Episode 105: Part 1: Become a Virtual Assistant and Start Working from Home with Only 5 Hours a Week

Full Episode Transcription:

(00:07):
Y’all. I know that you are super limited on time, and you’re really wondering if you can become a virtual assistant when you have so many other things taking up your time each week. That’s why I have created this three day series just for you teaching you how to grow and scale your virtual assistant business in only a few hours a week so that you can replace your income, quit teaching, and start working from home with your kids faster. So today I’m gonna be walking you through exactly what you need to do in order to grow your virtual assistant business in just five hours per week. And then this coming Thursday, I’ll be sharing with you how you can do this in 10 hours a week if you have a little more time. And then a week from today on Tuesday, I’ll be teaching you how to build your virtual assistant business in 15 hours a week.

(02:11):
But they all kind of build on each other. So even if you have more time, today’s episode is still definitely going to be powerful for you to listen to. So let’s dive in. The first week of starting your business, you’re gonna take some time to determine your services and your packages and create your portfolio. If you need help figuring out what services you wanna offer as a virtual assistant, then you can take my free quiz at ariannavernier.com/virtual-assistant-quiz. Or you can find that link in the show notes. This quiz, you’ll just answer a couple questions and it’ll spit out an answer of what service would fit you based on your answers. Now, caveat here, if you get a service that you’re like, I could do that, but I wouldn’t love it. Pick something else you can always learn. I don’t want you to pick a service that does not light you up. Cuz if you’re looking to quit teaching you probably aren’t happy there anymore so I don’t want you to pick a service that’s not gonna make you happy either. Also, if you need help figuring out how to price your services, you can go to episode 96 and episode 102 here on the Ditch the Classroom podcast to get tips on setting your rates as a new virtual assistant. And if you need more help building out your portfolio, then episode 69 is for you. That’s gonna give you the five essential components for building your portfolio as a new virtual assistant. So just getting all of these essential pieces of your business in place will probably take up the full five hours the first week that you start your virtual assistant business.

(03:48):
The second week, you’re gonna start working on networking and applying for jobs. So each day, I want you to dedicate one and a half hours to networking in the second week of starting your virtual assistant business. This simply means that you’re just answering questions, providing value, sharing your opinion, etc. And I know this can be a little bit uncomfortable when you’re starting out. Cause you’re like, “I’m a newbie. What do I have to offer?” And so you might spend a lot of time scrolling, looking for posts that you even feel confident commenting on at first, but I promise you’ll get more confident over time and even just offering your opinion on like which logo looks better, that still counts as networking.

(04:30):
I also want you to spend one and a half hours applying for jobs each week. I recommend joining three to five Facebook groups for business owners and setting aside 30 minutes, three days a week to scroll through them and apply for positions that interest you with the remaining two hours of your second week, because networking adds to – let’s see if I can math right – one and a half hours. And then job applying is one and a half hours. So that’s three hours of your five figured out two hours left. I recommend offering some work in exchange for a testimonial that you can then showcase in your portfolio. I only want you to do a max of three of these. I don’t want you to take a ton of time doing it, but it can be a really good way to showcase work in your portfolio, showcase a testimonial and the work that you do, that client may end up hiring you and actually paying you for more work after that. Okay? So offering work and exchange for a testimonial is super awesome for when you’re starting out and you need that experience.

(05:32):
Then week three, I want you to do the same thing. Repeat week two, you’re gonna do one and a half hours of networking, one and a half hours of job applying and then two hours for testimonial work. And then week four, you’re still gonna do the networking and job applying because that’s the foundation of everything you need to be doing that consistently in your business to be able to grow it. But then I also want you to spend time setting up a social media profile for your business. You get to decide where. Do you wanna hang out on Instagram? Is that where your ideal clients might be hanging out? Does a Facebook page make more sense? Typically if you have an Instagram page set up as a business account, then you can have that post to your Facebook business page as well. So you could kind of get a double whammy, but if your ideal clients aren’t on either of those, maybe you need to go to LinkedIn and create an account there. Maybe you need to look at TikTok. You need to get an account set up, and then I want you to do some research, figuring out what types of posts you could put up. So I recommend three posts a week and think about the questions that your ideal clients are asking and what pain points they’re struggling with.

(06:42):
And then those posts that you create would be centered around that. So I just gave you the foundation of the first month of your business, working it with only five hours a week. If you have any questions about this, come into our free Facebook community, facebook.com/groups/ditchtheclassroom. Post your questions. I’m always in there answering them for y’all and I would be super happy to help you out. Make sure you tune back in for next episode. Even if you don’t have 10 hours a week, I’m gonna give some other essential tips that might help you in building your virtual assistant business. So come back and check that out this coming Thursday. And then Monday, we’ll be doing how to build your virtual assistant business with 15 hours a week. So come check that out and yeah, I cannot wait to see ya’ll back on the next episode.