Today we look forward to introducing guest posts from Dominique Déraiche, the creator behind the Mommy VA blog. Dominique is a mom who traded in her daily work for flexible work from home. In her post, she shares her journey of Zero Experience and how she became a virtual assistant starting with a 6 month old baby…
Today we look forward to introducing guest posts from Dominique Déraiche, the creator behind the Mommy VA blog. Dominique is a mom who traded in her daily work for flexible work from home. In her post, she shares her journey of how she became a virtual assistant, starting with a 6 month old baby on her waist. If you’ve ever wondered what a virtual assistant actually does or how it does, this post is for you.
My journey to becoming a virtual assistant is one that has many forks on the roads and dead ends.
Honestly, when I set out to work from home and build an online business, I didn’t know what a virtual assistant was, what I ate for dinner, or what it would look like.
All I knew was that I didn’t want my baby to be in daycare. I wanted the flexibility to work from home.
I worked for the federal government and started my career at an employment insurance call center. There, I learned how to become proactive, develop strong communication skills and listen carefully.
I love the challenges of work, and I talk to clients all over the country every day, feeling like I’m making a difference in people’s lives. Also, being “on” was stressful. If you are having a day off, you still need to go through the power, as people are dependent on you, and you had to reach your target statistics by the end of the day. Welcome to working at the call center.
I knew one day, I would leave the government from my hometown status for work, but I didn’t know where to start or how to proceed with it. You can say I revealed my reality, but it has brought many difficulties. Today I would like to share with you my journey to becoming a virtual assistant, hoping to save you the time you have to throw spaghetti on the wall to see any sticks. Hindsight is always 20/20, and if I start over from today, there are many things I do differently.
So, without a clear business plan, I left my job with just a clear determination to make it work, as Sane * Shroat Clearing * does.
At six months old on my waist, I set out on a virtual assistant journey and hit a lot of collisions on the road, but in the process, I learned a ton of it and didn’t know I would become a virtual assistant.
With these practical tips, you will be able to take the leap and quickly track your journey if you choose to leave 9-5 and become a virtual assistant.
I recommend reading: The best way to find a virtual assistant job
How to start as a virtual assistant
About six months before my baby’s due date, I began brainstorming a lot of ideas about how to make money from home.
At the time I lived on a quaint four acres of land, along with three horses, chickens and a large garden. I really loved being outside. He also knew that the home community was booming. More and more people want to leave the fuss and busts of urban life and return to their ancestral roots.
However, most of the skills of traditional homes have been lost over the years. I’ve always loved to read and come up with things. You can also praise Grandma and Mom for cultivating my creative side, teaching me how to knit and enrolling me in sewing lessons.
I took it to learn how to make food from my garden. I mostly write this because I know some of you will go and look into me, but I have refrained from deleting the channel for many years as it expresses exactly how my entrepreneurial journey has evolved. I’ve come a long way!
I worked hard on my YouTube channel and built up a year’s worth of effort, but in the end, I did my best to create content that I had to pump the video out of it every week. Plus, my niche has been difficult to create content over the winter.
At this point, I had exhausted my financial resources to stay home with my daughter, so I had to try something else soon! I didn’t have the resources to spend, but I also realized that I sometimes need to spend money to make money.
On advice from a friend, I decided to hire a business coach. I was talking to her before spending money on her membership. I felt this was the last ditch effort to be able to work from home with my 6 month old daughter, so I wanted to make sure she really helped me.
She assured me, yes, she absolutely could. So I signed up for her membership and quickly appeared on her weekly coaching calls and devoured her course content.
But I still left a question, what kind of business should I start? I didn’t think of my skills as something that I could sell and grow my business. The only thing I knew at that point how to do well was my house skills.
That was the path I chose, and with the help of a coach, I began building my own course. I hope to teach others’ house skills, especially bathing and pressure canning, so I hope to create a membership site where clients can learn from me and access weekly family meal recipes made from scratch.
As I reached the pricing module on my coaching course, doubts began to creep up. I started math in reverse thinking about how many memberships I need to sell each month to stay home with my baby. It all began to feel like too much, and my dreams never came true. I spent all this effort building the course. At this point it was a hobby and could not be a real income stream.
Luckily, my coach sent me the message, “We have to talk.” She came to the exact same conclusion. I was disappointed and cried out on the phone, but at the same time I was relieved that I could concentrate my energy somewhere and not waste any more time. She said, “Dom, have you ever thought about becoming a virtual assistant?”
At the time, I didn’t know what the virtual assistant was doing or how it could help small business owners.
So she hired me for $1,000 a month. I helped her with email management and social media management. I took notes on her weekly coaching calls and pitched her for guest podcast opportunities. In hindsight, I probably worked too much for the amount she was paying me, but I was keen to learn and expand my skills.
And that’s how my friends started my journey with my first client. Five years later, I’m still learning a lot every day and even starting my own Pinterest Management Services business in the hopes of working with other bloggers in the near future. While you don’t know exactly what the future will bring as a self-employed person, the magic is knowing that you can always change and reinvent yourself. There are no rules to work online!
