What Is a Virtual Assistant? And What Do They Actually Do? | ep 2

👉🌴 Take My FREE VA Skills Quiz and find out if you have the skills to start your own remote virtual assistant business

You’ve probably heard the term virtual assistant while searching for how to create an online income, work remotely, or become a digital nomad…

But what does a virtual assistant actually do?

And more importantly - could you become one, even if you have no previous VA experience?

In today's episode, I'm breaking down exactly what a virtual assistant is, what services you can offer, how your existing skills can help you start a VA business, real UK virtual assistant rates and what a realistic starting income actually looks like, and why becoming a virtual assistant can be such a powerful first step into becoming your own boss.

I’m also sharing how I personally discovered the VA business model when I was trying to figure out how to replace my 9-5 income and create a life where I could work from anywhere.

Because if you’re sitting there thinking, “I want to leave my corporate job, but I have no idea what I could actually do online…” - this episode is for you.

In this episode, we cover:

• What a virtual assistant actually does
• What services you can offer as a VA
• The difference between being a virtual assistant, freelancer, and employee
• Why you don’t need years of experience to become a virtual assistant
• How to identify the transferable skills you already have
• How to turn your current 9-5 experience into VA services
• How to choose the right virtual assistant niche
• The types of businesses that hire virtual assistants
• Why VA clients often work with you on a monthly retainer
• How much virtual assistants can charge
• What VA rates can look like in the UK
• How a VA can create a sustainable full-time online income
• Why becoming a virtual assistant can be a great first step into business ownership
• How your VA business can eventually give you more time and location freedom

What Does a Virtual Assistant Actually Do?

A virtual assistant is essentially a freelancer who provides support to business owners who need help managing the growing workload in their business.

Rather than being an employee, you’re running your own virtual assistant business and supporting clients with the tasks they need to delegate.

That could include things like:

• Admin and inbox management
• Calendar management
• Social media and marketing
• Email marketing
• Creative and design
• Website and branding support
• Events
• Customer service
• Sales and outreach
• Projects
• Tech and systems
• Data and analytics

And if you’re currently dreaming about quitting your 9-5, becoming your own boss, and creating a full-time online income, this could be your first step.

Send this episode to the friend you’ve been having those “I hate my 9-5, I wish I could work remotely” conversations with.

And if this episode helped you, please leave the podcast a 5-star review. It helps me get this show in front of more people who are ready to create a different kind of life.

Love your future business owner. 🤍

• Follow me on TikTok 👉 @lucyjasminecole
• DM me on Instagram 👉 @lucyjasminecole
• Take my FREE Virtual Assistant Skills Quiz 
• The VA Services Blueprint ( only £11!!)
• Ready to build your VA business? Join the Virtual Assistant Academy to learn how to sign clients, earn a sustainable online income, and create more freedom.

