Episode 82: What Teaching Skills Will Help Me Become a Virtual Assistant? 4 Reasons Teachers Make the Best Virtual Assistants

Full Episode Transcription:

(00:07):
Surprise! We are officially moving to two podcast episodes a week. From now on, every Thursday we’re going to have a quick tip Thursday episode here on the Ditch the Classroom podcast, where I’m gonna be answering your questions that you’ve submitted to me. So we’re gonna start off with my first question submission: What teaching skills transfer over into the virtual assistant world? I know a lot of y’all have this question because you think that, you know, being a teacher is the only skill you have, and that’s not true. You seriously have so many skills that can be transferred into other industries. And so if you’re thinking about quitting teaching, I want you to know that those skills are transferable. So we’re gonna go through the four skills that you have that make teachers the best virtual assistants.

(01:48):
Number one, teachers have amazing customer service skills. We have to juggle conversations with the parents and even deal with customer service skills with our students and keeping them happy. Admin. Everybody we are chatting with daily in our teaching careers, we’re using customer service skills with. And so that definitely transfers over into the virtual assistant world, because you need to use those skills when you’re communicating with potential clients, current clients, and if you’re doing work for your clients that’s dealing with other people in their businesses, you definitely need to have those customer service skills. So this is a really big one and teachers have this skill and that’s what businesses are looking for.

(02:42):
Number two, teachers have this amazing willingness to learn new things. You know, we get thrown a new technique that is said to help our students. We’re gonna go learn everything we can about it if it’s going to improve our students learning, their lives, if it’s going to make our lives easier, all of it. So we have this willingness to learn, and that is a huge, beneficial skill in the world of becoming a virtual assistant. You know, clients aren’t always looking for somebody who knows exactly how to do everything already, but if they have the willingness to learn and they’re okay with their client coming to them and saying, Hey, are you able to do this? It’s okay if you say, “no, I don’t know how to do this yet, but I would love to learn and I will go figure it out and come back to you if I have any questions.” So many businesses are okay with that. A lot of times, you know, if a business doesn’t have the big budget to hire like a super expert, they’re willing to give you a chance to figure things out because you’re still taking things off their plate. So that willingness to learn is a very important skill that teachers have that makes them amazing virtual assistants.

(04:02):
Number three is the ability to adapt as you go. No student is alike. No two students are the same and no two clients are the same. So the ability to adapt between clients is really crucial.

(04:21):
And then number four, which y’all might not believe me in this teachers have amazing technology skills. I’m willing to bet that a new program has been thrown onto your plate, that you have been told you need to start using when you’re teaching and you’ve gone and you figured it out. Or, you know, with the introduction of smart boards, years ago, teachers had to go and figure it out and how they were gonna implement it in the classroom. And so you might not know everything about technology, but again, here’s that willingness to learn your ability to adapt and figure things out as you go. So we have these technology skills that no, we don’t necessarily know how to use every single program in the virtual assistant space, but we have a willingness to learn and the ability to figure it out and adapt as we go. So you have all of these skills. If you’re a teacher, I know that you have all of these skills.

(05:21):
And I truly believe that teachers make the best virtual assistants because of these skills. I’ve seen these skills in my students that are in the Teacher Turned Freelancer Academy. I’ve seen it in other teachers that are in this field. We all have these skills inherent in us and businesses need people like us helping them and serving them in their business. So to recap, the four big skills that you have as a teacher that will make you an amazing virtual assistant is one: customer service skills. Two: the willingness to learn. Three: the ability to adapt as you go. And four: technology skills. Now, if you have a question that you would love to have featured on the quick tip Thursday episode, I’d love to have you submit it. So just go ahead and pop over into our free Facebook community. If you just go to facebook.com/groups/ditchtheclassroom, all one word, you can go ahead and drop a comment in there anywhere and just say, this is my quick-tip Thursday submission, and drop your question and I’m happy to answer it. All right ya’ll. I love you. And we will see you next week.