Thinking about becoming a virtual assistant? Imagine if you could become a personal assistant while working from your laptop at home. Do you have what it takes to become a good virtual assistant – even if you have no experience?
Becoming a virtual assistant is a great option if you want to start working online and if you already have knowledge and skills to market. I personally started my freelancer journey as a virtual assistant too.
Having a blog was giving me a lot of knowledge and many contacts in the blogging industry.
So, when I decided to start working full-time from my laptop, I managed to land my first clients as a freelancer using my network.
Before we start, let’s see the job description for a virtual assistant.
We’ll talk about the tasks that a VA can do and the steps to becoming a virtual assistant.
The Job Description Of A Virtual Assistant
So, what is a virtual assistant (VA)?
Virtual assistance is basically helping someone else with different tasks in a virtual way, which means you don’t need to physically be around your boss to get the job done!
A virtual assistant can do any online support from administrative tasks to marketing, from social media management to email marketing.
In other words, you can do different tasks depending on your client’s needs as well as your own skills.
Some VAs offer unique services in which they are experts. This is great once you have more experience and wish to increase your rates.
For example, you could hire a virtual assistant for all the things you do not want to do for your business or hire a virtual assistant who specializes in something specific like email marketing or social media management.
Read our guide to learn more about the different types of virtual assistants.
What Jobs Can A Virtual Assistant Do?
Basically anything! Here are some examples of tasks and services that can be done by a virtual assistant.
- Email marketing/management
- Social media managing/marketing
- Advertising
- Marketing Outreach
- SEO
- Following up with customers/live support
- Graphic designs
- and more!
How To Become A Virtual Assistant
To become a good virtual assistant, you must first understand the hiring process.
When someone decided to expand their business, it’s hard to let go of control and trust someone with their project. That said – you have to be a reliable person.
You also first need to think of a skill you already have or a skill you want to learn that you could market. Once you have this skill, you can reach out to potential clients to find work as a virtual assistant.
It would be quite silly to market yourself if you’re not good enough first.
STORYTIME: As I’m a blogger, I learned how to handle social media, manage them, and create content. I don’t think I’m a full-on expert here, but I could use the blog as a platform to showcase my work. I landed my first VA job via Upwork and then I found more clients via Facebook groups. There are many good groups to consider if you’re thinking of becoming a virtual assistant. Networking and being active in these groups is an excellent way to get yourself noticed.
That being said, websites such as Upwork and Fiverr are pretty popular in the freelancing world. A lot of people need virtual assistants for different tasks.
It might not be the most well-paid opportunity, but it’s a great way to get more experience as a virtual assistant. We all need to start somewhere.
In this virtual assistant world, there’s a lot of competition but also a lot of opportunities. I’d suggest you start cumulating testimonies and recommendations for any eventual clients.
Another thing to consider would be Linkedin – which is an excellent platform for networking!
Here are a few Facebook groups for Virtual Assistants:
- Virtual Assistant Savvies
- Virtual Assistant Jobs
- Virtual Assistant Empowerment
- Rockstar Bloggers and Virtual Assistants
How To Become A Pinterest Virtual Assistant?
A Pinterest virtual assistant has first to understand Pinterest. In the blogging industry, Pinterest is a huge traffic machine.
That being said, it’s a great way to get business referrals. Pinning for fun or pinning to drive traffic to a website is two different things.
When I was looking for tattoo ideas on Pinterest, I was not considering myself to be an expert! Thankfully, there are many resources online and courses to help you become a Pinterest assistant.
Learn To Be A Pinterest Virtual Assistant With These Free Resources
- Slaying Social: This website isn’t about being a Pinterest VA, but it does provide a lot of information about Pinterest and strategies to drive traffic with Pinterest.
- Melyssa Griffin: She is a blogging and Pinterest expert and she also has a podcast.
Free Virtual Assistant Training
- ☑ Discover if virtual assistance is right for you.
- ☑ Learn how to find potential clients.
- ☑ Learn how much you can make as a virtual assistant.
Apart from understanding the basics of Pinterest, you should also learn about Tailwind, a scheduling tool used by Pinterest users.
- Tailwind has its own blog offering many good tips to understand the platform and offers a free beginner course.
- LouiseM helps you understanding Tailwind here.
Invest Money In A Course About Pinterest
These courses are about Pinterest marketing, not only about being a virtual assistant.
- Profit with Pinterest
- Start your own business as a Pinterest manager
- Pinterest marketing for beginners
Invest In A Book
How To Become A Virtual Assistant As A Total Beginner
We all know that there are different ways to learn a new skill. To be a virtual assistant, you could first decide to learn a skill or learn different general things.
A lot of people seem to love outsourcing social media marketing, email management as well as data entries, etc.
Invest Money In A Course To Learn How To Become A Virtual Assistant
How Much Does A Virtual Assistant Make?
It really depends on the tasks, the number of tasks, and your level of experience. The better you become, the higher your income will be.
Of course, when I first started as a virtual assistant, I was ready to ask for a lower wage just so I could gain more experience. I was actually selling monthly packages, and I hoped I could manage to do the work faster than expected.
It took me a long time to be actually able to make my time worthy, but I got there eventually.
I was probably paid around $10 per hour at first. I used to work as a virtual assistant from time to time (mainly as a Pinterest and SEO virtual assistant), and I could get anything between $25-40 per hour).
I have more experience, and I have a good reputation which means that people recommend me to other people. That said, my time is valuable, and I know I can get the job done.
If being a virtual assistant is your full-time job, then, of course, you can make a decent income out of it.
A lot of virtual assistant charges even more if they manage to prove that they will reach excellent results in a short period. It’s all about being efficient and doing a good job.
What Skills Do You Need To Become A Good Virtual Assistant?
If you are wondering how to be an excellent virtual assistant, let’s look at the skills and strengths you must have!
Apart from having skills to market, you must be good at communicating efficiently.
Communication with your boss could be done via email or calls, but you have to be able to be clear enough.
Also, you would have to be efficient, disciplined, and trustworthy. You might have to handle deadlines, so you can’t be a royal procrastinator for these time-trading tasks. In fact, you must act like a top virtual assistant you would hire yourself.
Becoming a virtual assistant is not for everyone. You might end up doing tasks you don’t like, so you have to make sure you can stay motivated too.
You also need to be tech-savvy, curious, and patient! Every client uses different tools, platforms, etc. This means you could communicate via email for one client, and you might have to call the other one or use a tracking time platform for another.
I love to use tools such as Excell Shared Spreadsheet or Shared Google Document to communicate with clients. Otherwise, I also follow the orders because at the end of the day – I am not the boss.
Final Thoughts On Becoming A Virtual Assistant With No Experience
Do you think being a virtual assistant is for you? If the answer is yes, let’s see how you can land your first client.
If you think it may be too hard, look at the blog posts below:
