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If you’re thinking of starting a Virtual Assistant business, you’ll be joining a growing army of highly skilled professionals, many of whom have worked in an office and often have a PA background (like myself!).
Most Virtual Assistants provide professional administrative, technical or creative assistance to their clients remotely from a home office. And by 2021, it’s predicted that 24% of digital workers will use a VA on a daily basis.
Top 10 tips for starting a Virtual Assistant business in the UK
As a newbie Virtual Assistant there are many things you need to get on top of but here are my top 10 tips for becoming a kickass Virtual Assistant and getting ahead of the competition!
1. Do a Virtual Assistant Business Plan
A Virtual Assistant Business Plan will help you determine the direction you want your business to go in and help keep you on track! As the saying goes, ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail!’. A simple business plan will suffice and should include the following:
- your aims, objectives and vision,
- your background and experience,
- the purpose of your business including legal structure
- your marketing strategy and plan
- details of how you are going to finance your business
2. Choose your Virtual Assistant services and niche
You will need to decide what Virtual Assistant services you are going to offer. Some popular services including social media management, content creation, blogging and email marketing. The VA Handbook has written a great blog post listing 30 Virtual Assistant services you can offer.
Once you have decided what services you are going to offer you need to define your niche. A niche will help you attract your ideal client and tailor your marketing accordingly.
3. Build a kickass Virtual Assistant brand
It’s essential to build a kickass brand, if you want your Virtual Assistant business to be successful! You need to make sure your brand will attract your ideal client, so you need to choose your logo, colour palette, fonts and other brand assets carefully. You also need to nail your brand voice.
4. Do your VA website or get a professional to do it for you!
Your website is essentially your ‘shop window’ and I strongly advise you to have one. You can either build your own website using WordPress or Squarespace or get a professional website designer like Darren Strudwick who runs VA Websites to do it for you. Darren specialises in creating VA websites and is highly recommended!
He also runs a great Facebook group for Virtual Assistants called Darren’s Free VA Community.
I also recommend you have a blog (which we will come to shortly) and add a lead magnet to your website Home page.
5. Create a lead magnet for your Virtual Assistant website
Sales are the life blood of your business so it’s essential you have a Virtual Assistant sales funnel. A lead magnet is at the top of your sales funnel and is a valuable piece of content that you exchange in return for a prospect’s email address. Popular lead magnets including eBooks, checklists and other freebies that help solve a client’s problem. I’ve done a sales funnel toolkit which will help you create a simple but powerful sales funnel to supercharge your sales.
6. Learn how to blog
A regularly updated blog will help establish you as an authority in your niche as well as help with your Google ranking. You can also repurpose blog content for sharing on social media. My business blogging toolkit will help you write SEO optimised blog posts like this one!
7. Get the legals for your Virtual Assistant in place
As with any business, you need to make sure you have the legals in place when you start your Virtual Assistant business. This includes a Freelancer Agreement & T&Cs, Website Policies, Data Processing Agreement and an Associate Agreement if you are going to outsource work to other VAs. I recommend Koffeeklatch for your VA contracts etc. Clear Books have written a great guide about the legal aspects of setting up your business which is well worth reading!
8. Get VA insurance
It’s essential you get insurance for your Virtual Assistant business to cover you in case anything goes wrong! Most VAs work from a remote location such as their home. However, you may be employed on a contract or freelance basis and/or work out of a client’s office. I once worked at a client’s office and being a clumsy pants, I nearly spilt coffee all over their laptop! I was covered but imagine my horror if I had damaged their laptop and didn’t have any insurance cover in place!
9. Nail your pricing and charge your worth as a Virtual Assistant!
In a recent survey carried out by APVA it was found that the average hourly rate of a VA had risen from £21-£25 per hour in 2019 to to £26-£30 per hour in 2020.
However, that is just a rough guideline as you should set your rates according to your experience, skillset and demand for your services. For example, a tech savvy Virtual Assistant with a specialist skillset will obviously charge more than a VA offering general admin services.
Remember to value yourself and charge your worth! It might also be worth buying a copy of Work Note’s freelancing pricing guide.
10. Network, network, network!
If you want to find new leads and gain new clients, it’s important to network! Some estimates show that upwards of 85% of jobs are filled through networking, so reach out to former co-workers, friends and others in your network. Online networking can work just as well as offline networking if meeting face to face isn’t your thing (and obviously not possible at the moment!). I also highly recommend using LinkedIn as it’s a great platform for Virtual Assistants to attract new clients.
VIRTUAL ASSISTANT TOOLKIT
For a step-by-step guide to setting up your UK based Virtual Assistant business, grab a copy of ‘my little purple VA toolkit’ which covers everything you need to start, run and grow your VA business without the faff!
A Virtual Assistant’s secret weapon for success
If you’re a newbie Virtual Assistant based in the UK, your secret weapon for success is Amanda Johnson!
Amanda Johnson – Business Coach, Trainer and Mentor specialising in Virtual Assistants
If you want to get your business off to a flying start and get ahead of the competition, I highly recommend getting in touch with Amanda Johnson. Amanda runs VACT and is well known and respected in the VA industry. She is THE GO-TO person for VA coaching, training and mentoring.
She also runs a fabuous Facebook group called Virtual Assistant Help Desk for “Goto VAs and OBMs”
Unfortunately, there are so many charlatans out there and Amanda is the only person I would recommend!
About Annie
Annie is an ex-City EA/PA turned Freelance Virtual PA. She also runs Bijou Concierge and is a professional Copywriter/Content Writer/Blogger. As well as her best selling VA toolkit, Annie has written various other business toolkits for freelancers, self-employed and small business owners to help get things done including digital marketing, content writing, blogging, branding, brand voice, pricing etc.
Good luck and if you need any help feel free to email annie@bijoconcierge.co.uk. You can also connect with Annie on LinkedIn.
