Start From Where You Are

I remember what it was like to launch my Virtual Assistant business, RocketGirl Solutions. I didn’t quite know what the first steps were, I was always questioning myself, and there was a lot of starting and stopping. In this episode of The RocketGirl Show, I'll share four steps to start where you are in your Virtual Assistant Business.

TRANSCRIPT 

Hi everybody. I'm Belinda Wasser, also known as RocketGirl and today we're going to talk about how to start from where you are.

When I first started my virtual assistant business, I didn't really know where to get started or what to do next, and I spent a lot of time worrying about when this is ever going to take off and what was it going to look like when it did. So today, I just want to address that a little bit and talk to you about some steps that you can take to get started.

Now, a lot of people spend time trying to make everything perfect before they launch their business, but I really encourage you not to do that, especially right now because there's nothing hotter than being a virtual assistant right now in our economy.

The first step is to gather all your contacts in one place. The reason that you're going to do that is it's important to let everyone know what you're up to.

The second thing is to make a list of your services. I'm going to go back to number one in a second, but make a list of your services. The list is probably significantly longer than you think. If you think about skills that you used in the past: Microsoft Office, organizing an event, that time you updated a website, editing photographs, so things that you use in your everyday life count as a service. You don't have to have done them as a virtual assistant to list them in your services. I have a Facebook group called The Virtual Assistant Connection and in there I have a list of over a hundred things that virtual assistants can do to get started working right now. So if you're interested in that, head on over there and I'll make sure you get it. But just make a really long list of everything you can do.

Decide on an hourly rate. A lot of people who are starting as VAs worry about this. What I would tell you is whatever you think it is, make it a little higher so it's just a tiny bit uncomfortable and recognize that you can change this later. What I did with my clients is I set an hourly rate that I was comfortable with or a little uncomfortable with, and then what I did was I got five clients and then I raised the rate on the new clients. So it's a nice way to maintain your current income, add new clients at a slightly higher rate. So decide on your hourly rate, but again, don't spend a ton of time on it. Just pick a rate.

The next thing is, this is why you need your contacts because I want you to send an email to everyone, letting them know you're in business, and it will probably look something like this: "I'm thrilled to announce the launch of my virtual assistant business, RocketGirl Solutions. I specialize in providing admin support for small businesses." So keep it simple, keep it to the point. If you have a website, invite them to go there. But really, you need people that know what you're doing, you need a set of skills. My skills when I started were few, really few. I understood how Office worked, I knew a little HTML from fooling around with websites and I was a wizard at Constant Contact, and from there I've grown a business that's been in business almost 10 years and then I've consistently made six figures. So you can build your skills as you go.

Yes, there are lots of other things to do. You'll need to build a website, you'll need to learn new skills, you'll need to get business cards, but what you don't need to do is have it all perfect because when you make this announcement, you may or may not get a client. If you do, you can figure it out with them, what are the different things that you need? I encourage you not to wait until it's perfect, but jump in, both feet, tell people what you're up to and then you'll figure it out as you go.

I want to tell you a little bit more about this Facebook group. It's called The Virtual Assistant Connection. We have 3,800 members right, no, I'm sorry, 2,800 members right now, and it's a wonderful community, lots of learning, lots of connection. The whole purpose of The Virtual Assistant Connection is to connect and educate VAs all over the world, and we've been having a lot of fun together doing it. So invite you to join me right there.

Okay, everybody, thank you for coming today. It's great to see you. I'm Belinda Wasser. I hope you have a great rest of your day. Bye bye.