How to get started with your Virtual Assistant business

As we move into a more virtual world a lot of Assistants are discovering two things; they can work from home and still do a good job and secondly, they enjoy working from home. More and more Assistants are looking to set up their own Virtual Assistant business, especially with redundancies increasing and job security decreasing.

Something I hear time and time again from Assistants is that they don’t know how to get started or how to get clients. So, I wanted to share some top tips that will help support you get started and feel that you’re finally creating some momentum. Firstly, get clear on WHO you help, HOW you help them and WHAT problem you solve.

WHO – Firstly identify who you’d like to help specifically. Do you prefer working with men or women? Is there a particular type of person you'd like to work with in terms of job role? Different clients of mine have chosen to niche in areas, from authors, mindset coaches to property professionals.

WHAT - This is where you want to identify what problem you’re looking to solve. Yes, you're going to give them time back in their day, but what does that mean to them? More time with their family? More time to scale their business? More time for creative thinking?

HOW - This is where you look at how you can help them with the services you choose to offer. How will your services fix their problems? How will their life look different if they hire you?

Next up, we look at your passion, value, profit.

PASSION - Who and what are you most passionate about? It may be a type of industry, a particular service or a type of person i.e. specific job title

VALUE - Where do you feel you add the most value? This is where you can look at your industry expertise and skill set, including your soft and hard skills 

PROFIT - Where do you make the most money? It's likely that you'll make more money with a retainer package then a single hourly rate

The key here is finding something that fits into what I call the PVP triangle. You can't have passion and value without profit for example. So, ask yourself...

·   What am I really passionate about?

·   Where do I add the most value?

·   Where do I feel I can make the most profit? 

Another big part of building the foundations for your Virtual Assistant business is doing your client research into your ideal client. This is something that is so crucial for your content marketing and lead generation but it’s something that newbie business owners often neglect to do.

There are different ways to do client research and these can include building a relationship with your ideal client through engaging with them online and then reaching out to arrange a coffee chat to get to know them better. Alternatively, you can create an online survey and post in Facebook groups or on LinkedIn to get feedback.

 The more connections you have and the more consistently active you are online the more you will get feedback from your survey. So, know that it can take some time, but the sooner you start adding connections and engaging the sooner you can build those relationships and get people on Zoom for a coffee chat or have them fill out your survey.

There’s so much to learn when building a business and my passion is to help my clients go from confident Executive Assistants to confident Virtual Assistants. One way I’m doing that is through the launch of my new group coaching programme, The CONFIDENT Assistant.

I’m looking for 4 – 5 Executive Assistants who want to get started with their Virtual Assistant business and be ready to market their business and attract in their dream clients. If this sounds like you or anyone you know drop me an email at [email protected] with the words GROW in the title and I’ll message you all the details.