Have you ever heard of a virtual assistant? Virtual assistants are an extension of small businesses, helping the owner with everything from email management to customer service to social media management. Since the start of the pandemic and the growth of remote work, virtual assistants are becoming more and more popular for moms. This is because you work as an independent contractor, meaning you can work as much as you want, whenever you want, with who you want, and set your own rates! Just make sure you get your tasks done before the deadline. But how can you become a virtual assistant as a mom, when you’re raising a family? Let me show you!
Decide What Services You Want To Offer
You can offer hundreds of services as a virtual assistant, even part-time! If you love organizing, consider offering email management. This means you create filters and labels for a busy business owner, as well as keep up with incoming communication. You can also offer calendar management. This means you schedule everything for your client so every day is optimized. You can even offer CRM management. This means that you manage their clients, documents, and communication so they can focus on other tasks for their business.
If organizing isn’t your thing, you can offer customer service.
Answer emails and phone calls from customers and solve their problems on behalf of your client.
You can also offer lead generation. You reach out via email to people that your client can work with, growing their business! This is a very time-consuming part of business, so this is always in demand!
If none of those are very interesting to you, but you’re very creative and analytical, consider becoming a graphic designer or a social media virtual assistant. You can design ebooks, flyers, and even social media posts. The great thing about offering this is you don’t even need to have a background in graphic design! There is software like Canva that have templates for you to easily customize and download. You can become a social media virtual assistant and help your client grow their online presence. There is a service for you to offer no matter your interests.
Join Facebook Groups
Now that you know what you’re offering, have practiced, and have a good resume, it’s time to find some clients of your own! The quickest way to get clients is to find a niche. Nicheing means you narrow your services to a select few or narrow down who you want to work with.
These niches can be coaches, photographers, other moms, mental health specialists, or authors.
There are so many niches to work with!
Once you know the few specialized services you will offer or who you want to work with, join Facebook groups dedicated to those businesses.
So, if you want to work with photographers, join “photography” groups.
This routine goes for every business! Once you’re in 10-20 groups, you can offer your services there. But be careful! Some groups can mark this as spam, so only provide it depending on the group rules and conversations. You can also search for discussions based on your services and offer them in the comments. People will always need a virtual assistant, so don’t let the fear of not succeeding stop you!
Join Freelancing Platforms
If you want to take the guessing game out of finding clients and apply to VA jobs where business owners are actively seeking virtual assistants, consider joining a freelancing platform.
The most popular platforms for freelancers are Upwork and Fiverr.
These are great for finding active work for your exact services.
However, these platforms take a percentage of your earnings, so price accordingly. These also have a reputation for hiring at the lowest rate, sometimes as low as $2 USD/hour. While this is not the most recommended practice for freelancers, it’s a great starting option.
Managing Your Time
If you’ve made it this far, you may be feeling overwhelmed.
That’s completely normal! There are so many options for moms, but the trouble is managing your time.
A great way to manage time is called the time-blocking method.
Time-blocking means you block out specific time slots in your daily schedule and dedicate this to becoming a virtual assistant.
Block out one hour daily, five days a week, to your side hustle. You can save this for researching, bettering your skills, finding clients, and even working! You can wake up earlier, do it during your kids’ naps, or even in bed!
You Can Do It!
There are thousands of virtual assistants who are moms, work part-time from home, and make over $5k/month, and you can too! There are so many services you can offer and clients you can work with. Don’t let the fear of not doing well stop you. If you’re finding yourself doubting, join virtual assistant Facebook groups. Ask for advice, make new friends, and ask for an accountability partner to make sure you’re focusing on your side hustle. You can look into even more side hustles if you want a more diverse income. You can do it!
Kaitlyn Lowther is an INFJ and is the CEO of a content marketing agency, Virtually Vital, that started as a side hustle while she was a full-time college student. She started her blog, Strive Hustles, to give people information and resources to make an extra income. Her goal is to give people as much bias-free guidance as possible!
