My goodness, it’s hard to find a virtual assistant these days. Where did you all go? Is everyone buried under an overflowing inbox? I remember when I started my business almost 3 years ago, VA’s were screaming for work. Even established (and well-established at that) VA’s were looking to add to their roster.

Now?

It’s a much different story. I’ve spoken to colleagues in the industry and, like mine, their practices are full.

Which is a GREAT problem to have, for sure, and it tells me something very important:

The world needs more Virtual Assistants.

Simple as that.

It’s a viable business. It’s an adaptable business. It’s a flexible business (if you want it to be). It’s (and oh, so important for us moms who want to be at home) a work-at-home business! There’s low to NO investment necessary. It’s low (to NO) risk. It’s something you can do nights & weekends until you’re ready to take the plunge and go at it full-time. It’s something you can actually get paid to learn.

I had a friend reach out on Facebook recently who was very stressed in her current corporate job (I completely understand THAT one!) as a receptionist in the real estate sector. She desperately wanted to do something on her own but was unsure of how to go about it. Then she remembered me and my business and started looking into the Virtual Assistant industry. We had conversations back and forth on email, facebook and telephone and now she is subcontracting (that’s how you can get paid to learn!) with me to learn a bit about the biz and get her feet wet (and help me out from under that overflowing inbox!).

I offered her a few tips and now I’m offering them to you too… all you Virtual Assistants who don’t know you’re Virtual Assistants yet!

Don’t quit your day job…. yet. For two reasons: the first, of course, is it can take a while to get clients and get known and build a position for yourself in the industry so you’ll need that income from a day job. Secondly, to tail spin on the first… your day job will be less emotionally/mentally stressful when you know what you have happening on the side and when you start to get clients.

Figure out your niche and your target market. What will you specialize in? What do you like to do? What do you know how to do? This is it! I’m known for email management/calendar maintenance and system implementation to make their lives (both online and off) run smoother and more efficiently.

Grab a domain name and set up a website. Use WordPress – it’s free and keyword friendly. As soon as I switched from an html site to wordpress and used keywords to attract my ideal client, the calls started coming in (to the tune of a 200% increase in my roster in a matter of WEEKS). Even if you don’t really know any html, the instructions for installation are easy-peasy. And I can help. (I’d suggest using hostpapa for domain name registration and purchasing. There’s an ad here on my site, over there to the left!, that you can click on to do all this. Yes, I get a small fee for this, but I LOVE hostpapa and will only use them for all my sites. AND their instructions for WordPress installation are SO easy, it pretty much does everything on its own!)

Join the Canadian Virtual Assistant Connection and get on their list serve. Their emails are usually full of great information. Also check out VaNetworking.com – lots of great information from other VA’s there too.

Subcontract for another VA to get some experience under your belt and learn how this sort of business works.

And lastly? Feel free to call or email me anytime to chat about it! So exciting!!!

Filed under: Business Development