Episode 267: The 5 Things You Need to Become a Virtual Assistant

Full Episode Transcription:

Arianna Vernier: You guys, it is officially free workshop day today, January 11th. So if you’re listening to this episode, the day it airs, I really encourage you to come and get registered for the free workshops in this workshop. I’m going to be teaching you exactly. What you need to get in place in order to become a virtual assistant so you can replace your income from home. So go register for that ariannavernier.com/free-workshop, or you can find that link in the show notes in today’s episode, I’m going to be sharing with you the five things you need to have in place in order to become a virtual assistant. And I will be going way more in depth on all of these in the free workshop today. So again, just a reminder, get registered for that. All right, let’s dive into those five things, and I really think that number five is going to surprise you. The first thing you need in order to become a successful virtual assistant is you need to pick a profitable service. You need a service that businesses want and need, and they need consistent help with.

Arianna Vernier: Sometimes we pick a service that’s just a one off service that businesses only need, you know, once in a while and then it’s a little bit harder to find clients for that service. Now, if it’s something you absolutely love, like for me, I love website design, but you know, the same clients are probably not going to come to me every single month needing help with a website. So I have to realize that I’m going to have to work harder to find clients for that service. But if you pick a service that you absolutely love that. Clients do need regular help with on a month to month basis like podcast management, Pinterest management, email marketing help, social media management, so many more things that are consistent monthly services you can offer that’s going to really set you up for success.

Arianna Vernier: Now, there are over a hundred different services you can offer as a virtual assistant. Even if you don’t have the experience for them yet, you can absolutely figure it out. And I will be covering all of those services in the free workshop. All right. The second thing that you need to have in order to become a virtual assistant is you need to have a portfolio. A portfolio is the way that you show potential clients. How you can help them. So it lists out what services you offer. It shows your packages with everything that’s included in them as well as your pricing. It shows how they can connect with you if they’re wanting to schedule a free call with you to learn more about what you have to offer and see if they want to hire you. And it’s just really the first thing that a potential client will see to learn about how you can help them. So I will be talking again. We’re going to talk way more in depth about portfolios in the free workshop today, but it’s really just like a PDF of showcasing what you have to offer a lot of people in the business world.

Arianna Vernier: We were familiar with the term resumes and portfolio is kind of like a way prettier, more fun resume. And it just really showcases how you can help your potential client with whatever service you offer. Okay, the third thing that you need to have in place in order to become a virtual assistant is you definitely 100 percent need to have a contract. You want to be legally protected when you work with clients. Just in case, I’ve never actually had to use my Contract in any legal instances, but I have it just in case I ever need to, okay, so you want to have a contract that lays out exactly what you are doing for your clients, what fees they will be charged if they’re late on things, or if they need, you know, additional services, what you would charge for that, when they can expect to get invoiced for your services, How quickly they can expect for tasks to be done. All of those things would be listed out in your contract. It sets the boundaries up front for how you’re going to work with your client. And just really sets you up for success with working with somebody new that you’ve never worked with before. It just gives them a heads up for what they can expect from you. I always recommend sending out the contract before you do any work for a potential client and having them sign it. You can have them sign it using the program HelloSign. They have a free version and it’s a great way for you to be able to send your potential clients the contract, add the little spot for them to sign, and then you’ll get a notification that it’s ready to go.

Arianna Vernier: All right, as well as the contract, the fourth thing that you need in order to become a virtual assistant is a payment platform so you can get paid. I highly recommend Stripe. S T R I P E. They’re free. They do take just a very small percentage of every transaction. I think it’s like something like 2.5 percent. PayPal does as well it’s just a part of doing business. You just write it off in your taxes, but with PayPal, if there’s ever a dispute about, you know, your client saying you didn’t do a service for them or whatever, PayPal tends to side with a person who paid the money without even asking for proof from you, the person who they paid.

Arianna Vernier: Okay. Stripe will actually take the time to dig in and see who. It was actually right in the situation where PayPal just usually automatically sides with the buyer. Now you do need to get paid up front just like you want to send the contract and get that signed up front. You need to get paid up front before you do any work for a client. If it’s a really big project like website design, you can break it up into payments where you do like a 50 percent deposit up front and then 50 percent halfway through the project. I do that all the time, but you never want to get paid at the end after you’ve done the work. Because then you might get ghosted and you’re going to spend way too much time trying to get them to pay. And honestly, a lot of times they don’t if you go that route. So you want to make sure you get paid up front just to make sure you’re not doing work for free. All right, that fifth thing that I told you might be a surprise for you that you need in order to become a virtual assistant is you need to have the drive. You, as a virtual assistant, you have full control of your business. You get to take it in whatever direction you want it to go. You get to grow it as big as you want it to. Nobody’s going to be doing all of that for you. You can’t just sit back and expect someone else to drive you where you want to go. You have to have that drive and that ambition to continue to work on your virtual assistant business. Get it to the point you want it to get to now this isn’t going to take you, you know, 10 million hours This is something you can do in just a couple hours a week, but you do have to be consistent You have to continue to chip away At whatever your goal is whether it’s replacing your income doubling your income, whatever it is You can absolutely do it But only you can do it.

Arianna Vernier: Nobody else is going to do it for you. God might help you if you bring him into your business. That is something I always recommend. You guys know that if you’ve been a long time listener of this show. But you still have to be the one taking action and following the steps that he’s calling you to take. So real quick, let me recap those five things that you need in order to become a successful and profitable virtual assistant. Number one is a profitable service. Number two is a portfolio. Number three is a contract. Number four is a payment platform. And number five is that drive, just that willingness to keep going. All right, y’all, I cannot wait to see you in our free workshop tonight and to just pour into each and every one of you. Again, if you haven’t registered yet, you can do so at ariannavernier.com/free-workshop. And I just cannot wait to give you all the virtual hugs in there.