Become a Virtual Assistant

On a recent post from the Real Ways to Earn Money Online blog, Anna T, posted seven good reasons to become a virtual assistant. Our editorial staff loved this piece and wanted to expand on a few of the reasons that were listed in the article.

Before we start, we want to define the role of a virtual assistant. Virtual Assistants (or VA’s for short) perform a wide variety of tasks that personal assistants perform, except they do these tasks remotely. Virtual assistants may work for an organization or freelance and support multiple companies or individuals.

Here are some highlights from the post!

You can get paid for your specific skills, whatever they may be

The article gave a really broad list of skills that a virtual assistant can complete remotely. Some of the general skills listed in the article were:

• Taking calls or answering emails. Some VA’s can serve as outsourced customer service. Access to the internet, a laptop or Chromebook and a headset can allow any VA to take customer orders, manage customer returns or respond to inquiries via the web.
• Managing social media accounts. Some virtual assistants can update social media accounts for their clients to highlight business activities or create awareness for the business. For example, VA’s can create a Facebook post highlighting an organization’s recent trade show event or create a Tik Tok for a rescue shelter to highlight an upcoming adoption event. The organizations can electronically send the virtual assistant pictures and details to highlight and the VA can create visually engaging content. Aside from access to the internet, you need some skills to create dynamic content and editing to make sure you represent the brand appropriately.
• Managing client calendars and scheduling. This is a classic executive assistant task to support busy executives and business owners. Instead of being available in-person, 9 to 5, executives can give their virtual assistants access to their calendars and let them schedule meetings, appointments and travel from the comfort of their homes. Again, access to the internet and voice is important for this function.

You can make good money as a VA

The article highlighted the potential of making real income by working as a virtual assistant.

There are forums such as Fiverr and Upwork that allow you to register on these platforms to find clients and manage work through the platforms. In exchange for creating a marketplace connecting virtual assistants and organizations, these platforms take a percentage of earnings. In our opinion, starting as a virtual assistant on platforms like these are great ways to test this work from home concept yourself for the following reasons:

An individual can make more on their own, however, the time it takes to find prospective clients, make proposals, manage different workspaces per client and invoice and collect delinquent payments can be a major hassle. We recommend starting out with these platforms before branching out on your own.

The last point we wanted to highlight is that “good money” can vary from person to person. A person who has an $800 a month mortgage has a different definition of “good money” versus an individual who has a $2,500 a month mortgage.

With that said, a recent ZipRecruiter.com survey showed a US National average of $43,643 earnings for a virtual assistant (based on December 2022 data). On an hourly basis, the national average is just under $21.00 an hour.

Also note that virtual assistant posts on sites like Fiverr and Upwork are extremely popular. A quick scan of virtual assistant search results on Fiverr was eye opening. Many of these posts start at $5 per project (not per hour) and many offering their services range from domestic to international VA’s.

There’s a lot of competition and there are a lot of would-be virtual assistants who are setting low market prices to earn these competitive jobs.

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Be your own boss

You do manage your own workload, but you are far from your own boss. The post frames the narrative that you decide when you want to work, you decide what your rates are and you decide what work you do.

Yes, you can do all that. However, your ability to find steady work and draw the income you need to live may vary greatly.

As we highlighted above, platforms like Fiverr and Upwork have plenty of VA talent and many more who will do the job for below livable wage standards in the United States. If you want to work and want to make money, you may need to make concessions.

As a virtual assistant, you are a generalist who can execute on a variety of tasks that may vary from day to day. The value here in the long-run is that you can hone your skills and discover that you have a great ability to perform higher level tasks or develop skills for more advanced activities. From there, you can choose to specialize in more niche tasks which may yield higher project rates and help you grow your income.

For example, taking on social media posting for a local dentist office will give you the skills and the reps to develop content on Facebook, Instagram, Tik Tok and LinkedIn. Once you refine your skills, you may be able to pivot from general virtual assistant roles and post specifically for outsourced social media manager type positions.

Our Rating: 3 of 5 WFH Forever score

The article noted that demand for virtual assistants is increasing with demand from start-ups who need assistants to tackle routine tasks. In fact, the pandemic created a surge in entrepreneurship according to a recent study by the University of Wisconsin.

We also noted that there are established platforms where would-be virtual assistants can create profiles, bid on projects and negotiate, deliver work and collect payments on all-in-one platforms like Fiverr and Upwork.

These are great for new entrants, however, there is tremendous competition and extreme price pressures that may affect how often you work and how lucrative the work is.

With that said, our editors rated virtual assistants a 3 out of 5 on our WFH Forever rating. The demand is out there and the compensation may be lower than expected. However, we look at VA opportunities as a way for individuals to establish their brand, hone their entrepreneurial skills and develop higher-value skill sets which allow them to focus on higher value-add skills to dedicated clients in the future.

What’s your take on virtual assistant roles? How did this work out for you?