can. All right, y’all. I love you so much and we will see you next time