Is it just me or has being a secretary prepared you to become a Virtual Assistant? I have over 30 years experience as an Administrative Assistant and a little over 3 years as a Virtual Assistant. I have worked different jobs but the majority of them have been in offices. Only my retail management job was different.
One day I was sitting at my desk and a thought popped into my mind "hey why don't I work for other people remotely?" With today's technology, why not? As long as I had a fax machine, computer, printer and a phone, it can be done. So I googled Virtual Assistants and was shocked that it was already a big, not big, huge thing. Here I am thinking I'm being creative by coming up with something new. This was already a big thing. After that I log onto Facebook to see what I can find out about it and there are so many fb groups already up and running. It was then that I realized I was living under a rock. lol
I decided to jump on the bandwagon and drum up some business for myself. First thing I did was join a couple of facebook groups. That was the best thing I could have done. I tried to do it on my own but I felt like I was all over the place and doing a lot but really doing nothing. I was also trying not to spend any money but I know in order to make money you have to spend money so I hired me a mentor. I really didn't think I needed one because how hard can this VA thing be? I type everyday, I use a computer everyday, I use Microsoft Office, Excel (sometimes), Powerpoint, research for different projects and create spreadsheets, posters and fliers. Boy was I wrong.
My mentored hooked me up with an internship. The company wanted help with social media. I thought to myself "this must be an older person because everyone knows how to post on Facebook and Instagram. Working for this person I found out that their was so much more to social media than just posting pics on those 2 platforms. I learned a lot about creating content. What is content?
After my internship I decided to build me a website so I could advertise my business Diamond Bright Assistance. I built my site on Wix myself only to find out about blogging which is better on Wordpress. Great! Keep count, 2nd thing I know nothing about- blogging, the 1st is content. Next I wanted to offer a freebie for my services so I was told to put a call to action on my page (CTA), wait, what? 3rd thing I know nothing about. I then joined the Freelance University which is the best thing ever. They have classes for everything. I now know about Social Media, Content Creation, Email Management, Blogging, Call to Action, Funnels, Automation, Digital Marketing, Content Website Audits, Copywriting, Facebook Live, Streamyard and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Just think when I first started out all I knew about was Microsoft Office, Excel, and Powerpoint. By the way all I use now out of those 3 things is Microsoft Office. There is so much more that Virtual Assistants do. Virtual Assistant's are way more than secretaries. VA's can run your whole operation, organize it and take it to a whole other level.
Tell me about your experience. Was it similar to mine or were you well prepared?
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