Looking to make the shift from stressful daily commutes to work, to reclaiming your time to Work from Home? I have some good news for you! Virtual Assistants are in demand, and even without experience, you don’t need to be a veteran, you can become a virtual assistant and build your career.
As an aspiring Virtual Assistant, you can’t expect work to just magically appear. But with hard work, determination, and dedication, you can be a successful, high-earning virtual assistant too.
If you’re itching to start working and finding a virtual assistant job, make sure to keep on reading to learn how to become a virtual assistant with no experience, and get the help you need.
What is a Virtual Assistant and who hires them?
A Virtual Assistant is a person who provides different services to small business owners, entrepreneurs, and bloggers looking to free up their time. Since virtual assistants work from home, they are sought after because hiring them is more cost-effective than hiring an in-office employee. Becoming a virtual assistant may seem like an easy feat, but takes grit, hard work, and dedication to be effective and successful as a virtual assistant.
What Makes a Great VA?
Although having clerical and administrative backgrounds help a lot in becoming a Virtual Assistant, the wide range of industries that hire virtual assistants extends the demand to people who are healthcare professionals, real estate professionals, accountants, stay-at-home parents, paralegals, and many more.
What makes a Virtual Assistant stand out isn’t just the expertise they bring to the table but these traits as well:
- Dedication
- Discretion
- Professionalism
- Honesty
- Organization
- Patience
How to Become a Virtual Assistant with No Experience
Now that you know it takes good values and a little bit of grit to become successful, you have to start somewhere. Make sure to get started the right way so that your foundations are sturdier, and you grow your budding Virtual Assistant service properly. The secret is in planning and coming up with a strategy.
Pick a Niche
To be able to land your first Virtual Assistant job, you have to be clear with what your niche is. Knowing what your strengths are and being clear with your niche will make it easier to find potential clients, secure jobs, and establish yourself as an expert when you’re focused on a particular group. Honing your skills and becoming an expert in the field you choose as a virtual assistant will surely result in higher rates and higher demand.
If ideas aren’t coming to you, here are a few virtual assistant niches that you might be interested in:
General Admin Assistant
General admin assistants are known to provide support for all types of businesses and organizations. Work includes general clerical tasks, drafting documents, receiving calls, and creating emails; project and calendar management. To become a virtual assistant that specializes in administrative tasks may seem simple enough, but solopreneurs and business owners who juggle tasks 24/7 benefit from having administrative work delegated to a helpful general admin assistant that can minimize their workload and have more done in a day.
Social Media Assistant
Entrepreneurs, business owners, and brands seek Social Media Managers and Assistants because having to deal with social media is a big time suck. As a virtual social media assistant, you help free up a client’s time by doing social media management tasks that establish their social media presence by creating content, creating graphics and articles, and responding to dm’s and chats.
Blogger’s Virtual Assistant
A multitasking and busy blogger just does everything when it comes to creating, updating, and maintaining their blogs and online presence. From menial to high-pressure tasks, a blogger will need someone to free up some time to work on tasks that require more focus. This is where virtual assistants for bloggers come in. You may help with social media management, write, edit, and post blog content, create minimal graphics, respond to emails and social inquiries, and help schedule posts.
E-commerce Virtual Assistant
There’s a lot that needs to be done to run a virtual storefront. From sorting out items in the inventory, the orders, returns, and customer service, virtual store owners definitely benefit from having assistants. Besides dealing with administrative tasks, an eCommerce assistant would be expected to write product descriptions, and help promote sales and products, depending on the platforms they are using. Being an E-commerce virtual assistant is great too because instead of an actual retail store, it’s a work from home gig.
Real Estate Assistant
Real Estate experts and agents are busy bees. Going from one listing to another, attending showcases, and finding the right property for their clients, real estate assistants can make all the difference. From scheduling listing appointments, managing calendars, helping out with prospective buyers and sellers, a potential real estate assistant would be great to have a background in real estate, or is interested in the field.
This is not an absolute list. The market for virtual assistants is so extensive that if you have a particular skill set or are already in a niche that you don’t see in this list, it’s still very likely to find a virtual assistant job that suits your specialty. Hubstaff made a comprehensive list of tasks employers and companies can outsource to a virtual assistant.
Finding Virtual Assistant Jobs
Small business owners in need of help are growing, therefore, the chance of finding a virtual assistant job is not small. There even are companies that hire virtual assistants, serving as middlemen between the client and you, the Virtual Assistant. In cases like this, the company will pay you based on the number of clients you work with, or the amount of time you work.
However, not all virtual assistants like working with a company and prefer to establish their business on their own.
Companies such as VirtualStaff, Go-VA, FancyHands, GoVirtuals, and PepperVA are just a few companies where seasoned virtual assistants from the Philippines go.
As a freelance Virtual Assistant, websites such as Upwork, Fiverr, and Hubstaff Talent could be places where you can market your services. They offer tools for potential virtual assistants that help promote you. Alternatively, you can also create your own website.
Training and Improving Your Craft
It’s an excellent investment to set up your services properly, to find clients, and to market yourself, but honing your skills and taking free training and courses will definitely give you an edge as a beginner. As you hone your skills and work from home, all of this is done at your own pace, at the comforts of your home, a virtual assistant job is right at the horizon.
Now that you know what getting into the Virtual Assistant business is like and the work it entails, it’s time for you to make your move! Regardless of your work background, again, everyone has an opportunity to thrive and a virtual assistant job will be available for you in due time. All it takes is knowing your niche, networking, and marketing your services actively, and then you can definitely start working.
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