If you have experience working in a specific industry or with an online business-related platform, you can quickly turn those skills into working remotely as a virtual assistant.
If you look at the world of work, you soon realize that people who specialize make more money than those who don’t. This works in all aspects of our society. If you’re a primary care doctor, you make a lot less money on average than if you specialized in something such as oncology, or even podiatry. This is also very true for virtual assistants.
Marketing yourself as a VA who specializes in a specific industry or skill is always going to help you make more money in less time than if you generalize. You’ll also want to create a package of services instead of offering yourself hourly because it’ll help you control your time better plus help you avoid scope creep.
For each of the ideas below, think about the things that potential clients need completed that they don’t have time to do, and then create a package for the things you are skilled at doing.
Some industry specialties for virtual assistants to consider:
A virtual assistant often performs secretarial work for business owners at a distance using technology. A VA can really work for almost any type of business owner if the tasks they do can be done virtually.
- Real Estate VA (REVA) – Real estate agents need someone to help them list properties, promote them on social media, and other office-type work such as checking email, writing letters, and so forth. While you don’t need special licensing to become a real estate VA, you might want to consider getting your real estate license in order to be more competitive or investing in a REVA certification.
- Legal or Paralegal VA – If you have legal secretary or paralegal experience, transitioning to a virtual assistant will not be hard. Most of the work you do here doesn’t need to be in the office or in a location, although you may need access to specific databases and other information via your clients to do this job properly.
- Research VA – Many people, including scientists, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and others, need people to conduct research for them. If you are good at research, understand how to find scholarly works to back up ideas, this can really be a fun opportunity for you. You’d do it from your computer and just need a good internet connection.
- Coach and Speaker VA – Many coaches and speakers need an assistant to help find speaking gigs, answer customer service emails, create their marketing materials, and keep them organized and ready for their clients and speaking gigs. Sometimes you might even get to travel if you work with speakers, if that’s something you want to do. It’s not required as you can do it fully, 100 percent, virtually.
- Author Assistant VA – Many authors who work with publishing houses or on their own need help with all the things authors have to do today, from editing to marketing. If you have experience in publishing, you can help organize your authors with packages from websites, to social media, and more.
- Local Small Business VA – Many small businesses in your area have plenty of administrative things that need to be done, but often they either don’t do them, or they burn the candle at both ends because they don’t realize they can hire a VA part-time to help them. You can work for daycare centers, restaurants, beauty shops, and more.
Some platforms that are popular right now:
As you think about the platforms and systems that are popular right now, and what you’re good at doing, and who you want to do it for, you should be able to narrow down some very specific services for your customers based on the platform and your experience with it.
- WordPress VA – You can set up WordPress for your clients and help them add blog posts and other content to their website regularly. You don’t have to build the entire site, but instead, the web designer creates it, and you just update it with the content provided by your clients. You’ll make sure it looks pretty, all the links work, and that the SEO is working.
- Mailchimp VA – It doesn’t have to be Mailchimp. Of course, it can be any email marketing autoresponder platform. If you know how to use it very well and can help customers get more out of their use of it, then that’s what you should market to them. Most people don’t know how to use any software fully, but if you do, you can really knock it out of the park by helping your clients get the most out of it.
- Instagram VA – Many popular Instagram stars get busy after they become popular. It makes it hard for them to have time to publish their images, edit them, and promote their work. You can help them with that and help them build an audience from the ground up too. If you know how to do that, market your services to the people you most want to work with.
- YouTube VA – Many people want to start YouTube channels, or they already have them, you can work with newbies, or you can work with only platforms with 500K subscribers, it’s up to you regarding who you want to work with and the services you put together for them based on their needs as a YouTube Star.
- Facebook Marketing VA – Do you know something about how to run ads on Facebook to help your clients make more money and sales? If so, you can become a Facebook Marketing VA. Many people who help companies run ads charge a percentage of sales, a percentage of ad spend budget, or a flat rate for each campaign.
- Pinterest VA – Many businesses like to set up shoppable pins on Pinterest but don’t know how to do it or don’t have time. You do. You can help your clients set up the best pins and get more engagement on their pins.
- Kindle Publishing VA – Being a self-published author isn’t as hard today as it used to be, but if you know something about publishing on Amazon Kindle, you can help guide your customers through the process. You don’t have to be an editor or anything, you just need to know people that can help your clients, and you’re golden.
- Marketing Funnel VA – Everyone who has a business needs an online marketing funnel today. It’s a high-level skill set that any business owner needs. All you need to do is set up a package for creating a marketing funnel for your customers, and you can make six figures plus.
- Project Manager VA – Every business owner who manages contractors and employees needs help doing it. No CEO does everything alone. They always have a smart and organized assistant that does all that for them. That can be you. If you’re good at setting up processes and steps to achieve goals using project management software and working with individuals, you can do this.
You get the idea. It’s a good idea to specialize so that you can command higher rates. Plus, when you specialize in what you do, you set the tasks that you will do for them, as well as the rates, so you automatically know what you’ll be doing for them each day throughout the year instead of waiting for them to tell you what to do.
Remember to create an entire package instead of just charging hourly for the services. Packages ensure that you have time for more than one customer and that you produce consistent results.
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