you can do some work after hours after work you can do some on the weekends you can start off as
a project-based person and so you know as a VA you have options to work with people from all around
the world so you don't have to work for Australian clients and thinking well it's
after 5 pm who's going to hire me well after 5 pm there are people in America that might
get you to do some work you know at that time but it's their morning or you could actually
start off doing some project-based work which doesn't require you to be there at a certain time
hi guys it's Linh Podetti here and welcome back to my channel where i help you to achieve
time freedom so you have more time for self family business and life now in this video you're going
to learn from me about how you can actually become a virtual assistant with no experience at all so
how did i actually become a virtual assistant myself now 10 years ago when i started my digital
agency i didn't see myself as a virtual assistant then but if i look now at what a virtual assistant
is i think i actually fall under the category of a virtual assistant so what happened was my first
business was was an e-commerce business and i learned how to you know get my marketing work
done and outsource from two people from overseas and get things like website done seo etc now i did
that for my business and when i was networking and trying to figure out what i was going to do next
i found business owners out there who had the same problem as i did which was marketing and trying to
get their business um take off online and i was sharing tips with them and only for them to go
hey can we pay you to actually handle the work for you so i was actually kind of like their
virtual assistant because they were passing the work to me and i was project managing it and
using people from overseas so i was technically their virtual assistant i was there assisting
them in their business be on call whenever they need me and i was working virtually from home
so i kind of did that 10 years ago and although i built the business with different outsourcing
staff and you know they were the one doing the work i would still call myself a virtual assistant
because the business was was i guess relying on me and i was their assistant so what i mean by a
virtual assistant is what you can just understand from my story is that i was virtual i worked from
home and i was assisting someone in their business now the type of work that i was assisting in was
in marketing whether it's website development i wasn't really actually doing the website work
but i was assisting to get it done and va's used to have be kind of a term that you consider like
a secretary or an admin person but a virtual assistant really just means they're assisting
something in your business and for me it's marketing but for other businesses it could be
bookkeeping accounting or just any other thing so va's has come a long way it's not just admin work
the term va's is really anything that you can help a company with from your expertise
and you can do it in the comfort of your own home talking about the company home this is the main
benefit of being a virtual assistant so for me i was able to work from home travel you know i can
go anywhere and work for my laptop i didn't really have to meet the client i could serve clients from
around australia even america overseas because the work can be done virtually so that means the
your capacity is bigger you can actually cater to more clients you can find clients from anywhere
and you can also work from anywhere and even when i was giving birth and through my contraction i
could still be on my phone liaising with my team and just you know assigning work and
checking on work so that's just how flexible it is as a va and especially when you have kids if
you're a mum and you have kids then being a va is very very beneficial so overall how
did i actually become a va i actually didn't have experience i just learnt things as i was
growing my first business e-commerce business so i had no idea about e-commerce i had no idea
about online marketing but i was just learning on the go and this is the case for a lot of lvas
who work at outsourcing angel which is a business that i run we run a va company helping businesses
to hire virtual assistants from the philippines a lot of them didn't have the skill set on the
get-go they had no experience at all but what they did was deciding that they want to work from home
to be there with their family once they made that decision they looked at how they can learn
that means they went on youtube and learned about social media they learned how to write copy and of
course there are courses that are really cheap on udemy and other places that you can do for
19.20 it doesn't cost a lot to actually learn nowadays there's so much free content and so after
they learnt that they then applied for work and did really easy cheap work first and as they built
that skill then they became you know the master of va's now like when i say that is my va is just so
good at everything they can design edit and do so much much more than i did because for me i think
my va skill was actually just project managing but i didn't actually have any technical skills
um but the example is that i learned you know to understand digital marketing so i could project
manage but i didn't know it from the beginning it was just you know learning on the job or studying
courses and things like that and va's who i've worked with have all came through the same way
so my assistant wendy she came to me as a content writer because that's what i needed her to do
but then the longer she worked with me the more she took on board um took on board under her roles
and now she's becoming like an accounts person a recruitment manager she's done so many roles
and so does she have the experience in an account person or recruitment manager from the beginning
no it was all learning from the beginning so if you're thinking about being a va my tip is that
don't be afraid that you don't know anything you just take the first step that first step is
committing what is your why why do you want to be a va list down as much pros and why you want to do
it because you need to refer to that when things get hard because as a va it's like you're owning
your own business as well you're self-employed looking for clients you don't have a stability
of a full-time job that you just go to you are looking for your own client and you need to
deliver good work as well so to enjoy the benefit of flexibility and working from anywhere well you
need to actually deliver the goods so clients will only continue to work with you or refer you
if you actually can do the work now you're probably wondering what kind of va service am
i going to provide my first tip is have a look at what you're good at but also look at what
you're passionate about so the tip around this is this for example you might be in an accounting
company and you've always been an accountant but being an accountant just balls you and it's so
dry and you just never loved it but what you do love is you always love to be an event planner
and you're always helping you know your friends events and you're so attention you pay so much
