The Debrief: A Virtual Assistant Business

Welcome to The Debrief. This week we interviewed Emily, an entrepreneur who set up her own personal assistant business to help fund her travel hobby. If you didn’t catch it, feel free to check it out here before diving into this edition.

In this mid-week newsletter, we are going to investigate what we covered in our interview and breakdown the key takeaways and share some actionable advice for you to work on in your business venture.

Each debrief is designed to give you something to work on each week based off the advice given by our featured entrepreneur.

Let’s get into it!

Some Associates

Key takeaways:

1. To be successful as a virtual assistant you need make sure that the service you offer is going to solve an issue for your client. What you offer must be beneficial to them and must be completed at a very high standard. Bringing on a virtual assistant should allow the business owner to run parts of their business stress-free and allow them to focus on other aspects while trusting you as their virtual assistant to handle the rest.

2. A virtual assistant has many perks for a businessperson. They get the luxury of additional help without the hassle of hiring a full-time employee. You can work from anywhere in the world and more often than not, you can work whatever hours fit your schedule best. Hiring a virtual assistant could actually reduce the operational costs of the business, this is your value proposition.

3. A virtual assistant can offer many solutions but when starting out, it is best to focus on a select few and become really good at them. If you’re unsure on where to start, it’s best to brainstorm your skills and see if you can translate those into a service that someone would be willing to pay for.

   Bonus tip: Ask for feedback from all your clients. Listen to what they have to say, improve where possible, and adapt your service to fit what they require. You’ll then be able to offer new clients a better service.

My thoughts:

A virtual assistant is a great side hustle for most people in the professional world. To become successful in this niche, organisational skills are a must, this is non-negotiable so, if you struggle to keep on top of your own work, maybe a side hustle in this niche is not for you. However, it doesn’t just stop there, you need to offer your clients a service which they would pay for because it makes their life easier. Do you have any professional skills which someone would benefit from? In our interview with Emily, she mentioned a whole list of services she offers, social media management, photoshop services, copywriting, website development, bookkeeping, yada yada yada - the point being, she has a HUGE arsenal of services which she is extremely good at, and her clients can pick and choose what they need from her. This has huge potential for becoming a full-time business - as demonstrated by Emily. So, if you can offer similar services, then this might be for you.

Now, onto the graph!

In the paragraph above, I may have painted a picture that being a virtual assistant is something super difficult to get into. Well, it’s not. In fact, you don’t need to be offering every service under the sun. To be honest, you’re much better picking a select few and becoming the very best at those. There are so many tasks that busy businesspeople need doing and most are willing to pay for those. You should have no problem finding clients with a portfolio of no more than three services.

The time requirements are always going to be on the higher side because you’re trading your time for a service. If you want to build the business, you need to spend more time working. That sounds like a regular 9-5, right? Well, it kinda is. The exception is you don’t need to work eight hours straight five days a week. You pick your schedule; you work when you need to at a time that works for you. However, regardless of the time you work, you will need to put the hours in to find clients, build relationships, and provide the service that your clients pay you for.

The demand for a virtual assistant is high and it’s growing. Earlier this year, Support Shepherd, a company offering overseas virtual assistants was acquired for $30m. This is a huge sign of the demand that is building for people offering these services. However, due to the nature of the remote work, the competition will be high so, bear that in mind.

Scalability really depends on what you want from this side hustle. If you’re happy working for one or two clients and spending a few hours a week doing it, then scalability isn’t really a factor to consider. However, if your goal is to leave the rat race, a virtual assistant business could be your ticket out there if you’re prepared to work long hours doing it. You could scale it further and hire a team of virtual assistants to work for you (see point above about Support Shepherd), and this is where the big money can come into play.

Do you agree with me? I’d love to know your thoughts, just reply to this email!

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👇️ Now it’s your turn to answer a question:

If you’d like to read last week’s debrief, covering an interview with Jay, a musician who works a side hustle as a dog walker. Check it out here.

Thank you all,

See you on Sunday! 👋