My journey to becoming a VA has been quite adventurous. I started working in customer service over a decade ago. I realized I had a calling for helping people at a young age. I started volunteering at 12 years old at places like local hospitals and the local Red Cross. I have a huge heart and am an avid animal lover. I also love yoga, shopping, traveling, and Earl Grey tea. My first real job outside of retail and food service was at a call center. This is where I realized I was good at helping others in more than just being kind. Things that I once thought were hard like technical support became easy as pie. Not just because I helped fix other peoples electronics, it just came naturally.
Fast forward to now. I have worked numerous call center jobs, most of them at home. This requires being self-taught, being meticulous, having a great attention to detail, and being able to lead yourself in what should be done. I have gained the office experience I always wanted, because everything was delegated and communicated through technology like web chat and email. Learning technical skills is, for the most part, self-taught. Sure, you get an idea through quick webinar trainings usually over a period of a week, but it requires previous experience and catching on quick.
Given that I have administrative and technical skills made it the ideal opportunity to help others when technology and social media is such a big part of living in todays world. Everyone has their faces in laptops, tablets, and cell phones. Everyone communicates via social media or email. Business online and local, find traffic and advertise through these platforms as well. It made sense to me to do this for other people. To help assist starting up websites, then a blog, and fan pages.
Quickly, this spiraled into me wanting to try my hand at my own small business. I can still remember the day I met with the Independent AVON representative nearly a decade ago, and paid my startup fee. I felt strong, I felt accomplished, and nothing could stop me. I was now free of being someone’s employee. I was free from the 9-5. Well, let's just say (nothing against AVON) but everyone and his or her cousin was a representative. It was over saturated so to speak. Therefore, I continued my jolly Ole 9-5, which was more like a 5 am-8 pm, and sometimes came back 3 hours later to work an entire shift all over again. I was back to square one.
My husband and I and our 1-year-old son at the time, was given a new home by the grand Ole flag, in Oklahoma. This was quite a culture shock. If I wanted a job, I was going to have to drive 2 hours a day or go back to retail at the one store in town, for what seemed to be a measly $400 a month which let’s be honest would be pointless since childcare would eat all that up without leaving room for gas or lunches or great work uniforms. You know the ones I mean, khaki pants and a row of the same colored shirts worn every day.
Therefore, I am sure you can guess what is coming next... yep; you guessed it, I decided to try my hand at one more independent business owner opportunity. I will not lie, I enjoyed it. I loved being an It Works independent distributor. There was a great opportunity, with lots of potential. I was not over saturated and they offered products that really do work, with a lifestyle change. To be able to offer people a product that could make them lose inches off their waist in 1 hour was impeccable. I still stand behind the products to this day. The reason I left was my own idea. I was a full time mom, full time wife, and full time college student. Outside of those three things, I spent an extra full time workweek devoted to my business. I made money, good money. I helped many people who appreciated the products. The problem? My grades started slipping badly and that was my goal, to get my education. I had to make the decision to get finish my education or quit and work my business.
So here we are, six classes left of my education. I have another baby due soon. I have done some freelance volunteer work helping others with their business via social media, or creating a blog, or a website. It does not take a lot of time. I decided well, I am good at this and maybe I can make it my own business. I am the go to tech woman for my friends and family. Maybe I can do it for others on a full-time basis. This is where I found out about being a Virtual Assistant. I always heard of it. I figured it was another "independent business owner" opportunity where you pay a company $100 -$500 dollars just to be associated. I figured it was like being a secretary for others, except remotely. I was wrong. You do not pay to be a part of an organization. You create your niche and your target market, write up a beautiful marketing plan, set up your own website, set your rates and begin helping others.
Fast forward to now. I have worked numerous call center jobs, most of them at home. This requires being self-taught, being meticulous, having a great attention to detail, and being able to lead yourself in what should be done. I have gained the office experience I always wanted, because everything was delegated and communicated through technology like web chat and email. Learning technical skills is, for the most part, self-taught. Sure, you get an idea through quick webinar trainings usually over a period of a week, but it requires previous experience and catching on quick.
Given that I have administrative and technical skills made it the ideal opportunity to help others when technology and social media is such a big part of living in todays world. Everyone has their faces in laptops, tablets, and cell phones. Everyone communicates via social media or email. Business online and local, find traffic and advertise through these platforms as well. It made sense to me to do this for other people. To help assist starting up websites, then a blog, and fan pages.
Quickly, this spiraled into me wanting to try my hand at my own small business. I can still remember the day I met with the Independent AVON representative nearly a decade ago, and paid my startup fee. I felt strong, I felt accomplished, and nothing could stop me. I was now free of being someone’s employee. I was free from the 9-5. Well, let's just say (nothing against AVON) but everyone and his or her cousin was a representative. It was over saturated so to speak. Therefore, I continued my jolly Ole 9-5, which was more like a 5 am-8 pm, and sometimes came back 3 hours later to work an entire shift all over again. I was back to square one.
My husband and I and our 1-year-old son at the time, was given a new home by the grand Ole flag, in Oklahoma. This was quite a culture shock. If I wanted a job, I was going to have to drive 2 hours a day or go back to retail at the one store in town, for what seemed to be a measly $400 a month which let’s be honest would be pointless since childcare would eat all that up without leaving room for gas or lunches or great work uniforms. You know the ones I mean, khaki pants and a row of the same colored shirts worn every day.
