How to Become a Freelance Virtual Assistant
Working as a freelance virtual assistant is a great way to use your administrative and organizational skills to earn remote, often scalable income. Whether you’re working for an internet-based company or individual or are working remotely for a brick-and-mortar operation, you can work effectively as a virtual assistant from anywhere in the world if you have a good internet connection.
Make a Free Invoice NowWhat is a Virtual Assistant?
A virtual assistant is just like a traditional assistant—except you might never meet the person you’re assisting IRL. You’re a remote contractor or employee, handling administrative support for your boss and their business, and/or taking care of their personal business in a similar capacity to an executive assistant.
Most virtual assisting work is part-time, which makes it highly flexible.
What Services Does a Virtual Assistant Offer?
A virtual assistant handles all the same tasks that a traditional administrative or executive assistant does, from setting appointments, responding to emails, making phone calls to arranging travel, picking up dry cleaning, and scheduling deliveries. Because you’re not physically on-site with your boss, as a virtual assistant you’ll probably use third-party services (like Uber, TaskRabbit, etc.) to perform the physical aspect of any of these tasks. As a virtual assistant, some of the modes of support you might be asked to offer include:
Administrative Assisting
This is classic assistant stuff: you set up the meetings, send the emails, get the documents (e-)signed, and organize the inbox. You’re like a second brain for your boss, who will rely on you to handle logistics and follow-ups for them.
Personal Assisting
As a personal assistant, you’re the right-hand person for your boss. If they need a flower delivery, a gift for a baby shower, or a grocery order, you take care of it. You keep track of their appointments, remind them to return their phone calls, and generally relieve them of all the tedious but necessary day-to-day functions of life that might distract them from their work.
Social Media
Are you great at social? That’s a selling point because as a virtual assistant, you can specialize in social media. If this is your niche, you’ll probably find yourself working for influencers and other new media businesses that rely heavily on social media to maintain their business. As an assistant, you might perform tasks like scheduling posts, posting videos, or engaging with followers. If you have audiovisual content creation skills, you might be involved in curating and editing media as well.
Bookkeeping and Data Entry
Many businesses need help with maintaining financial records and data. If you’re meticulous with numbers, you can find work assisting individuals as well as corporations, medical offices, schools, and any business that has a need for billing or record keeping.
What Skills Do You Need to Be a Virtual Assistant?
As a virtual assistant, you have a lot of responsibilities that need to be managed with an effective, coherent workflow. You won’t have an in-office boss to ask you questions or remind you of details. There are some critical soft skills (along with some basic hard skills) that will set you up for success in this work.
Organization
Since you’re literally being paid to organize someone else’s affairs, you need to be organized. Whether it’s an inherent trait of yours or something you achieve through intentional planning and accountability structures, you need to be on point so tasks won’t fall through the cracks.
Communication
You’ll be the conduit for a lot of important information on your boss’s behalf, so it’s critical that you are a clear, effective communicator, verbally and in written form.
Self-Starting
This term has become such a buzzword in the recruiting space that it’s easy to forget what it really means: that you can conceive, prepare, and execute tasks and functions on your own, without reminders.
Reliability
Basically, you have to be where you say you’ll be and do what you say you’ll do. If you’re supposed to be taking an agenda for a call at 2 p.m. on your boss’s time zone and you forget that you’re a time zone away and log onto Zoom at 3 p.m., guess what? That’s not reliable.
Creativity
Outside-the-box thinking is gold for every businessperson, and your ability to offer an innovative solution to a problem makes you worth your weight.
Humility
Being able to take a note, ask a question, and receive feedback are interpersonal skills that go a long way in business, so check your ego at the door and approach this work by asking yourself: “How can I be of service?”
Writing
Being able to write clearly and effectively is important, especially if you’re sending correspondence on your boss’s behalf. Be able to edit your own work and submit copy that is free of typos or grammatical errors.
Typing
Be good at it: fast and accurate. If you’re not confident in these skills, there are lots of free and inexpensive typing classes that can improve your speed.
Tech and Software
The ability to learn new software, set up a ring light, and upload files to a cloud storage system are important. If you’re tech-averse, you’ll probably have to push through that resistance, as virtual assisting relies entirely on digital interfaces and remote tech.
Social Media
Not all assisting jobs have social media aspects, but being functionally literate in the major platforms is a baseline qualification these days. And if you’re a pro, that’s a selling point.
Content Creation
Being able to create, edit, and post video, audio, image, and written content will make you a desirable assistant to any business with content needs.
How to Get Started as a Virtual Assistant
If you have no experience, you can use a platform like UpWork, Fiverr, or Hello Rache to gain some. On those sites, you simply create a profile highlighting your relevant experience (which you may be able to pull from other kinds of work you did in the past). Taking a course in how to operate a virtual assistant business is a great idea, as is brushing up on your relevant skills.
