How to Become a Virtual Assistant and Earn Money

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Just imagine a situation where you are an assistant for a particular person. But you do not have to go the office every day. The hassle of huge traffic, getting up early and getting ready for office can all be gone. You can work from home and handle all the administrative and other services for that person. You can sit at home and work like a very professional person.

Such assistants are known as virtual assistants. Virtual because they are not present in the work place but are still assisting their clients. And they are doing this sitting at home only.

To explain properly to you about virtual assistant, let’s start with who are virtual assistants.

Virtual assistants are the people who are independent contractors. They sit at home and provide administrative services to their clients. For performing these services, they get the access to all the necessary documents also.

The people who mostly hire virtual assistants are the owners of the businesses or the agents of the real estate. In some situations, the business owners make the virtual assistants handle their social media platforms also along with performing administrative services for them.

Working as virtual assistants, you can work with more than one client. You are not restricted to work with only one company or for one person. And therefore you can earn more money.

Now you must be thinking about the skills that you might need to become a virtual assistant. So here is a list of the skills which you need to possess if you are thinking of becoming a virtual assistant.

• The most important skills for an assistant are the skills to communicate. The assistant should have the skills to communicate both orally and written. The expression of his ideas and thoughts has to be clear.
• In today’s date, the skill of knowing how to use a computer is a must. This is important to store and maintain the records of the clients. The hassle of the paper work is gone if you know how to use a computer.
• A virtual assistant should maintain a life which is disciplined. If you working as s virtual assistant you should know how to divide your time according to the different activities.
• A virtual assistant should have the skills to make decisions quickly. The decisions should be effective enough to optimally utilize the resources. So speed is necessary along with efficiency.
• There should be love for learning throughout working. You should keep on learning to update your skills and abilities so that you can work effectively.

Now after you know what skills you need to become a virtual assistant, you should also know the various services you can provide to your client.

• Management of the calendar which consists of various meeting schedule of the company owners with the others. Dates of the various events of the company are also decided by the virtual assistant. This is done to avoid any kind of confusion and chaos.
• Arrangements of the travelling of the owner. This includes scheduling the dates of the owner for his travelling out for work. This might also include to get the tickets booked for the destination and making arrangements for his stay.
• Graphic designing of the web pages which are related to the business of the owner
• Book keeping which consists of the receipts and payments of the business. Book keeping can also be related to maintaining the data of the clients of the company.
• Managing the launching of the products like the promotion of the product which has been launched recently. Making efforts to increase the sales of the product.
• Management of the mails of the company like reading the mails. Replying back to the people is also a service that a virtual assistant provides. Marking the mails as important and deleting the mails which are unwanted.
• Editing and proof reading the content of the company.
• Research of the content
• Making important phone calls is one of the most common services provided by the virtual assistant. These phone calls can be regarding fixing the meeting, getting the orders and so on.

Now you must be wondering about how can you become a virtual assistant and start earning money. So these are the steps you need to follow if you want to make this your profession:

1. First of all you have to choose the kind of business you want to become a virtual assistant for. For this you should look and answer the aspects like the kind of business you want to work for. You should also choose the kind of clients you want to cater to.
2. Then you have to decide the services that you will provide to your client as their virtual assistant. From the various services, choose the ones in which you are expert.
3. Next is one of the most important steps. Here you have to decide the price structure that you will ask for from your client. It is very important that you decide a pricing structure which is reasonable enough for the services that you provide.

Keep the pricing structure of the other virtual assistants in the market in mind while deciding this. This will help your price structure to be competitive enough. While deciding the price structure, make sure that it is worth your time.

4. Then in order to make the clients know about you and how to contact you, create a website. In the website, share your contact details, talk about your strengths. Your website should attract the clients towards you. Make sure that you keep updating your website from time to time.

Be very particular while selecting the size of the font and the theme of your website. Do not make it very colourful and bright. Make sure that it is not very dull also. Your logo that you choose for your business should be simple. But it should definitely be effective.

5. After you have set up your website, start contacting your clients. Since in the beginning your website might not be very famous, so you have to initiate. Cut short some of the people for whom you would want to work. Then find the contact details of the people and contact them. Talk to them and let them know about the services you can provide to them and make their work easy. Pitch in a very professional way.

In this step, try and contact the people of the businesses which are profitable. Contact the people who have a history of hiring virtual assistants. You should also offer a trial period to your client so that they can check your services before hiring you finally. In this trial period, put your best foot forward. Your work should be so good that you are irreplaceable.

6. Now that you have started networking, make it stronger day by day. Since being a virtual assistant does not limit you to a single owner, it is important that you build your networks. Then you can work for more and earn more.

After all these steps have been followed, you are good to go! Start earning money as a virtual assistant and make it your profession.

If you want to be a virtual assistant, there are certain things that you need to keep in your mind. Like:

• Being a virtual assistant does not make you entitled to paid vacations. You will not even get any sick leaves or any health insurance.
• There will be no retirement benefits for you if you are a virtual assistant for a person or a company.
• In a country like United States, you will have to pay the tax of the side of an employer and that of an employee today. You have to pay self employment taxes.
• It is not necessary for you to stick to the services that you had chosen to provide in the start. You can always opt to change your services according to the requirement of the business.

If you are thinking about whether is it even worth working as a virtual assistant or not? Then the answer is definitely a yes. It is worth being a virtual assistant. The biggest reason of this is that there is flexibility of time.

You can do your work when ever you want in the entire day. There are no fixed timings for which you have to work like in the case of an assistant in an office. More over you can work for more than one office and broaden your perspective. Being a virtual assistant, you will earn for the amount of work that you have done.

You will get your pay on hourly basis. So it totally depends upon you, how much you can earn in a month. There is more time that you can spend with your friends and family. This is the time that you might save from getting stuck in traffic, getting ready for office and other unproductive activities.

To understand better the worth of a virtual assistant, look at these reasons why you should choose to become a virtual assistant:

• One of the best options for mothers who cannot leave their kids at home. Mothers can stay at home with their kids and also earn money side by side by becoming a virtual assistant. They can totally work in the hours which suit them.

Not only mothers, others also who decide to become a virtual assistant can have a great work life balance. They can choose to work at the time that they are not spending with their families. It is a great earning opportunity for the students also. Provided the students should fill the eligibility criteria of a company for working as a virtual assistant.

• Low cost set up. No money is charged at all to start you services as a virtual assistant. All you need is a laptop and an internet connection. And you are good to go. It does not even take time to start with this work. Only after following few steps, you can get started with it.
• It is one of the most growing industries. You should definitely consider this option if you are thinking of starting to earn money at home. Because you definitely do not want to waste your time and efforts in an industry that is not going to grow.
• You have a list of services to decide from. It is not an option in many of the other work opportunities. You can actually select the services in which you are expert.
• You determine the amount of money you will earn in a month. It is not fixed like that of working in a company. You work more, you earn more. The only thing that is fixed is the amount of rate that you will get in an hour.

But your total pay in a month will be decided by the amount of work you do. Thus there is no limit set to how much you work.

If you have decided to work as a virtual assistant, you have decided to help other people to grow their business. But you should keep one thing in mind for sure that you are doing your business also. So there have to be some boundaries that need to be drawn.

Learn to stay within these boundaries and not to go beyond them. This will help you grow faster. Work only that much which is suitable for your own business. If you do not learn to keep these boundaries in mind, then satisfaction and growth are two things that you will wash your hands from!!

But otherwise, it is a great option to choose as a career. It can help you mint money that too sitting at home. Your area of growth can be vast and there are no limits on the amount of work you can do!