There’s no catch to becoming a Virtual Assistant, but it’s not employment – you’ll become a self-employed business owner, which means learning how to find clients, promoting yourself and your services, setting boundaries, and managing the basics of running your own business.
Someone emailed me this week and said something that I suspect most of us have thought, ‘Is becoming a Virtual Assistant really possible? Is it too good to be true? What’s the catch?’ .
She’d downloaded the first step on the Virtual Assistant journey – picking what services to offer – but was wary. ‘It all seems too good to be true.’ she said, and I appreciate her honesty because I’d forgotten that I felt exactly the same back in 2015 when I first started looking into becoming a VA.
Is becoming a Virtual Assistant a scam?
I was massively excited at the thought that maybe I could, one day. Maybe I could earn more than I ever would as an employee in my home town. Maybe I could set my own hours. Maybe I could work from home for the rest of my working life. Maybe I’d never have to work with dickheads again.
But I was also sceptical, because something that’s going to potentially allow me to live a life I could have only dreamed of has to have a catch, right?
I couldn’t stop thinking about everything, all day – every day. I was flip flopping from ‘OMG, this is going to be amazing’ to ‘Even if it is possible, which I doubt it is, I’ll fail’
That annoying voice saying to me ‘What if it doesn’t work, loser!’.
But there was second voice going:
‘Yeah… but what if it does?’
And eventually that second voice became louder.
I just knew I had to give it a go.
And thank fk I did!
Because not only do I love being a VA – because every day feels like 9 year old me playing with my Post Office set – it was the best decision I could’ve made for my future self.
I’ll never go back to employment. I am unemployable now anyway. I’d never cope in an office. I’d be sacked within minutes.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to sit here and tell you it’s some magical way of making money where decide to be a VA and five clients will magically appear in your inbox.
They won’t.
Why DOES becoming a VA sound too good to be true?
I think a huge part of it is because this isn’t the life we’re taught to expect.
From a really young age, we’re basically shown one route.
You get an education then you get a job working for someone else.
Maybe you move jobs. Maybe you get promoted. Maybe you earn a bit more money.
But very few of us grow up being told: You get an education then you get a job working for someone else or you could start your own business.
Self-employment isn’t really presented to us as an option.
So when somebody like me comes along saying, ‘By the way, you could work from home, choose your clients, decide when you work and potentially earn more than you’re earning now, working far fewer hours and without a degree’…
Of COURSE part of your brain goes: Bollocks.
Because it goes against everything we’ve been conditioned to believe work for us looks like.
Why would anyone pay £35 an hour though?
The minimum wage now is £12 something for an employee, right?
So to suddenly be able to get almost triple that, without undertaking a degree, or having to give someone other than the tax man any of it, definitely sounds dodgy AF, right?
And, while we’re here, why would anyone pay someone £35 an hour if they could pay someone minimum wage.
Look, one of the best things about being your own boss is you never have to do anything you don’t want to do, so I don’t want to duplicate what I’ve written previously about this. So, take a look at this breakdown of costs of an employee versus virtual assistant. That’ll answer this question and explain why thousands of business owners don’t even blink at paying £35 an hour instead of £12 something.
So… what’s the catch?
There isn’t really a catch.
But there IS stuff you need to learn because you’re doing some things you’ve probably not had to do before, like market yourself!
But listen, it all sounds 400 million times scarier than it actually is, and 500 billion times less scary than your brain is telling you it is.
- You’ll need to be confident, competent and enjoy the services you choose to offer. This is key to success and explained fully in my free download: 90+ services you can offer as a Virtual Assistant
- You need to realise you are worth the current hourly rate (you can check what the current UK hourly rate is, at any time, with the Society of Virtual Assistant’s Annual Survey)
- You need to know where to find clients (I’ve made that easy*)
- You need to know how to market yourself (and this*)
- You need to know what to do when somebody says, ‘I’d like to work with you.’ (this too*)
- You’ll need a contract (KoffeeKlatch have made that bit easy)
- You’ll need to invoice people (that’s all covered too*)
- You’ll need to keep records (accounting software for that, which is… you’ve guessed it; easy)
* I don’t just give you all the practical skills and advice, I give you the confidence to launch yourself as a Virtual Assistant too and lead a successful, thriving business, with my VA Starter Guide.
How can you become a Virtual Assistant if you’ve never run a business before?
You don’t need to have run a business previously to become a Virtual Assistant.
Most people haven’t run a business before they start their first business. Hang on, let’s read that again… Most people haven’t run a business before they start their first business. That’d be impossible, wouldn’t it?
Let me drop in one of my random analogies…
You’re not born knowing how to use a knife and fork.
You learn.
That’s it.
It’s the same with anything in life, you can learn. Whether that’s from a book, Google, or from someone who’s where you want to be (pauses to make eye contact with you).
And if you’ve been down a Googling hole of overwhelm, let me set something straight right now… you don’t need to learn absolutely every piece of software you’ve seen on VAs websites before you’re allowed to start one. I’ve made that easy too with my popular blog on what software VAs need to learn.
How do you actually get clients as a Virtual Assistant?
THIS is THE question we all have before we look too far into becoming a VA because, well, it’s the most important part – because if you don’t have clients paying you £35 an hour, you don’t have a business.
And sadly – clients don’t magically appear once you say out loud ‘I AM A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT’.
- You have to put yourself in places where potential clients can find you.
- You have to tell people what you do.
- You have to market yourself.
- You have to look for opportunities.
- You might use LinkedIn.
- You might use Facebook.
- You might network.
- You might get referrals.
There isn’t one magical website where all the lovely clients are sitting waiting for you, unfortunately.
But equally, finding clients isn’t some mysterious dark art.
Businesses need help.
They are already paying people to help them.
Your job is to become one of those people.
You don’t have to decide today
This is probably the biggest thing I want you to take away from this blog.
If you’re looking at becoming a VA and you’re wary…
GOOD.
Ask questions.
Research it.
Read books.
Listen to podcasts.
Talk to actual Virtual Assistants.
Find out what the reality looks like.
But also…
Don’t let ‘This sounds too good to be true’ automatically become ‘Therefore it can’t be true.’
Because sometimes we’re suspicious of something simply because it’s different from what we’ve always known.
What if it doesn’t work?
And that’s a perfectly reasonable question.
But … What if it DOES?
- What if you get clients?
- What if you discover you’re actually really bloody good at this?
- What if you earn the same as you’re earning now working fewer hours?
- What if you earn more working fewer hours? – you can work out if that’s possible here with my free calculator.
- What if you get to choose when you work?
- What if you don’t have to ask somebody’s permission to take a Tuesday afternoon off?
- What if you could accept any day / time for that hospital appointment you’ve been anxiously waiting for?
- What if you no longer have to cram housework, shopping and hair / beauty appointments in at the weekend?
- What if work starts fitting around your life instead of your life fitting around work?
You don’t need to convince yourself that becoming a VA will definitely work.
You just need to decide whether it’s worth finding out.
And if you’ve got questions – even the ones you think are silly – ask them in my private, non-toxic – Facebook group.
Because I can guarantee somebody else is sitting there wondering exactly the same thing. See you there!