Practical step-by-step plan to become a virtual assistant
If I start over as a virtual assistant today, I have a lot to do differently, but with experience, I get wisdom.
Here are my top 5 baby steps to start your own virtual assistant business.
1. Put everything in
It’s probably not wise or realistic for anyone to quit my job in government, but when I first decided to make money from home, I did my best to quit my job.
Certainly, I could have always found something else if it didn’t work, but there were really no other options in my mind. Make a decision and stick to it! It’s easy to try something in today’s world, but you never watch it to the end (it’s also worth knowing when to quit, but that’s another day), and most people don’t do the right thing enough and throw the towel quickly.
What I want to do, and what it helps me visualize my goals, is to create a vision board of what I want to see in my year. Create with Canva (free design software available for free) and save it to your computer’s desktop. In this way, it’s something I see every morning when I start work and helps me align my actions with the goals I want to achieve in my business.
2. Determine your current skill
One of the obstacles to my virtual assistant journey was the inability to see what was right in front of me.
What are all the skills I have worked for the government? These are the transferable skills I still use as a virtual assistant today. Even if you’ve never been a VA before, we firmly believe that we all have the necessary skills we can use.
Take 20 minutes, get the paper into paper, and your brain throws away all the skills you’ve learned from the various jobs you’ve had in the past. It doesn’t matter whether the job was with administrative services or customer support.
Once you’ve written everything down, let’s take an objective look at what’s applicable to the virtual assistant services you provide.
3. network
Facebook groups are gold mines to find potential clients to collaborate with. I met some of the best clients through my Facebook group. We recommend that you reserve time each day to build an online presence, ask questions, and show up to the groups your target audience hangs out with. When you consistently provide value, your ideal client will notice you and start sending DMS about your services.
It’s really easy! They reach out to clients they’ve never heard of before, but they’re hiding in the group, eventually pulling the plug and sending a message about service package details. Start showing up as an expert!
Set your goal to leave at least 10 comments per day on various posts with people you may be working with.
Be careful, some Facebook groups are really strict about self-promotion and try to do it cleverly.
4. Build a portfolio
A portfolio is like a resume that includes the VA services you provide, the systems you use, pricing, testimonials and contact information. I’m a huge fan of starting out and working in exchange for testimony.
This not only helps you build reliability to back up your skills, but also wet your feet in the industry without the need to build expensive websites or invest in different software.
Heck, many Vas book themselves in their portfolio alone! Starting a business doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. Start simply and have the resources to do so, so build on it.
There are plenty of free camber templates you can use to start building your portfolio. Or, if you want a beautifully designed and well-collected option, there are thousands of templates for sale on Etsy that get that cohesive look.
5. Increase the price
Over time, you will definitely want to raise your price. There is a tendency when we first started to underestimate our value. That’s fine! We all have to start somewhere, but as you gain experience and expand your skill set, it is important to determine the higher rate of your service, the value you provide to the business owner.
Not only do you save them time, but you’re saving them money because they don’t have to hire full-time employees. Save thousands of dollars with health insurance, employment benefits and more.
When raising prices, you will want to consider the following:
- What are your competitors charging for similar virtual assistant services?
- Your expenses and desired profit ratio
- How long does it take to complete a particular task?
- Demand for your service
- Your previous experience and expertise you gained
- Your ideal client budget
- Your business goals
A bite of encouragement for your virtual assistant journey
Many of you know that for similar reasons to yours, you want to work from home, whether you’re at home with your daughter or just tired of commuting or 9-5 crushing. I want to let you know you can do that!
If possible, he is 6 months old and works at the waist during naps, evenings and evenings.
If anything, I wish I could go back when my daughter was little and ask myself that everything was fine! Stop stress and enjoy these moments. Certainly I was always with my daughter, but most of the time my mind was somewhere else and trying to understand how to make this work. Trust yourself and your abilities, you are smart and more than abilities. Thousands of people have done it, and you can too.
You may not have all the answers and solutions to the various problems you will definitely encounter, but you can reach out to a little bit of glory, determination, and a huge community of virtual assistants and freelancers online.
Where do you go from here?
There are several options. You can follow the practical steps above and go to it at your own pace, but there is great value in being part of a community of hearted individuals who are on the same journey as you.
Without her, I wouldn’t have landed her as my first virtual assistant client, as I did by hiring a business coach.
Now I don’t recommend you go out and buy expensive virtual assistant courses, there are thousands of online courses out there, but I would recommend you to encourage you, brainstorm ideas and help you along the way, find like someone you have a heart. I have formed a tremendous friendship online. Some people have never met in person.
Being an independent contractor and freelancer is a great career choice and a community I am definitely proud to be part of. With hard work and determination, I can’t wait to welcome you too!
Are you interested in becoming a virtual assistant?
Author Bio: Dominique Dereice is a blogger and writer who is passionate about helping moms build flexible online businesses. She shares practical tips, strategies and insights on virtual assistants, productivity, and making money online on the Mommy VA blog. When she isn’t writing, you will find her spending time with her family, testing new business ideas, or walking with her dog Toby.
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