Episode 281: Five Simple Things You Can Do to Start Your Virtual Assistant Business

Full Episode Transcription:

[00:00:00] Were you wondering what you actually need to do in order to become a virtual assistant? In this episode, I’m going to share with you five simple things that you can do to start your virtual assistant business. Number one, You need to pick what service you want to offer now before we talk about, you know, the different categories you could choose from. I just want you to remember that you want to pick a service that lights you up. I don’t want you to just pick a service that you feel comfortable doing right now because. Even if you’re comfortable, you may not actually like love it. And if you don’t love it, you’re going to find yourself burnt out and probably just feeling the same way you do in your nine to five already. So pick a service that lights you up. Even if you don’t know how to do it yet, you can absolutely. Figure it out. There are so many different services that virtual assistants can offer. There’s seriously over 100 and I go in depth and in all the different options in episode 272. So, if you’re really curious, like, what a virtual assistant can actually do, go check that out because I go really in depth, but some examples are podcast management, Pinterest management, administrative services, website design, graphic design.

[00:01:19] Email marketing. I mentioned social media management. I can’t remember, but those are just some examples. So again, go listen to episode 272. If you need an in depth look of that, like what can a virtual assistant actually do for their clients? Once you have your services figured out, you can then start creating your packages. So when you create your packages, you’re just going to list out the services that you’re offering. What, like, line item tasks are you going to be doing for your clients in that package? So, for example, social media management, you might be creating reposts a week for them. You might be doing, I don’t know, 10 minutes a day, hashtag research. 10 minutes a day networking, responding to comments and messages, a 30 minute call each week. So that would be like listing out all the line item things they’d be getting for hiring you as their social media manager. So you just want to have that all listed out so they can see very clearly what they’re getting and then have your pricing underneath. Now, you can choose whether you want to charge hourly for your services or package pricing, but I do recommend pivoting to package pricing as soon as possible. When you start out, sometimes it’s easier just to go the hourly route because it’s just the fastest to go the hourly route. You know, estimate how long something’s going to take you and then just charge how much you want to make an hour. But when you pivot to package pricing, you get to charge an extra fee on top of that hourly rate for like your skill level, how quick you get things done. And just the success that your clients are going to be able to see in their business from you helping them grow their business. So you could start out with that with charging hourly for your services and showcase that in your packages.

[00:03:13] But I really recommend pivoting to package pricing as soon as possible. All right. The third thing that you need to do as you. Jump into becoming a virtual assistant is to build your portfolio where you can showcase your services and Packages so in your portfolio, you really just give a brief intro about you how you can help your clients What services you offer what you charge and then what they need to do in order to take the next step with you So how to what to do to get an interview call set up Or what we in the virtual assistant world call the discovery call, what will happen after that, et cetera. So a portfolio is just a branded, beautiful PDF that walks them through exactly what you offer and how they can start working with you. So episode 69 on this podcast shares with you the top five most essential components for creating your portfolio as a new virtual assistant. So if you need help with that, go check out episode 69. Fourth thing you need to do to start getting your virtual assistant business up and going is to decide whether you want to be a sole proprietor or an LLC. Now this, the process for setting this up varies depending on what state you live in. So you can go to Google and type in your state and then sole proprietor or LLC. And see what their requirements are. Let me just explain the difference between the two. Sole proprietor, you’re establishing yourself as a business, but you don’t have as many protections in place if, like, a client were to sue you, for example. So, it’s a lot cheaper to set up a sole proprietorship because you don’t have those protections in place.

[00:05:03] But also, you’re kind of putting yourself at risk. Now, with an LLC, it does cost a little more up front, and again, that cost is going to vary depending on what state you’re in. But, it protects you that way. If somebody were to sue you for some reason, they can only sue your business, they can’t sue you for like your personal property. So, if you’re going the LLC route, then you just want to make sure you’re signing up for it correctly. There’s a lot of programs out there that when you like type in your state and then LLC, there’s things like legal zoom and there’s a bunch of programs like that. That’s going to ask you to like pay them to get it set up for you. You really don’t need to do that. What you need to do is find your state’s government website. And what is required to get either set up sole proprietorship or LLC, get on their government website, see what’s required, and then just follow those steps and get it done. Now, I’m in Ohio, and I think my LLC registration was like, A 200 one time fee when I was in Texas for starting my business, I did sole proprietorship and that was, I think, 25. So it’s just a one time fee. But like I said, LLC gives you more protection. So it’s a good idea to consider that maybe after you’ve landed your first like one or two clients. All right, the fourth thing that you need to have in place to start your virtual assistant business is a contract. Now, a contract is going to set boundaries up front with your clients on what they can expect from you, how much they need to pay you, what happens if they pay late, what happens if they ask for more services on top of what they actually paid you for, just really sets you and your client For success, right up front, you need to get a contract signed from your client before you do any work for them.

[00:07:03] So if you have a contract template set up already that you can easily change just a few things for each client, then you’ll be ready to go once you are actually close to landing that client. All right, so in the Virtual Assistant Mama Academy, I literally walk you through all of these things. Okay, so I help you figure out what services you want to offer, and I even teach you how to do a lot of the different services. In there, we have a whole entire unit dedicated to teaching you different virtual assistant service skills. I help you with figuring out your packages and setting up your pricing, help you build your portfolio, give you that template where you literally just go plug and play in your information, and then I walk you through how to set up your sole proprietorship or LLC, and then we literally have the contract template for you to just go and tweak your personal information, and bam, it’s ready to go. So you can check out everything that’s included in the Virtual Assistant Mama Academy at virtualassistantmama.com, but it’s literally the program that’s going to help you take your virtual assistant business from zero to 60. From this is new. I don’t even know what I’m doing to, this is my full-time thing, and I absolutely love it. So go check that out virtualassistantmama.com. Can’t wait to see all in there. And I cannot wait to see you back here in the next episode real soon.