I wish I earned a pound for every time I was sent a DM asking, ‘but can you make money as a Virtual Assistant?’ It would be a nice passive stream of income for me. But more on that later….!
The short answer
The short answer to the question, ‘can you make money as a Virtual Assistant’ is yes. A longer answer is absolutely yes! But I appreciate that elaboration is needed on the topic to set minds at rest. This is given the number of messages and comments I read on the topic. Working as a Virtual Assistant is a 100% legitimate and will 100% give you an income.
Why is it questioned then?
I can only think that it is because Virtual Assistants are across social media promoting their services. And that this makes people question whether they would need to do that if they had any work. I also see Virtual Assistants offering several services, which would again perhaps make people question if any of them actually work. But first….
Marketing is an ongoing necessity
I am absolutely full to the brim with clients at the moment, but that is just right now and in the moment. When you are self-employed and contracted in as a service, there is no guarantee of work beyond the limits set by the contracts you are in with clients. Some of my client relationships are ongoing with no formal notice periods in place, some have notice periods and others are fixed-term contracts.
Part of being self-employed is managing your business so that you are ideally never short of work. This means consistency with marketing. I am currently earning a pretty consistent figure each month and one that I am happy with. BUT I am still posting on social media and building my community and network as I am still very much open to opportunities, should I be lucky enough for them to arise!
Other income opportunities
Covid taught me a brutal, but necessary lesson in business that you should diversify your income streams. When I lost 90% of my client work (and income!!) over the course of a week, I set about researching how I could make money from my business in other ways. I could have looked at taking on other clients, but I presumed Covid was a ‘blip’. As such, I held space for my clients who had had to close their businesses temporarily and had paused, rather than stopped my services. None of us knew what to do for the best, but taking on new clients didn’t seem right at the time.
I used to be a trainer and have teaching qualifications, so creating my Virtual Assistant training course seemed like a no-brainer. This was followed with a book about how to find clients. I also produced some downloadable social media templates. Additionally, I have worked on my website authority and earn money in a number of different ways from that including income from affiliate schemes.
None of these are going to change my life right now. But what they do provide is a small additional income which makes gaps between clients slightly more palatable!
But who knows, maybe my Virtual Assistant blog post ideas will take right off and I will be the next huge influencer! The possibilities are exciting!
Being open to opportunities which come your way
A number of my course students have approached me about providing 1:1 mentoring. This is not something I offer or have in my business plan right now. However, if that direction was where my desire for business growth lay, then I would absolutely be up for this. I see many experienced Virtual Assistants who are now offering coaching. Being self-employed is hard work and lonely at times. So it makes sense that people newer to the role will look for advice and guidance from more experienced practitioners.
So this does not mean that those more experienced Virtual Assistants cannot find clients. It just means that likely natural, organic progression and development of their skills and business has occurred and they are now offering a new or alternative service.
It may just be to keep things interesting!
If you think about it, in regular employment there are often staff changes, responsibility changes and opportunities for promotion which occur. When you are self employed, you are the master of all of this. There is no clear path of career progression or Team Leader changing up your workload. So a Virtual Assistant may simply choose to diversify their product and service offering as a way of keeping things interesting for themselves!
Where to find out more to answer to the question, ‘can you make money as a Virtual Assistant?’
My Virtual Assistant blog is an excellent place to start. You are already here, so why not take a look at my other posts! Enjoy exploring the Virtual Assistant world of freelancing and self-employment.