Working from home as a virtual assistant is a legitimate online business opportunity. If you decide to make a living online working as virtual assistants you will be helping your clients running their business by completing technical and administrative tasks from your home based office. If you want to start making money online and you are skilled and hardworking individual you should consider becoming virtual assistant.
Working as virtual assistant will require that you work from your home office and communicate with your clients using email phone or fax, but occasionally virtual assistants may be required to work in their clients office.
What kind of jobs virtual assistants work on?
Virtual assistants work on administrative task for their clients. They work from their home based office and occasionally from the clients office. Virtual assistants usually work on services like:
- Typing and transcription
- Internet research
- Data base management
- Mail correspondence
- Accounting and Bookkeeping
- Managing documents
- Managing social media accounts
- Travel arrangements
Advantages and disadvantages of working as virtual assistant
Working at home as virtual assistants has many advantages. Being virtual assistant means that you will be self employed and there will be no boss watching over your shoulder. You will be your own boss and decide when and how much you will work and what is your pay rate per hour of work. You don’t have fixed work hours, you can work more or less, in the morning or in the evening. You will get paid for your work hours. If you work more you will earn more and if you work less you will make less money.
When you are starting your virtual assistant business you can start small and see if virtual assistant business is right for you before you quit your day job. You can also choose clients you want to work with.Virtual assistants in general work from home and communicate with their clients using internet, phone, fax etc. which means less expenses for travel to work and less time lost in traffic which you can use productively by working. You can also work while you are away from home like on a vacation.
Hiring virtual assistant has many benefits for their clients. Virtual assistants work from home using their own equipment. Virtual assistants pay their taxes by themselves and are generally more committed to the quality of their work. Clients can also hire virtual assistants whenever they need work to be done without hiring them as permanent employee. Clients use virtual assistants to outsource technical task when they cant do them themselves or don’t have enough time.
Being a freelance virtual assistant also has its disadvantages. Some of them is that there is no jo and no benefits and paid vacations. Being self employed virtual assistants need to take care of everything themselves from finding clients to paying their bills and taxes. Virtual assistants may also work late hours at nights to meet their deadline. The home based office can also be a disadvantage because of the many distractions from family members.
What skills are necessary to succeed as Virtual Assistant
Virtual assistance is not for everyone. Before starting your virtual assistant online business you will need to think about is it the right choice for you. There are a number of skills that are necessary to succeed as virtual assistant:
- Organizational skills – virtual assistants need to be organized. Dealing with dead lines from many clients simultaneously as well as distractions from family members when you work from home will require good level of organization to ensure everything goes well.
- Time management skills – because time is money, as a self employed you virtual assistants need to know how to manage their time so they don’t lose time on irrelevant things.
- Computer and internet skills – if you work as virtual assistant you will most likely communicate with your clients using email or internet messaging services like Skype. Because of this knowing how to use computer and internet are necessary. Many of your jobs will require that you type documents or create spreadsheets for your clients, so knowing how to use productivity software is also crucial for the success of your virtual assistant online business.
- Communication skills – virtual assistant communicate with their clients mostly online using email and messenger services. This will require good writing skills. Their job will also require to communicate with many people so they can schedule meeting, plan an event or make travel arrangements. All this will require a excellent communication skills.
How to find virtual assistant jobs
There are number of websites online where you can find virtual assistant jobs:
- Freelance jobs marketplaces. Freelance websites are great place to star their virtual assistant career for begginers. There are many jobs posted on websites like Odesk, Elance, Freelancer.cm and other sites.
- Build your own website or blog to connect with potential clients. You can build your own website or blog where you can write useful articles to drive targeted traffic and offer your services to the visitors.
- Classified ads. You can check out classified ads sites like craigslist to find job openings for virtual assistants and also post an ad offering your services.
- VANetworking – is a website that is social network for virtual assistants where you can find many resources as well as jobs posted on the job board.
- Employment websites. There are virtual job listings on employment websites like indeed.com and careerbuilder.com or jobster.com
