Today we have many opportunities to collaborate and get things done from anywhere in the world, and being a freelance virtual assistant is one of those ways. You might ask yourself: ‘What does a virtual assistant do more exactly?’
Well, a lot of businesses prefer outsourcing some of their tasks to other companies or to freelancers. It is a great option for companies who don’t have enough money to hire new employees or for those with a huge workflow, that need extra help. This is where the services of virtual assistants are required.
Being a virtual assistant means you can offer your skills and services to different companies or individuals for a fee you have both agreed upon, usually paid by the hour. The best advantage is that you can do this from your home or anywhere in the world, as a side hustle, or even build a new career. If you are looking to supplement your income or in need of a job change, keep reading to find out how to make money as a virtual assistant.
Jobs You Can Do as a Virtual Assistant
There are a lot of jobs that you can do as a freelance virtual assistant, depending on the skills you have. The most common side hustles are:
Customer services
A lot of companies outsource their customer support services. As a virtual assistant, you can handle customer inquiries, offer technical support via telephone, chat, and email, you can take care of invoices and the accounting process, manage shipments, and also do the back office online paperwork.
Administrative and communication services
The administrative and communication tasks you can do as a personal assistant include, but are not limited to: online secretary work, making appointments and calls, writing emails and reports, making presentations, keeping things organized in spreadsheets, and some data entry.
Translation and redaction.
If you know foreign languages you can translate documents, offer your translation services in conferences, and even translate full books. And since we’re talking about books, if you are a grammar nazi, you will love to offer redaction services for publishing houses.
Social media marketing
Every business needs social media to survive and thrive on the market. If you live and breathe social media and you know exactly how to make an Instagram post that will attract new followers, then you can do this and make money out of it. Freelance virtual assistants tackle social media tasks like managing the client’s profiles, posting, managing comments and direct messages, SEO strategies, campaigns creation, and implementation, etc.
Content creation
If you are a creative individual with lots of awesome content ideas then this is the asset that can help you thrive as a virtual assistant. You can write blog posts, create and edit photographs, videos, and infographics, and come up with SEO posts for social media to attract traffic.
Programming and website development
As a programmer and developer, you will find many opportunities as a virtual assistant. There are a lot of companies that outsource their programming needs and a lot of new businesses that need their website created.
Product listing
With Amazon commercial businesses flourishing, product listing is something that you can do as a side hustle. This means that you will be responsible for adding online the products of the client, as well as making sure their details and keywords are correct.
How To Become a Virtual Assistant
Before you start looking for your first clients, there are a few things you will need to have figured out about what being a virtual assistant means for your life and routine and if it is indeed a good choice for you. Besides the skills necessary for doing the jobs, you need to be prepared for doing this professionally.
Be organized
If you are a person who thrives in chaos and is used to having your work planned by your manager, you need to know that to become a virtual assistant you will have to get your organizational skills worked out. Side hustles require planning your time wisely and valuing it according to the quality of service and work amount you will offer. Before you approach a potential client you must already have an idea about how much time a certain task you will be performing will require. So, test your abilities and time them so you will know how much time you can dedicate to being a virtual assistant.
Value your work
If you already have experience as a freelancer you might have a pretty clear picture of how you value an hour of your work. If this is new to you, according to statistics, the average virtual assistant hourly pay is $15.94. Research the market and see how much other virtual assistants charge their clients for the services you want to offer. You can also come up with your hourly price by thinking of a full-time job you could do and calculate the salary per hour. This can be a good starting point for your quotation. Don’t forget to include in your fee the usage of your equipment and the electricity you use to do the job.
Up your communication skills.
As a virtual assistant, you will have no team leaders, colleagues, or managers that can help you communicate with the client; that is entirely up to you. But no need to fret, you will get the hang of it in no time. To do this, you need to always be transparent with your clients, communicate very clearly what you can do, the suggestions you have, and be honest about the process, even if you make mistakes. This will show that you are a responsible professional that has as much value as the tasks you are performing.
Take care of your taxes
Being on your own professionally means that you will need to take care of all the administrative papers recording your work, and that includes taxes. Seek the help of fellow virtual assistants on online threads and even take into consideration a discussion with an accountant. It might feel overwhelming at the beginning, but it will get easier in time after you get the hang of it.
Market yourself as a freelance virtual assistant and find clients
Start telling people online as well as to your friends that you will be offering your services as a virtual assistant and are ready for your first clients. You can also find clients on freelancing work sites like Fiverr and Upwork. If you keep up the good work and make yourself known, in the future clients will be contacting you to ask for your services.
If in the coming year you want to become a virtual assistant, keep in mind there are a lot of creative ways to supplement your income.
