Episode 294: Side Hustle Face Off: Affiliate Marketing Versus Becoming a Virtual Assistant

Full Episode Transcription:

Arianna Vernier: Hey y’all, welcome back to the Virtual Assistant Mama podcast. In today’s episode, we’re going to continue our series that we started kind of a while ago called the side hustle face off, where I’m going to compare different side hustles to becoming a virtual assistant. So back in episode 261, I compared. What it’s like to work in direct sales versus becoming a virtual assistant and in this episode I want to compare virtual assistants to affiliate marketing So I know so many people are like talking about how amazing affiliate marketing is And so I really want to break that down for y’all So you understand what the benefits are what the cons are and how they both compare to each other So with affiliate marketing, the benefits are that you typically are selling a product that a lot of people already believe in.

Arianna Vernier: It’s kind of like direct sales. It’s a product that probably already has a ton of reviews and that you can easily showcase that other people have enjoyed that product. Just like also with direct sales, a lot of the marketing materials are probably already going to be done for you. You might have to create like custom videos or whatever, but whatever website they go to to buy that product, it’s already going to be built, like you don’t have to build it yourself. So that’s really great there. Now the cons of affiliate marketing is that just like with direct sales, it’s not your own business. Okay, you don’t own it. And if that company goes under, then you lose that affiliate income. Also with affiliate marketing, you have to have a lot of customers in order to make a decent income. For example, if you’re Sharing affiliate products from Amazon, you’re only going to get like a couple cents on a per dollar for whatever somebody’s buying. So it’s going to take like a lot of people buying that product from you in order to make a decent income. And if you don’t have like a big level of followers, then it’s really, really hard to do. Not impossible, but it’s really hard. 

Arianna Vernier: Now, with becoming a virtual assistant, It’s your own business. You have full control of your pay, of how much you work, of the services you offer, etc. You also have multiple clients as a virtual assistant, so you’re never going down to zero income. And you only need three to five clients to make a decent income. Income three to five people need to say yes to hiring you for you to be able to fully replace your income versus with affiliate marketing. You probably need at least hundreds and that’s not going to be recurring every month, usually. So you would have to keep getting those new hundreds of clients every single month, but with virtual assistants, you just need that same three to five clients offering them a recurring service. So you can make that decent income. Also, the benefit of becoming a virtual assistant is that you just rely on yourself and the work that you’re doing. You’re not relying on others and how they run their business. You’re not worried about, you know, the company going under that you’re working for because you get to decide if you ever quit your job. Company or not because you created it. Now the cons of virtual assistants is that yes It’s a little bit more work up front to get it going You do have to create your own marketing plan and you need to build up that trust in others But these are all things that can be easily overcome And I’m going to be teaching you how to overcome a lot of these in the free workshop coming up on April 18th, where I’ll be teaching you the five Ps you need to know to become a profitable virtual assistant.

Arianna Vernier: So if you’re not registered for that yet, go sign up. We’ve already got hundreds of women signed up for this workshop. You can register at ariannavernier.com/free-workshop. Or find that link in the show notes. Can’t wait to see you there. Can’t wait to pour into you and answer all of your amazing questions about becoming a virtual assistant. But if it wasn’t already clear in this episode, I do think becoming a virtual assistant is the best side hustle you can do. You can do it while you’re still doing your nine to five until it gets to the point to where you want to leave your nine to five, but even if you don’t, if you just want to do it as a side hustle forever, becoming a virtual assistant. Is the way to go. I think it trumps. Every other side hustle out there. That’s just me. All right, y’all. Thank you so much for listening to this episode and we will see you next time.