Episode 253: 3 Things You Should NOT Do As a Virtual Assistant

Full Episode Transcription:

[00:00:00] Having been in the virtual assistant world for over four years now, there’s a lot of things I’ve seen that work as far as building your virtual assistant business, but there’s also quite a few things I’ve seen that do not work. So in this episode, I’m going to share with you three things that you should not do as a virtual assistant and what you can do instead. So I want to give you the tacticals on what you should be doing and what to avoid. So let’s just jump right in. Number one, the first thing you should not do as a virtual assistant is you should not offer a whole bunch of different services.

[00:00:37] I know it can be tempting, especially if you really love, you know, doing a whole lot of different things. It can be tempting to pick a whole bunch of different services to specialize in, but then nobody knows what you’re actually the expert at. Nobody knows what you can 100 percent completely help them with. So it’s much better to pick one, maybe two services that you will be seen as the go to expert in. Now if you want something that does allow you the flexibility of doing a bunch of different things, pick a service that kind of has that built in. So like an online business manager, there’s so many different things in a business.

[00:01:17] So if you really love multitasking, having variety, that might be a good service to offer for you. Podcast management, you’re doing a whole bunch of different things. Pick something that You absolutely love, but that people will come to know you as they go to that specific service. Alright, the second thing that you should not do as a virtual assistant is you should not work with anyone who will pay you. Now you’re probably thinking, excuse me? Like, I want to make money. But, I don’t want you to work with people who are going to just drag you down and make you exhausted and make you not want to do this anymore, because if you’re listening to this podcast, it’s most likely because you’re not happy and you’re nine to five anymore.

[00:02:07] I don’t want you working with people who are just like you’re nine to five is. I want you to pick people, clients to work with who light you up, who you’re so excited to support their business, their business’s mission, and all those things. If you’re working with someone who is dragging you down, it’s going to take you a lot longer to get the services done for them that you’re offering because you’re not going to enjoy it. So yeah, it’s going to take longer and you’re going to end up wasting money in the long run because you’re spending more time on stuff that you don’t enjoy than you could be focusing on things that take you less time, that you do enjoy, and make more money. Take this from somebody who did not listen to my own advice when I first started as a virtual assistant.

[00:02:56] I just, you know, would push down those red flags that I saw in potential clients on discovery calls and I’d be like, no, if they want to hire me, like I’ll deal with those red flags. It’ll be fine. I ended up with a client who was kind of a disaster. She would tell me what she wanted. I’d get it done. She’d completely change what she said. And I’d have it in writing too, like, like proof of what she wanted. And then she’d completely change. And I’d be stressed out. My daughter, I wasn’t spending as much time with her as I wanted to because I was always like tweaking things for this client. I wasn’t charging more for those tweaks. I was up. So much longer than I should be after my daughter went to bed, trying to get the stuff done to make this client happy. And it was just not possible to keep her happy. Like, people pleaser in me wanted to just get her to say she loves something and that just was not going to happen. So I eventually realized that I had to let her go for my sanity. And I was really scared because I didn’t have a whole lot of income at that point.

[00:04:00] But as soon as I let her go, My calendar opened up so much that I was able to take on two different clients who were paying me more, respected me more, and I had so much more fun working with them. So I just want you to keep that in mind. Alright, the third thing that you should not do as a virtual assistant is you should never, ever, ever work without receiving payment up front and without a contract in place. I don’t want you to have to chase down clients to get paid after you’ve already done the work for them. If you’ve been in the dating world, you know about getting ghosted, I don’t want you getting ghosted by a client. That is not fun having to chase somebody down. It’s a pain in the butt. So just do yourself a favor and make sure you get paid a hundred percent. Of the money front. Now, if it is a really large project, like for me, I do website design. I’ll take 50 percent of the payment up front, and then I take the remaining 50 percent halfway through the project. I never take it at the end. Okay, so make sure you’re getting paid up front and make sure you also have a contract in place to protect you just in case you ever need to chase a client down or if they’re a pain or whatever, you’d need to make sure that you have a contract in place.

[00:05:22] Now I teach you how to make sure you get paid up front and how to set up your contract. How to find your ideal client and how to figure out which services you wanna offer in the Virtual Assistant Mama Academy. So if you are ready to just take that next step and really go all in on your virtual assistant business, the Virtual Assistant Mama Academy is for you. You can check out all the details about that at virtualassistantmama.com. Feel free to message me or email me if you have any questions about it. I’m an open book. And I will tell you if I think it’s a good fit for you. And if not, I will help put you in the right direction for you. All right, y’all. I hope this episode was helpful. And we will see you in the next episode.