Welcome to another episode of the podcast that teaches you how to be a ridiculously good virtual assistant.
Today I want to talk about the 3 phases that a VA goes through – and give you some advice about what you need to do next, depending on which phase you are in.
Today’s Quote: Find the confidence in whatever way you can to just keep moving onto the next page. The only way you will finish projects and get better is to keep moving forward. – Charles Forsman
Click the play button above to tune in, or choose your favourite podcast player below:
Connect with Tracey D’Aviero, VA Coach and Trainer
Episode Notes:
I wanted to talk about the phases of different VAs today so hopefully we can help you identify where you are – and what you need to do next to move yourself forward.
Moving forward is the most important thing you can focus on in your VA business.
It doesn’t mean that you have to have huge goals, you can be a VA who just wants to work part time and earn grocery money, but you still have to move forward to do that.
And if you are a VA who has big aspirations of running an agency and earning 6 figures or more, you also have to move forward.
Just getting in the habit of taking a step forward every day is good practice as a business owner, and your VA business will thank you for it.
Taking steps every day to get yourself to where you want to go – wherever that is – is the key.
There are three basic stages that all VAs go through – the research phase, before you start your business; the setup or starting phase, when you get going; and the in business phase, where you are working with clients and making a living.
Let’s break these down:
Research Phase
Every VA I know has gone through this phase before starting their business.
Some VAs never get out of this phase.
Don’t get me wrong it is very important to do research so we know what we are doing.
But SO many VAs I know get really buried in this and have a lot of trouble getting out.
Think about it – we need to learn a lot to open a business. We have a lot of questions and we sure need to know what we are doing to make it work.
But research is one of those things that can really get out of hand very quickly.
You don’t need to know how to use every email marking system.
You don’t need to build your own website.
You don’t need to spend weeks picking out a business name.
Yes, you need to look professional, but when you are spending so much time on things that you don’t need to spend hours doing, you are stealing that time that you need to do other stuff.
In your research phase, what do you need to do? You need to figure out what the right thing to do is, and then make a decision about how your business will look.
The research is important so that we can stand behind the decisions we make – but it’s not the most important part. The decisions are.
So, you need to understand how your business will work – what services will you offer, what rates will you charge, who will your clients be, where can you find them.
You also need to know why you want to run your VA business, what your expectations are for how your days will look,
You need to nail down your best services – what are your strengths … your areas of expertise. Give yourself the props here, don’t be shy. You have expertise and you know you can help your clients with something – many things – and you need to own that.
You must set proper rates. Do the math, I say it all the time. What do you need to earn, how much will you work, what your expenses are, how much you can pay yourself, and how much profit you will be able to keep. This is a business – you have to know these things. The math isn’t hard.
You might compare what others charge for similar services, but you still have to do the math yourself for your own business.
My business expenses are different than yours. I take different amounts of time to do things than you do. I work very fast, always have. Work pace is very important to consider. How long does it take you to do something? You need to know if you are going to be quoting clients rates or estimates.
The other thing I need to mention in the research phase is the need to seek out training.
It’s essential that you start your VA business with skills that you already have. Expertise that you already have.
Don’t try to learn a brand new skill AND start your VA business at the same time. There are so many unknowns and new things that we have to think about when getting started with our VA business – and ‘selling’ a service that you have no experience with is HARD.
When you start with your own experience, you may not have virtual experience providing that service, but you have your corporate experience and that counts for everything.
Don’t call yourself a new VA, and think that no one will work with you. You are new to working virtually (maybe, even though the pandemic made lots of people work virtually so you’re even ahead of the game there!) – start with what you know. Learn new skills later.
The caveat to that is learning what you need to learn to deliver the services you are offering now. So if you are offering general admin, you might need to learn to use an online scheduling software or a project management system. But you don’t need to learn to run Facebook ads ‘in case’ a client needs it.
Also, DO tap into a community of VAs and entrepreneurs who can help you build your confidence and answer questions about how things work as you get going. Understand that you will have to develop systems and strategies to get clients, to work with clients, and to make your business profitable.