Once you’ve gotten your first jobs and have worked for a few clients, you can build a professional portfolio of your work, in which you share the kinds of work you performed and show samples. It’s a great idea to include some client testimonials in this portfolio, so once you’ve worked for someone, ask them if they’d be willing to write you one.
Top Virtual Assistant Courses
To prepare for a career as a virtual assistant, or to continue your professional development, there are a number of courses you can take. They run on the pricey side, but many come with ongoing perks like job listings and resources, so consider the right course an investment in your business.
90-Day VA
Cost: $797
In 12 weeks, you’ll learn skills and business building, get access to a private jobs board, and receive a monthly group coaching call.
$10K VA
Cost: $497
This one is self-paced, though it is designed to take seven weeks. It has a specific goal and steps toward it: starting a VA business and building it to a $10,000 monthly income. Your course fee comes with a private Facebook group and an optional paid upgrade for access to client lists.
SavvySystem
Cost: $1,497
Another self-paced option, SavvySystem has 14 modules that cover building and scaling a VA business and offers monthly group community calls.
TheVaconnection
Cost: $998
This nine-month program is designed to take you from zero to business in 30 days. It includes course content and help you manage and scale your virtual assistant business.
Fully Booked VA
Cost: $1,000
In addition to your course materials, you get the tools and access to find new clients, improve your marketing skills, and much more.
Types of Virtual Assistant Jobs
As a virtual assistant, you can opt to work in a specific industry or field, or to have a notable skill set that you offer. Doing so has a lot of benefits in terms of networking and getting jobs because people tend to trust referrals within their own field more than generalized testimonials. Specializing can also allow you to hone industry-specific skills and become more of a master than a jack of all trades.
Here are some career specialties for virtual assistants:
- Bookkeeping virtual assistant
- Administrative virtual assistant
- Personal virtual assistant
- Social media and marketing virtual assistant
- E-commerce virtual assistant
- Real estate virtual assistant
- Graphic design virtual assistant
- Blogging virtual assistant
- Website management virtual assistant
- Customer service virtual assistant
- Tech virtual assistant
- Data entry virtual assistant
- PR virtual assistant
How to Start Your Own Virtual Assistant Business
Starting a virtual assistant business is relatively simple: there’s no equipment (except basic tech like a laptop) required, no office space to consider, and no barrier to entry beyond your own ability to do the job and get clients.
You will need to set up a website and/or professional portfolio, create some professional social accounts, and get busy networking. If you’re just starting out, it’s okay for your website to be relatively sparse, but you want potential clients to get a sense of who you are, what your personality is like, and what services you offer.
You’ll also need to decide on a pricing structure and subscribe to any necessary services that can help you with invoicing, banking, and other aspects of business administration.
How to Find Virtual Assistant Jobs
Once your virtual assistant business is up and running, finding jobs should be part of your regular workflow. Eventually, with luck, you’ll get to a point where jobs find you, but in the meantime, growing your client list takes intention and diligence.
Networking and personal referrals are the best way to get quality clients. Let everyone in your circle know that you’re open for business, and direct leads to your website and socials. Hand out business cards wherever you go, and don’t be afraid to toot your own horn and talk about what you can bring to the table.
Another source of jobs, once you’ve graduated from entry-level Upwork-type boards, is private client lists and job boards. Often, your course fee for a virtual assisting course will come with access to such resources.
You can also list yourself on directories of assistants-for-hire, such as HoneyBook’s Pros board, Zirtual, or Fancy Hands. If you’re looking for a full-time position, scanning LinkedIn and Indeed will turn up listings seeking salaried virtual assistants.
Virtual Assistant Rates
The national average rate for virtual assistants is $28 per hour, according to ZipRecruiter’s 2022 data. For salaried virtual assistants, the national average salary is about $59k, with a range starting at $15k and going up to $108k. (It’s worth noting that 16% of virtual assistants are making salaries in the 25th percentile, while only 11% are in the 75th percentile and just 4% are in the 90th.)
Geography plays a role in virtual assistant rates, but it’s the location of the hirer, not the assistant, that will make that difference. Large tech cities like San Francisco, San Jose, Houston, and Seattle are amongst the highest-paying markets.
Freedom and Flexibility For You
Working as a virtual assistant allows you a lot of freedom. Because the work is typically part-time, you can decide how much you want to work, which can make it a great fit for people who are trying to level up their regular income with a side hustle, or folks who are trying to fit work around obligations like childcare or education. And, if you love the work and want to make it your full-time gig, you can stack clients together to create a full-scale workload and income.