attention to detail and you're really good at it now you may not have the experience as an event
planner professionally or you feel like you've learned it yet it doesn't mean that you can't
become one so i'm going to show you tips on how to find your first client but my first tip here is to
you know follow your passion follow what you're really good at naturally this is the time not
to go and become a va and do something you hate it's becoming a va and doing something you love
so let's just say you love to be an event planner now you also don't have to waste your accounting
experience is that you can actually work for an accounting a bunch of accounting clients or you
work for the accounting industry or you just do events you know basically you merge between your
your expertise or industry experience with what you're passionate about to find that sweet spot
where you're going to be able to add so much value because i if i was a client and i had to hire an
event planner i would hire an event planner has that has experience in accounting let's just say
versus an event planner that doesn't have that experience so don't ever feel like it's
a waste that you've already had these years of experience in this particular industry and now
you're pivoting into something new it's actually not bad it's actually good because you will
have you you're clearer with your niche you're clearer with your experience and expertise that
you know the ideal client will pick you for that now if you still feel like you have skill gap
i would say you could do courses but then you could also practice this is where you even
get your first client so you can start off doing some free work so if you've got some ideal client
that you know of who has money to pay and and is your ideal what you do is you validate your idea
and you say hey i would love to be able to help you you know for a trial period i can do this
and that and i just wanted to test it out and if you like it give me a testimonial and it's a
chance for you to really build that confidence as a va because when you're a va it's not that
you can't do the work you just feel like what if i'm not good enough what if the client doesn't
think that i'm worth what they're paying for so to get rid of that and to not worry about that
why don't you do it for free or do it for a very discounted rate at the beginning
just to make yourself feel confident also it helps you to go through the whole process and see what
you like or you don't like and how you nut out your your service so that and you also know how
to price it when you really do need to price it to go out into the market now the next thing you're
probably wondering is but how do i even work as a va if i have a full-time job you know like where
do i find the time well you make time you know in my previous videos you'll find how i wake up
early how i just find time to do more work to do more things that's important in my life so you
definitely will find time to pursue your business or your job as a va because if you if you care
about it enough and you commit to it like i say if there's a will there's a way so what can you
do you can do some work after hours after work you can do some on the weekends you can start off as a
project-based person and so you know as a va you have options to work with people from all around
the world so you don't have to work for australian clients and thinking well it's after 5 pm who's
going to hire me well after 5 pm there are people in america that might get you to do some work
you know at that time but it's their morning or you could actually start off doing some
project-based work which doesn't require you to be there at a certain time and you just produce the
outcome and finish it there so there's no excuse to not being able to find time now once you start
to ramp up and get some clients and confidence and and making some money you're gonna have to
eventually take the leap this is the leak where you either go part-time in your full-time job
and then be a va on the side or you take the leap completely and go full time as a va um and
yeah just go all in because imagine having all that time to focus on your va business you're
going to be able to you know focus on it rather than if you just got one leg on this side one leg
there you're dabbling you might never make this side work because you're relying on the stability
and the income here and you're not really pushing yourself there so for me i jumped off my corporate
job and went straight into owning my own business it was hard it was very scary but i did it because
i was always that kind of person i'm like in or out whereas some people might be more risk
averse maybe you're watching this and you are that person you don't have to do it my way you just one
way is a bit more harder and faster one way is to be slower but steady and more comfortable now the
last takeaway i have for you to starting as a va is that remember to start thinking about how
you can scale your business well for me i always knew that i wanted to have a freedom business that
didn't need me so to be a typical va where i'm actually selling my time for money
i was always going to be stuck with the client so if you want to just work with clients all the
time sure you can do that for a while but have to think about how you can grow your va business
it means that you how do you systemize and teach someone else to do what you do and you
just oversee them and that means when you need to go on holidays you can go and the clients are not
here for you they're here for your service they're here to get the output whether it's done by you or
someone else it's up to you you know as long as the output is there so my challenge for you if
you're thinking about doing being a va is that start off being a va so you know how to deliver
the service but then think about how do you scale and get someone else to do what you do and
one other way is to hire virtual assistants from overseas who are cheaper because that way there is
more margin for you to actually make a profit so if you're you know selling at the service
at fifty dollars um and you can get it done for ten twenty dollars then there is a thirty dollar
margin that you can earn for that same amount of hours and that means you can take on more clients
but if you're a va and you it's only you then you have limited time limited capacity but if you have
more va's working under you as a va in australia or america is that then you will be able to have
um yeah take on more clients this is where the true freedom is because just because you own your
own business but you can't systemize and create a business model that doesn't rely on you then
you're always going to feel like you're stuck you know the clients are calling you you need to be
there whereas if you build the system and business model to work without you this is when you know
the business doesn't rely on you and you have that time freedom that i'm telling you about and so
yeah i hope you've got a lot of value there um if you have any questions about how to be a va
check out below but i've got other videos as well on how to start a business as well as
on how to be how to be a va or how to start outsourcing you can see over here as well some
videos in the past that i've done and hope you enjoy and thanks for watching