I’ll get into all of that more in the next phase too, but there ya go.
So to recap the research phase – learn what you need to know, but then be prepared to make a decision and take that next step forward. You can’t get started if you don’t take a step (or many steps) forward.
And the whole point is that you want to get started! It’s not a research project, it’s homework for you to actually start your business.
Starting Your VA Business
If you are just starting your VA business, or recently started it, I have a few tips for you as well.
First and foremost, I hope you did a business plan.
A business plan helps you to figure out all of the pieces of your business so that you understand what you will do, how much your clients will pay you, and who your best clients are so you can network with them.
Being able to identify all of those things and answer those questions will go very far in helping you to get out there to serve and support your clients.
Of course you need a contract and a way for clients to pay you, and some systems and operations stuff – but the business plan is really important xo that you know where you are going and how you are going to get there.
Once you have that in place, then you can set up your business systems and processes. I highly recommend these for a few reasons.
First, one of the things that our clients needs from us is organization.
Many of our clients come to us when they are overwhelmed, or when they need to do things in their business that they don’t know how to do themselves.
So we need to get ourselves prepared before we get them prepared.
I tell VAs all the time that you should be your first client.
Work against the clock. Practice time management, organization and working efficiently.
In many of our corporate jobs, we didn’t have to get things done quickly – even if we had deadlines to abide by.
But as a VA time is money – more specifically your time is your client’s money – every hour you spend working for them, they pay for. So it’s particularly important to pay attention to your work pace and how long it takes you to get things done.
This is important whether you are charging by the hour or by the package – the time it takes you do the things that you are doing is important. It doesn’t mean you have to work fast, it just means that you have to be aware of it, and do the best you can do to work efficiently.
VAs tell me all the time ‘I don’t know how long that will take me to do, how do I know how much to charge a client?’ and my answer is always the same – do it, and time it. How else are you going to know?
Finding tools and apps that help you keep multiple clients’ work organized and flowing is also really important when you get started.
I say all the time that managing your clients’ expectations is essential – happy clients will keep working with you, will get you to do more work as time goes on, and might even refer you business.
So once we get a client we want to keep them.
That means being able to juggle the work of multiple clients who all feel like they should be your top priority.
And of course what is your business without clients? Nothing!
So we need to have a plan and a strategy to acquire great clients – especially after we get our first couple of clients.
If you’re like me that might have come easily – my first client was my old boss. Maybe yours was also.
That’s great, but it didn’t teach me how to get more clients – and I needed lots of clients to make my business earn what it needed to sustain my lifestyle.
So you need to learn to do that – find clients. Find GREAT clients, not just any clients.
Find yourself a network, a community, that has lots of your kinds of clients in it, and become a part of that community. It makes getting clients so much easier.
And have business conversations every single day – even if you aren’t looking for clients. You never know where your next client will come from, and you aren’t in control of whether a client will stop working with at any point, so you don’t want to be stuck if that happens.
To get out of the getting started phase, you just need to make all the decisions. And be ready to make some changes when necessary. That’s what you do when you are in business.
In Business
When we are first starting there are all kinds of things that we need to keep track of. It’s all so new.
But when we settle in and are working with clients, we want to make sure that we are keeping on top of problems and issues too.
Are you working efficiently? It’s a big one. If there is an automation that you can implement to make your work more efficient or to increase your productivity, you may want to invest in that.
Business growth is an important consideration when you are IN business. Not necessarily so that you can earn more revenue or work with more clients, but so that you are maximizing your revenue to what you want to earn, and minimizing or managing your expenses so that you are profitable.
Not all VAs are interested in scaling by bringing in subcontractors, but that could certainly be something to explore at this stage.
I always found that I enjoyed doing the client work too much to have a team. I had a team, I had 4 subs at my busiest, and my own VA, and it was a lot to manage. It was great, they were great, but I was doing admin and managing more than anything and I actually preferred working with clients more than running a team.
So I had to find services that I could charge for that didn’t require me billing by the hour.
