So much to think about when you become a Virtual Assistant, isn’t there? One thing that will help you on your journey, and remove overwhelm, is knowing what software you’ll benefit from learning. So I have put together a list to answer the common question; ‘What software do I need to know as a Virtual Assistant?’

Let’s jump straight in:

ChatGPT (AI)

AI (Artificial Intelligence) software. You’ve probably heard of it already, but it needs to be on this list for a few reasons I’ll share in a second.

But before I do. I saw a funny post a few months ago; ‘ChatGPT is great, until you realise it’s not’. Haaa. It is phenomenal, but the more you use it the more you can see repetition and almost a certain tone of voice from it. You can manipulate it and typing commands for it to create something you’re really looking for, but at the moment I think you’re always better off writing stuff yourself.

AI software like ChatGPT and Claude can write anything from a tag line to a whole blog for you, just by asking it. And you don’t even need to say please! However, while that might sound like the dream, you do have to be very careful. You need to train it in your own tone of voice, for your own personal business, and the individual services you offer. If you don’t, you will stand out for all the wrong reasons because if ChatGPT, or Claude, isn’t trained properly, the output looks, smells and reads exactly like it’s been written by a robot.

That’s why I created a fast track course – it only takes an hour – with all the instructions you need to feed into ChatGPT, or Claude, so it becomes you. People are loving it! It’s saving people so much time with their marketing, and so much stress trying to stay consistent.

Take a look here: Learn How to Train AI to write for you.

I use ChatGPT primarily to help me be succinct because I have this annoying tendency to add more words than necessary. I am becoming my Mother!

Canva

This bugger is always on the list of software to have in your back pocket as a VA. Canva has been around over ten years now and I’m yet to find anything that rivals them.

You can create graphics of all kinds on there, so it’s fantastic for your website, social media, creating a logo or even creating your own business cards! They even print stuff for you too. I’ve used their printing service a few times and it was incredibly quick, accurate and stress free.

Take a look at Canva, but if you have children make sure they have access to snacks because once you’re on there, there ain’t no getting off!

And, as always, I’ve got you covered. I have a Canva crash course to help you go from beginner to creating things you could add to your list of services. Take a look at the Canva Crash Course for Virtual Assistants here.

Zoom / Microsoft Teams / Google Meet

I’m updating this blog because I used to be a huge fan of Zoom, but it’s bringing back the trauma days of Skype for me recently. Every time I log in, it wants to do an update. Any time I want to look at what I have available to me on my plan I can’t find a clear answer. It’s become like eBay  too. Where they’ve just kept adding things and it gets soooo confusing, so Zoom has moved down on the list of video conferencing software for me. But not quite as low as Microsoft Teams. I’ve not had any issues with it, I just seem to have an issue with Microsoft full stop.

I used to love Microsoft, it was game changing for every secretary in the late 90s! But now, I struggle with 365 so much that when Google came out with Google Meet for video conferencing I was excited.

It’s my go to now.

But that’s just me, there are three options here. My thoughts are like a film review. Irrelevant really, as we all like different things.

Let me know what you prefer?

Google Workspace

I can’t recommend Google Workspace enough. I love it. I loathe Outlook as I find it just wants to stress me out. It’s like the eBay website, where someones just kept adding stuff to it without any real foresight of how it’ll now work for the end user. But Google Workspace, well I won’t have a bad word said about it!

Google features are largely free, but you get so much more with a Google Workspace subscription, which you can pay for monthly. Take a look at what you get here, and don’t forget this expense can be put through your business.

LastPass

This one also continues to make the list year in, year out.

It’s a superb platform for sharing passwords with your clients and vice versa. The super dooper bit is that they can share their login details WITHOUT you seeing the password. It just goes into your LastPass account as ***** but still populates the password when you go to login. Does that make sense? I suspect I need ChatGPT to make that succinct for me but it’s almost lunch time, so we’ll leave it.

You’ll be absolutely fine on the free package for LastPass. I pay because I want it on my phone too.

Yeah, LastPass had data breaches but crikey so have the government and met police! It’s impossible for anyone’s data to be 100% safe. What I like about LastPass is that they owned up to the data breach and immediately resolved it with higher security measures.

Kirmada

How many tabs have you got open right now? I’m pretty good with my tabs, I only ever have 4 or 5 open at one time (in one window) and about 3200 in another window! As your business grows, and you have more clients, you will be going between screens, software and coffee granules so often you’ll need to grow another pair of eyes. Kirmada realised the problem us VAs have when dealing with multiple clients all using different software and came up with one dedicated workspace. I keep hearing ridiculously good things about it. You can decide for yourself here.

FreeAgent

If and when Making Tax Digital comes into force in the UK you’re going to need online accounting software and so when you’re ready to invest (or you can get this one free with NatWest, Mettle or a Royal Bank of Scotland account) I recommend FreeAgent. I’ve used it in my business for years and recommend it to all my bookkeeping clients. It’s so easy to use. I’ve got no affiliate link to share with you they’re simply at: freeagent.com

Oooh, and also, FreeAgent has an inbuilt time tracker so you can track your time for ad hoc clients and it will automatically add it to an invoice! Shut up!

Meta Business Suite

If you’re going to use Facebook and / or Instagram for your business’ marketing then I recommend you use Meta Business Suite for all and any of your scheduling. It’s always best to post organically, as the platforms want you on there in real time.

Why? Well, imagine if everyone scheduled everything – no one would ever actually see the posts!

But, if you do wish to schedule it’s better to do that from within the platforms own software and Meta Business Suite is, as you know, part of FB / IG. Or FB / IG are part of Meta Business Suite. It’s one of those.

Toggl

Another crowd favourite, Toggl. This is a piece of time tracking software and again, you’ll be fine on the free package. You use this software to, well, track your time for the work you do for each client. You can then download a report and send it with your invoice so the client can see how efficient you are.

Just don’t forget to turn the timer off! Haaa.

Don’t forget, if you use FreeAgent for your accounting there’s a time recorder in their too, which automatically creates an invoice for the assigned client!

Otter.ai

Otter is speech to text software, which is great for transcribing videos. If you’ve got a client that creates regular YouTube videos or podcasts and needs show notes or the full transcription then Otter.ai is great for this.

Although there are other options that I’ve used, including rev.com and what I also did once was:

• Open Google Docs
• Click on voice typing
• Open up a video I wanted transcribed
• Held my phone up to my laptop and played the video
• It then transcribed the video into a Google doc for me.

Genius! (swishes hair off shoulder)

Loom

Loom enables you to record your screen and has a free version which is often sufficient for the early days of your business. You may find sometimes that you need to show a client how to do something, or what you’ve done, or where you’ve filed something and recording you going through that sequence (with or without voice over) is often the best way to do it.

There are other pieces of software out there that do the same as Loom. In fact, your smartphone probably does it, BUT Loom now transcribes your videos!

One of my VAs recently sent me a video on how to do the drop cap in my blogs and beneath the video was a synopsis of the video that Loom had created itself!

‘In this video, I’ll show you how to easily add drop caps to your post. Just click to edit your post as normal, and for the first letter, insert a snippet of code. Then, close it off behind the letter. Update your post, and voila! You have your drop cap. If you want to customise the style, there’s a bit of CSS in Divi theme options that you can play around with. But if you’re happy with the default style, you can leave it as is. Enjoy!’

I bloody love that.

But what about…

Now, stop worrying that you need to know the inner workings of some piece of software you’ve seen on ‘every’ VAs website. CUS YOU’RE LYING!

Every: ‘refers to all the individual members of a set without exception’. See! You’re lying, making stuff up!