Make Money with a Virtual Assistant

October 2, 2008 | 1 Comment

Many people dream of being a Virtual Assistant and working from home.  It is a great job, if you do not mind wearing the many hats of an entrepreneur.  But to make money as a virtual assistant, you need to think of yourself as more than a virtual assistant.

The problem I have always had with the term virtual assistant is that it is so vague.  Business owners often cannot grasp how to use a virtual assistant.  The virtual assistants do not help when they tell them they will do a bunch of things.  That just seems like they will try to do anything but are probably not good at anything.

To make real money as a virtual assistant, you need to focus on developing special, high value skills and selling yourself as a virtual specialist.  That is why we started the Virtual Buzz Network.  Our virtual assistants hone their virtual internet marketing skills and offer a variety of high value services that are very specific, have measurable goals and save the business owner time.

Here is a list of the more common virtual marketing assistant skills.

  1. Blog writing
  2. Copy Writing
  3. Article Publishing
  4. Online Advocacy and PR
  5. Community Management
  6. Adwords Management
  7. eNewsletter Writing and Publishing
  8. Social Bookmarketing

Now you may think this is a small list of skills, but consider this as a sample project for a company.

  1. Your company wants to create leads for small business owners of your industry.
  2. You build a ning community and customize it with a virtual assistant.
  3. You set up a blog and do keyword research - you begin writing daily to attract your target audience.
  4. On the blog, you offer the visitors free access to your private community when they sign up for your newsletter.
  5. Traffic is now coming to your blog from search engines, social media, twitter and adwords.  You are getting 5-10 new people signing up per day.
  6. You use the email and the community to educate people on the advantages of your product, and also give away all kinds of free content.
  7. 1% of people buy from you eventually.  Approximately one new customer every 10 days.  As all your efforts keep growing, word of mouth and search engines increase the rate of subscribers.  The second year it is a new customer every 5 days.  As long as you keep working on it, you continue to get better and better results.

This is just a ficticious example, but accurately demonstrates a solid strategy.  You’d have some expense in blog hosting and email marketing tools, but it is minor.  Your virtual assistant would do everything above to ensure that you would keep selling in your normal channels and not have to spend excessive time on the internet marketing side.

Now doesn’t that make a lot of sense?

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Making Money as a Virtual Assistant

September 5, 2008 | 1 Comment

First, I have to say that this post is not typical of every member of our Virtual Buzz Assistant Network.

How did one member launch a business and generate $4,000 per month in clients within the first 3 months?

When you join this virtual assistant network, it is not like eLance or Guru.com where you are competing with everyone in the world.  It is far fewer projects and far fewer marekting assistants.  So if you are proactive you can get some nice projects.  Generally I find that the active people do well, and other people sign up intending to use it but do not find the time and do not get the benefits.

So the story:  Four months ago one of our members quit his job.  He could not take it anymore.  (I would never advise doing that unless you already have other income.)

He asked me questions, formed his company, set up his website and used the Virtual Buzz Assistant Network to find clients and sharpen his skills.  Even though the summer was slow, he just closed his third client.  All three clients together are over $4,000 per month in reoccuring revenue as long as he does a good job with them.

I have started a few companies in my years, and I think his expereience has been exceptional.  His costs are low, his income is better than ever and now he is turning down projects.

The one thing he has not learned yet is how to scale the business.  He needs to stop turning down projects and outsource (after his cut) to other members of the network.  Otherwise his income will not stay consistant as clients come and go.

I am highlighting his success because it truly is exceptional and shows that you can do it with some luck and hard work.

Making Money as a virtual assistant is not easier than making money in a job.  But it can be more rewarding and more profitable.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

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