Creating packages is a great way to maximize your skills and service offerings. It takes you away from the trading time for dollars thing. It also allows you to set rates based on value and deliverables rather than time.
Once you are happy with how you are working with your clients, you can make changes at any time.
One of the biggest issues when you are IN business, is managing your clients’ expectations.
As I mentioned earlier, each client will feel that they are the most important client you have – and they will want to make sure they get the best service, no matter what they are paying you.
So being able to master this is going to be one of the best things you can do.
I often managed this through weekly production calls. I found that a regular connection call with a client helped me be proactive and in charge of the list of projects we were working on. It also gave us an opportunity to discuss what was coming next.
It sets you apart from a lot of VAs who are task takers, and can help propel you into a new role with long term clients. They gain your trust, you learn more about their business, and you can grow your business while they grow theirs.
Another key to this in business stage is managing your business, growing it so that it’s profitable, and managing potential burnout before it happens.
Keep an eye on how things are going in your business. How do you feel? How do your clients feel?
If you need to get support to help you with any of the things in your business, then do that. Seeking coaching or training when you need it can help you navigate the changes of your VA business.
Communicate well with your clients so that you are all on the same page. Get their feedback, stay on top of their industry trends, become part of a community that supports your business and you as the business owner.
Be their expert. Be proactive. Like I say, stay in control of the work you do for them by holding weekly production calls and telling them what you need from them. It’s the best way to become indispensible to them and their business.
The journey of a VA changes and evolves, sometimes very quickly. It’s not a matter of being in business for 3 years and then being in this place or that place. Your business grows as you grow as a business owner.
The research phase, however, should be your shortest phase. And for many VAs it’s not. The sooner you get your VA business open, the better. If you want to do it, get it done.
The getting started phase should also be fairly quickly. Being new is fine, but keeping yourself stuck in start mode is a bad thing. Don’t call yourself new. Don’t think of yourself as new. You have so much experience already, you’re just doing it from somewhere else. You can do it!
Being in business is what you want to strive for – being, evolving, and remaining in business long term.
None of us start our VA business to only do it for a year. We do it because we want another option to a corporate job. We want to avoid the commute. We want to be home more for our family. We want to have unlimited earning potential. We want to only do what we love to do. So many reasons
We go into it planning to do it long term. So help yourself do that.
And finally let’s circle back to today’s quote: Find the confidence in whatever way you can to just keep moving onto the next page. The only way you will finish projects and get better is to keep moving forward.
Step forward. Make your plan. Get help where needed. But move forward. Step by step. Every day. Finish your projects. Get better.
Become a ridiculously good VA!
If you see yourself in one of these phases, that’s awesome. That’s what I was hoping. And if you can see where you need to take a step that’s even better. If you need help taking that step, that’s where I can help. I am here to help you become a ridiculously good VA.
Do You Need Help?
I have helped hundreds of VAs who are stuck get moving through private coaching, my monthly mastermind group, my group coaching program and my self study trainings. If you are ready to get my help, let’s connect on a Cut to the Chase call. You can book yours at YourVAMentor.com/15-min
Thanks for tuning in this week! I’ll see you next time!
What You Need to Do Next:
Let’s work together privately to get you to your really big goal. It’s the fastest way to get results and we can start right away. Learn more about private coaching here.
The Virtual Circle (TVC) is a monthly mastermind group for Virtual Assistants just like you. We get together 3 times a month for group Zoom sessions to talk about what you are struggling with, working on, or celebrating. It’s a close knit community of your VA colleagues that provides the best kind of support for your VA business. Learn more about TVC here.
My self study program Getting Started as a VA can help you get your VA business started easily and quickly too. You can sign up right away and be on your way to getting clients by the end of the program, with all the right foundations in place. Check out the program here.
Click here for more tips to help you with your productivity and time management in your Virtual Assistant business.
Reach out to me if you need to talk about where you are stuck and what the right option might be to get you moving. It’s literally all I’m here to do is help you get to where you want to go. Book a complimentary Cut to the Chase call with me here.