Give Yourself a Raise by Becoming a Specialized Virtual Assistant

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Give Yourself a Raise by Becoming a Specialized 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 skill is always going to help you make more money in less time than if you generalize. What’s more, you only need to specialize in what is popular right now to make bank. If you stay ahead of trends, you will be able to design your services based on those trends.

Some ideas that are popular right now

• 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.

• Aweber VA – It doesn’t have to be Aweber. Of course, it can be any email marketing auto-responder 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.

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 skill set. 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.

Put Your Office Management Skills to Work as a VA

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Put Your Office Management Skills to Work as a VA

If you currently - or in the past - have worked as an office manager in a physical location, you can quickly turn those skills into working remotely as a virtual assistant. 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.

To succeed as a VA for small businesses, you’ll 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. Any business that used to have a secretary or receptionist or needs one is a good place for you to consider offering your services.

For each of the ideas below, think about the things that they need completed that they don’t have time to do, and then create a package for the things you are skilled at doing. To get your first client, set up your website, social media platforms, and a system for capturing leads. Let everyone you know in on your secret so that they can tell the people they know. Then every single day demonstrate to the public via your own website and social platforms what you’re capable of doing for them.

Some specialties for virtual assistants to consider

• 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.

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.

Freelancing as a Social Media Manager

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Freelancing as a Social Media Manager

A very lucrative position as a freelancer, if you have the knowledge and skills, is to become a social media manager. A social media manager will manage a client’s social media for their business. They help plan, organize, and implement social media marketing plans that the customer has set up, or that they have set up for the client. An effective social media manager can make six figures plus today as a freelancer.

What It Takes

A social media manager plans, strategizes, and sets goals for developing brand awareness and online reputation for businesses and individuals. The social media manager may manage content marketing and promotions, search engine optimization, cultivate leads, manage reputations, and even deal with some aspects of sales from a social media standpoint.

• Be Self Motivated – Until you have clients, no one is going to be worried about what you’re doing all day long. You need to have time set aside for creating your packages and marketing them to your customers. Set up your goals and schedule to reflect the life you want to live.

• Focus on the Benefits – When you are marketing your services to your customers, always put benefits before features. If you bring up a feature, always focus it down to the benefits it provides the customer as a reason for it being there.

• Develop Systems and Processes – Even though you’re by yourself doesn’t mean you should use systems and processes that are old. Invest in modern software, tools, and resources so that you can automate some of the work while ensuring you are focused on deliverables.

• Rely on Your Schedule Not Willpower – The schedule is everything when you are a freelancer. Set aside enough time to get the work done, but don’t try to fill 40 hours a week with work. Instead, set your prices correctly so that you can focus on the schedule and get what you need to get finished done promptly.

A social media manager will often be responsible for brand development, customer identification, designing tasks based on clear objectives, visual design and web development, content strategy, promotional strategy, and more. However, don’t worry, you can narrow down the services you provide to be very specific, but this is a broad overview of the many ways a social media manager can serve their customers.

How to Get Started

To get started as a social media manager, one way to do this is to set up a package of services that you’ll deliver to the customer. For example, you might decide to focus on helping customers turn all their website content to promotions on social media platforms. Or you may decide to deal only with one type of social media - such as Instagram.

• Design a Package – You can help your customers become popular on Instagram or Pinterest through a program you design and implement for them, for example. You can design exactly what you do for them with particular terms such as create 30 Shoppable posts each month for Instagram or Pinterest from their website content to help them promote it.

• Focus on Deliverables – The best way to do this is to figure out what you want to do, what the deliverables will consist of, how long it takes you to put it together, what you need from them to do it in a timely way, and then to guide your customers so that it all works smoothly.

• Set Up Your Website – Set up a website to sell your services. Ensure that you have the website, social media platforms, and an email marketing software in place. You really shouldn’t skimp on any of this because this is what’s going to ensure you are in business long term. If you can demonstrate your skills, they’re going to be more likely to hire you. As a social media manager, you need to be very present on social media, demonstrating your skills.

Finally, you’ll want to avoid the pitfalls of working for yourself as a social media manager. For any freelance business, whether it’s social media manager or something else, the thing you have to guard against is setting your prices too low based on the time and experience it takes for you to be able to do what you do. Never put your fee below whatever you’ve determined is a living wage for yourself.

Don’t compete with people who set their prices too low; compete based on your experience and the results you provide your clients. Don’t try to work with people who aren’t the target audience you’ve determined is the best for you. This is your life and your business, so you get to choose who you work with and the prices that they pay. If you stick to that, you’ll avoid most of the pitfalls that occur when working as a freelancer.

Working as a Freelance Writer

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Working as a Freelance Writer

Working as a freelance writer is a remarkable, lucrative, and secure path to take if you want to freelance. However, there are both pros and cons to working as a freelance writer of which you should be aware. Let’s talk about what it takes, how you can get started, and the pitfalls you will want to avoid, making writing for others a successful freelance business for you.

"Working as a freelance writer is a remarkable, lucrative, and secure path to take if you want to freelance."

What It Takes

To be a writer today, you really don’t need a writing degree. What you do need is the ability to write in a conversational tone to the audience that is going to read the work per your customer’s specifications. How much you can make writing depends on your customers and the type of writing you do.

For example, if you write sales pages, you may be able to charge based on how much money you think they’re going to make from the campaign. If you write blog post content, you will likely want to charge per word or page of writing depending on how much research you need to do. You can make from $20 to $1000 a page. It really depends on your customers, their niche, and what the deliverables include.

If you are going to do the writing yourself, you’ll need to be able to set aside enough time to do the actual writing in addition to marketing your services. If you outsource the writing, you may need to hire writers, editors, and project managers to make the process run smoothly, or you may want to act as the project manager yourself.

It really depends on the type of work you want to do and how much money you want to earn. Some writers prefer to work alone, and others like building a big team, and do best finding clients for their team over finding clients for themselves and doing the work themselves. It’s totally up to you and the type of freelancer you want to become.

"This type of writing commands a higher rate, too, although it’s going to be harder to find clients. When you specialize, you can charge more, but you’ll work with fewer people too."

How to Get Started

To get started as a writer, you’ll need first to determine what skills you have. For basic content writing, if you know how to write an average of a 500- to 1500-word article about the topic in question, based on your research, you can likely get started with that now.

But for copy-writing that appears on sales pages, landing pages, and advertisements, which is more specialized writing, you may need to take a class or develop some experience since it’s a particular type of writing. This type of writing commands a higher rate, too, although it’s going to be harder to find clients. When you specialize, you can charge more, but you’ll work with fewer people too.

Articles are typically written at about the sixth-grade level and offer a general overview of the topic. More in-depth writing will require more knowledge and research chops, thus command a higher pay rate. Many website owners work with content writers to produce 30 or more articles each month, whereas they may only need one landing page a month or sales page a month.

Start with one type of writing for one specific customer for now. You can always add more services on later but starting with one type of writing for one type of customer makes it a lot easier for you to find your market than spreading yourself too thin at first.

When you figure out that one thing you want to do, set up a website, social media platforms, and an email autoresponder and do for you what you tell your customers you’ll do for them until you are working with enough people to fill up your time.

Finally, you’ll need to avoid the many pitfalls of writing for a living such as avoiding customers who are not the right fit for you, who want to underpay you for your expertise and time, and who don’t value you as a human. Of course, you’ll also need to ensure that you have set aside enough time to produce enough writing to reach the goals you’ve set for yourself monetarily while also providing you balance in your life.