This is a Virtual Assistant case study on yours truly! This is the story of how and why I became a Virtual Assistant, what I did before I went freelance, how I manage clients and what I’d do differently if I had to start again. I set up Munro PA Services at the end of 2008 and I live happily by the sea in sunny Brighton.
Because I recommend you set up your VA business alongside your regular job, one of the questions I get asked a lot is “when should I leave my job to solely focus on being a Virtual Assistant?”. Although there are as many answers to that question as people asking it, in all honesty, it boils down to one simple thing:
Working for yourself is extremely hard work, you need a different mindset than when you were an employee and it isn’t for everyone. Because you should know what you’re letting yourself in for, let me tell you exactly what it’s like to be a freelancer so you can make an informed decision and decide if it’s something you’d like to do.
A while back I was talking to a woman who was thinking about becoming a Virtual Assistant and wanted some advice. She said: “I’m confused as to what to do at the moment. Full-time work is a safe option but the hours are too long for me now and I’m trying to run a part-time business too. I need help to figure out the best direction for me.”
When you first become a Virtual Assistant, you need to have a good think about what services you want to provide. If you’ve already decided on your niche then you’ll know exactly what your chosen target market needs help with but if you haven’t, here are a few things to think about that should help you decide what services to offer your clients.
So, you’re in the process of setting up your Virtual Assistant business but now you’re stuck on the part where you have to decide what to call yourself. Yeah, we’ve all been there and that’s because it’s a really hard decision to make! There are actually a few routes you could go down, so let’s look at these in more detail.
Once you’ve decided what to call your Virtual Assistant business, you may want to design a logo. On one hand, your logo is just a formality so you can launch your business, and on the other, it represents who you are, what you stand for and will also be on all your marketing materials. Plus, if you get it wrong it could be a complete headache to redesign later!
One of the hardest things to decide when you become a Virtual Assistant is how to price your services. If you charge by the hour, then you’ll never earn more than the number of billable hours in the day, which is why it’s better to get a client on a retainer or charge a project rate. “But how does that work, and how do I do that?!” I hear you cry. Well, let’s look at those options in more detail.
Virtual Assistants often feel apprehensive about attending networking events, but, as many VAs say, it’s their most successful way of landing clients and because you’re going to have to do it anyway, it (literally) pays to be good at it. Talking to a room full of strangers may sound daunting, but with my advice, you’ll be a VA networking superstar in no time.
When I started out as a Virtual Assistant I thoroughly researched other VA websites and noticed that many of them mentioned contracts or terms and conditions – yet when I asked another Virtual Assistant in my area about them she said she never used a contract and simply trusted her clients. So what did I do?
