A while back I was talking to a woman who was thinking about becoming a Virtual Assistant and wanted some advice. She said: “I’m confused as to what to do at the moment. Full-time work is a safe option but the hours are too long for me now and I’m trying to run a part-time business too. I need help to figure out the best direction for me.”
When you first become a Virtual Assistant, you need to have a good think about what services you want to provide. If you’ve already decided on your niche then you’ll know exactly what your chosen target market needs help with but if you haven’t, here are a few things to think about that should help you decide what services to offer your clients.
So, you’re in the process of setting up your Virtual Assistant business, but now you’re stuck on the part where you have to decide what to call yourself. Yeah, we’ve all been there, and that’s because it’s a really hard decision to make! There are actually a few routes you could go down, so let’s look at these in more detail.
Once you’ve decided what to call your Virtual Assistant business, you may want to design a logo. On one hand, your logo is just a formality so you can launch your business, and on the other, it represents who you are, what you stand for and will also be on all your marketing materials. Plus, if you get it wrong it could be a complete headache to redesign later!
Virtual Assistants often feel apprehensive about attending networking events, but, as many VAs say, it’s their most successful way of landing clients and because you’re going to have to do it anyway, it (literally) pays to be good at it. Talking to a room full of strangers may sound daunting, but with my advice, you’ll be a VA networking superstar in no time.
When I started out as a Virtual Assistant I thoroughly researched other VA websites and noticed that many of them mentioned contracts or terms and conditions – yet when I asked another Virtual Assistant in my area about them she said she never used a contract and simply trusted her clients. So what did I do?
At some point during your VA career, you’re going to get some late-paying clients – it’s just the way things are. Some clients are fantastic and pay your invoices immediately, some like to cut it fine, and some will really test your patience. Here’s how to deal with the late payers without opening a can of whip-ass on them.
This is a Virtual Assistant case study and interview with Kathryn Hall. Kathryn runs My Virtual Sidekick, is based in Shoreham in Sussex and has been providing admin support and transcription services to creative women since 2011. This is the story of how she became a VA.
When I first started working for myself, it never once occurred to me that I could or should fire a client. I’d worked as an employee for years and employees are the ones who get fired not the other way around – plus I was new at freelancing and thought it was important to take all the work I was offered. Rookie mistake…
If you’re a Virtual Assistant who charges by the hour then you’ll need a way of recording your time. Clients need to know they’re paying solely for the time you spend on their task, and it kinda helps if you know how much to bill them for! If you charge by the project then you probably won’t need a time tracker, but if you charge an hourly rate then you will.