Therefore, I am sure you can guess what is coming next... yep; you guessed it, I decided to try my hand at one more independent business owner opportunity. I will not lie, I enjoyed it. I loved being an It Works independent distributor. There was a great opportunity, with lots of potential. I was not over saturated and they offered products that really do work, with a lifestyle change. To be able to offer people a product that could make them lose inches off their waist in 1 hour was impeccable. I still stand behind the products to this day. The reason I left was my own idea. I was a full time mom, full time wife, and full time college student. Outside of those three things, I spent an extra full time workweek devoted to my business. I made money, good money. I helped many people who appreciated the products. The problem? My grades started slipping badly and that was my goal, to get my education. I had to make the decision to get finish my education or quit and work my business.
So here we are, six classes left of my education. I have another baby due soon. I have done some freelance volunteer work helping others with their business via social media, or creating a blog, or a website. It does not take a lot of time. I decided well, I am good at this and maybe I can make it my own business. I am the go to tech woman for my friends and family. Maybe I can do it for others on a full-time basis. This is where I found out about being a Virtual Assistant. I always heard of it. I figured it was another "independent business owner" opportunity where you pay a company $100 -$500 dollars just to be associated. I figured it was like being a secretary for others, except remotely. I was wrong. You do not pay to be a part of an organization. You create your niche and your target market, write up a beautiful marketing plan, set up your own website, set your rates and begin helping others.
What is being a VA and how can it benefit me?
Being a Virtual assistant is providing what you are good at to others to help save them time and money. For example, say you know an entrepreneur... they work 60 hours a week running their business and have no time in their lives to spend doing the things they love. You can come to them and say, “Hey, I know you’re busy, I know running your business is too expensive to hire an employee, and I would like to help." Well how exactly can you help? You can offer your time for x amount of hours per week to manage their social media for advertising or comments, or writing blog posts, or assisting with their website. This saves them time and money.
Helping others saves them time because they were previously working 60 hours a week. You the expert know ways to handle social media without it being a full time exhausting job. You may also know how to make a website look phenomenal. You may also know how to write blog to get the most traffic, quicker. They now have time to go to their child’s football games, or take their wife out to dinner or attend the summer block party they have missed the past 5 years. This is a win-win for you and your potential client.
It saves them money because if they hired an employee to assist them they may pay them $15 an hour for 40 hours a week that is $2400 a month alone in wages. It does not stop there. They also have 30% extra on overhead costs just for that employee in taxes, benefits etc. That is an additional $720 a month just for that one employee. That comes out to $37440 a year. Now, let us break this down. You can do the same job as that employee at 10 hours a week, at $35 an hour. That is $1400 a month ( already a $1000 savings !) . No overhead costs, no benefits that is $16,800 a year that the business owner pays to hire a Virtual Assistant. You just saved that entrepreneur $20640 as well as the added time in their schedule.
More benefits to hiring a virtual assistant is that they ( the business owner) do not need the additional office space. Most VA's provide packaged services at a set dollar rate in certain specialty areas, their Niche so to speak. They do not need extra office equipment or office supplies, they do not need to have set hours for the Virtual Assistant which can also save on hiring an HR representative, we work independently, in our own time within the deadline, in our own office, with our own supplies.
Virtual assistants are booming. It will never be an over saturated market. Today is the age of technology. Businesses everywhere are outsourcing, in my opinion they are doing it the wrong way. They still hire employees to work for $9 per hour, they still have to provide benefits, and they still have to file taxes on each employee they hire as well as an HR department. You can save more time and money hiring a Virtual Assistant. Email me today for more information on how we can get started to help your business save time and money.
Helping others saves them time because they were previously working 60 hours a week. You the expert know ways to handle social media without it being a full time exhausting job. You may also know how to make a website look phenomenal. You may also know how to write blog to get the most traffic, quicker. They now have time to go to their child’s football games, or take their wife out to dinner or attend the summer block party they have missed the past 5 years. This is a win-win for you and your potential client.
It saves them money because if they hired an employee to assist them they may pay them $15 an hour for 40 hours a week that is $2400 a month alone in wages. It does not stop there. They also have 30% extra on overhead costs just for that employee in taxes, benefits etc. That is an additional $720 a month just for that one employee. That comes out to $37440 a year. Now, let us break this down. You can do the same job as that employee at 10 hours a week, at $35 an hour. That is $1400 a month ( already a $1000 savings !) . No overhead costs, no benefits that is $16,800 a year that the business owner pays to hire a Virtual Assistant. You just saved that entrepreneur $20640 as well as the added time in their schedule.
More benefits to hiring a virtual assistant is that they ( the business owner) do not need the additional office space. Most VA's provide packaged services at a set dollar rate in certain specialty areas, their Niche so to speak. They do not need extra office equipment or office supplies, they do not need to have set hours for the Virtual Assistant which can also save on hiring an HR representative, we work independently, in our own time within the deadline, in our own office, with our own supplies.
Virtual assistants are booming. It will never be an over saturated market. Today is the age of technology. Businesses everywhere are outsourcing, in my opinion they are doing it the wrong way. They still hire employees to work for $9 per hour, they still have to provide benefits, and they still have to file taxes on each employee they hire as well as an HR department. You can save more time and money hiring a Virtual Assistant. Email me today for more information on how we can get started to help your business save time and money.