Becoming a virtual assistant (VA) is basically offering a service of your choice to people and companies that need it. Later on in this post I will share examples of some of the services that a VA can offer.
You may be considering yourself unlucky when it comes to getting side jobs yet you are willing and ready. Look no further than becoming a virtual assistant online. In this space, no one gets to knows you for anything else but what you can deliver. Therefore, if you do your best you will create a good name for yourself and grow to be a service provider of choice with clients.
This is a form of freelancing that is an open opportunity for everyone out there without restrictive formalities such as academic qualifications and geographical location. However, I don’t want do downplay the benefits of acquiring some formal skills in your niche of choice. We Africans have a share in this market yet we need to prove ourselves, largely on an individual basis. It calls for doing what you have chosen to offer as a service with all confidence.
There are so many things business owners will pay you to do for them. These are basically things that business owners hardly or cannot make time to do and therefore need someone else to assist. Such chores are not difficult to do at all and are not strange to what an ordinary officer does in a formal work environment. You have to be determined to learn fast and be good at taking instructions. If you are not clear on what to do, ask or research about it online. Some of your clients will want things done in their own unique way and for you to win such customers, you must align.
The list of what you actually can do as a VA is endless, as already mentioned, but I will list just four services that I believe are not much of a challenge to get started working on. However, I do realise that each of them can be a full time niche in the freelancing space, thus I will get them listed in the ‘Menu’ page where I explore further each freelancing option.
For each of the following VA options, there are companies dedicated to helping freelancers who have chosen that particular niche yet I know that companies similar to fiverr.com accommodates all of them.
- Social media management. To make my point clearer, I will use Facebook as an example of the many social medial channels that exist out there. You probably already have skills on how to use Facebook and know what make people convert yet you may have to take extra lessons to sharpen your skill now that you have an interest of helping others on it. Your job is to create, publish, promote and manage content across social media platforms or channels. Such content should be meaningful and convincing for people to take action. Such action could be to tag the page, share it, save it, follow the page, subscribe, comment, like, etc. The owner of the media should get value in hiring you to help in managing the business social media channel(s). My experience is that social media is the quickest way of reaching out to the market. It is not as challenging as creating a blog, sending emails for example. Any business can survive just through social media if it is done correctly, and that is where you come in as a social media management VA.
- Email management. Emails have stood the test of time. Even today emails are one way companies get personal touch with their customers and therefore an important part of their business. Email is useful for personal communication with clients, managing sales, sharing promotions and more. This is one method that supports customer retention and has a low cost of acquiring new customers. There are a number of email marketing management companies that your customer might want you to be familiar with for you to be convincing on the management assignment. These definitely make your work and that of your client easier, especially when the audience has grown to be big, say over 500. Approaching a client with clear knowledge of the company s/he uses makes you a preferred person to hire to do the job. I know of MailChimp, awaber and klaviyo. At this stage, I would recommend that you visit each of these, and probably more others, to learn how they operate. Very close to email marketing is text message marketing.
- Transcriptions. This is basically listening and writing/typing what you hear, whether from a video or some audio. Often this is not just writing what you hear but may include aligning it to visuals and videos sometimes. This can get complicated especially when you are to transcribe into another language first, then alight it or fit it to a specific time line. It then doesn’t become as easy as it sounds yet still possible to do with great success. Examples of work that you can do include sermons, meetings, discussions, films, YouTube videos, educational videos, media reports, etc. There is some software that can help you do this job batter, such as, NCH Software and Listen N Write. Some software will convert voice to text while others will convert voice to text, depending on the assignment you have been given. To get a feel of it, visit the website scribie.com. This website will allow you to practice and test yourself if you are ready to start doing the job as a starter. As a freelancer, you page down to the bottom of the page and click ‘Freelancer’. You will then be directed to a page where you will have an option to learn. Another website is ‘gotranscript’. This website also provides practice pages for beginners. Similarly, ‘voxtab’ will help you learn with their free practice pages.
- Writing. Typing is the most important skill in writing and it only gets better when you keep doing it. This niche is very wide but you just have to try and focus on that area that you find interesting to you. Some of the categories include resume writing, blogging, ebooks and books, speech writing, translating, podcast writing, copyrighting, creative writing, etc. Just about any field can work for a writer.
The truth is that just about anything that you feel you can do for someone else can be your VA service. I however must mention that VA is not recommended for full time employees who will be doing it on a part time basis because it is largely engaging. You just have to be good in time management. Learn to do what is right at its time and avoid costing others their due attention because you have robbed them of their time. For example, if it’s time for your employer, just discipline yourself to do your job. If you are at home and its time for your family, work at giving them their time and then when your freelancing time comes, do just that and remember to have enough sleep.
Lastly, I would like to encourage you to get started. It might seem difficult in the begging yet as you keep working on it, you will get better and manage the demands that come with becoming a freelancer.