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Across your research in trying to learn how to create an online income, how to become a digital nomad, how to become a business owner, you've probably come across the term of a virtual assistant. It sounds pretty self-explanatory, but you keep asking yourself, what actually is a virtual assistant and what the heck does it actually do? And that is exactly what you're going to be learning in today's episode. Hello and welcome to Giving My Notice Podcast. I'm Lucy Cole, the host, and I am a virtual assistant coach where I help people build, launch, and sign their own virtual assistant business so you can create their own full-time online income to have time freedom, location freedom, and actually become their own business owner. So in today's episode, we're going to be learning about what a virtual assistant actually is. You're going to be walking away, understanding what a virtual assistant is, how you can become one, how you're going to be able to create that full-time online income, and deciding if this is even the path for you. Because to be honest, there are so many different ways that you can be creating a full-time online income out there. But this video is going to be specifically all about the virtual assistant world because to be honest, this is what I am so passionate about. When I first started researching how I was going to create my own online income, I came across so many different methods and so many different business models of how you can achieve that. However, nothing was really sticking for me because I would come across becoming an online employee and I would think to myself, I don't want to have a boss again. That is absolutely not for me. I came across UGC and that felt really heavy in the content creation side of things. I came across drop shipping and again, it just felt like it wasn't me at all. And I would have to learn a lot about a new industry that I didn't know a fat lot about, to be honest. I came across affiliate marketing, and again, it felt like I would have to create so many sales, really high quantity, to be able to create that full-time online income. And then, you know what I came across? The bottom of that list where you're searching on Google was a virtual assistant. And I thought to myself, hmm, this feels like it could be a really good path for me because it feels like I've already got a ton of transferable skills that I can bring into this business model. So I personally had that aha moment thinking this is gonna be my path and least resistance to creating that full-time online income for myself to sustain myself, to be able to travel, to have that freedom lifestyle that I craved. And when I started digging a little bit deeper into what a virtual assistant was and actually starting to understand it, I quickly realized it was ticking a lot of the boxes for me, which were the requirements of me wanting to create this full-time online income. So I became my own business owner, I was gonna be my own boss, I wasn't having to be an employee again. There was no huge upfront cost to actually starting the business because it's a service-based business. I'm gonna go into a lot more detail in this episode anyway. I'd be able to do this virtually, meaning that I could literally live and work from wherever I wanted to in the world. I wasn't gonna be tied down to an office and a location-dependent job. And I didn't need to learn any new skills. I already had so many skills I was able to transfer in from a pre-existing experience. And again, we're gonna go into all the details so you can understand the exact same thing for you. So you need to go ahead and open your notes app, you need to go grab a notepad because buckle up, class is in session. So, what actually is a virtual assistant by definition? A virtual assistant is someone who is a freelancer and they are a generalist providing support to business owners that are looking to grow and scale. You, as a virtual assistant, you are someone who's gonna be coming into businesses who physically cannot do all the work themselves anymore, and you are there to alleviate tasks. You're there to be delegated tasks to help with the business growth. You're basically taking off that pressure. Those businesses who have a huge to-do list, you're gonna actually help with a ton of those tasks, leaving them to be able to actually work on things in their business that really requires their attention. And as a virtual assistant, you are going to be a freelancer. Yes, you can work at an agency. However, in this video, I am not about you becoming an employee. I'm very much all about you becoming an own business owner. So that's what I'm going to be focusing on. This is what I did, and this is also what I helped my clients to do as well is actually become their own boss, be a freelancer supporting their clients. And as a virtual assistant, you're providing retainer support. This is honestly the industry-wide norm at this point, is that you are coming in on a monthly basis supporting with the same clients. And this is honestly reason number 420 why I love the virtual assistant path so much is because it is sustainable. You are able to sign contracts with your clients. That means you're working with them month on month on month. You are creating a secure, sustainable long-term income by becoming a business owner. It means that you get all the perks of being your own boss, you get all the freedom, and you also get the sustainability with having that income every single month. And you also can work with global clients because you're virtual, you get to work with clients that are based wherever in the world. If you're based in the UK right now, you can work with UK businesses, but you could also work with businesses that are based in the USA, in Australia, literally anywhere around the world, you're able to provide virtual support for your clients. And as a virtual assistant as well, you're meant to be providing all-round of support. You're meant to be a generalist. There's no need to be a specialist with this business because that isn't actually where the value lies for your clients. Your clients are thinking, I have so many things I need to get done in my business, but I just don't have time to do it all. You're meant to be coming into their business and helping with different departments of the runnings of the day-to-day of their business. Yes, I suggest that you can go into specialist work down the road, but as a virtual assistant, your whole goal is to be providing generalist work. And another reason why I just love virtual assistant work is that you can work with so many different industries and businesses. If we're thinking about the type of business that's going to be hiring in a virtual assistant, they're probably at the point where they're experiencing really great growth in their business. They have good sales and they have the need and the desire to be outsourcing plus the budget. They definitely need to have the budget to be hiring you as well. So if we kind of take those main categories, those tick boxes that the business owner has to tick in order to hire you, that spans across so many different industries and so many different businesses. So what you're able to do is actually work with businesses and clients that you are passionate about. You're going to be able to be passionate about the work that you do every single day. Every single day is going to be different. You're going to be excited to open your laptop and actually work with your clients. It's not going to feel like that huge draining energy that you may be experiencing from your job right now. I personally felt when I was working with my clients as a full-time virtual assistant, I was excited to be opening my laptop every single day. Granted, I was remote working from Lisbon in a beautiful cafe. Granted, I had some work calls in the diary, but I was so excited because one, I love their businesses. And two, I felt the immediate satisfaction with I have built this. This is the life that has given me that freedom. And I just felt so fulfilled from this business that I had built. As a virtual assistant, you can work with businesses, but you can also work with people as well, meaning that you can take on more of a PA personal assistant role with your own virtual assistant business. However, the norm in the industry is that you are going to be working with businesses because they're the ones that are experiencing this rapid growth and the need to be outsourcing. So the whole purpose of a business actually hiring in a virtual assistant is that so they can free up their time, their energy, and their resources to focus on their zone of genius. Every single business is opening and operating to be providing a service or a product. However, what happens when you become a business owner? I know this first hand, my clients know this first hand, and then all of my previous VA clients also know this. There is so much extra workload that does come with being a business owner. You have to run the business, and that requires admin. You have to market the business, which requires marketing. You are then offering your services or your products to the consumer, the customer, the client as well. On average, a business owner spends about 20 hours per week on admin. That is a crazy amount of time that could be spent elsewhere in the business actually operating, making more money on their products and their services. So what does a smart business owner do? Is they think to themselves, I can't do this all by myself anymore. I have to bring in this extra support, these extra pair of hands, my right hand woman, my right hand man, and hire a virtual assistant. Of course, the business owner could actually hire in a part-time member of staff, a full-time member of staff. However, at the stage of growth in which your client is going to be, they don't want to do that yet. They want to be working with a freelancer, which is you. You are a freelancer, you're going to be self-employed, you're going to be a business owner. And there are so many perks that come with hiring a freelancer versus an employee. There is way less risk. Imagine if someone hires in a first hire to their business, a full-time member of staff, and they are not aligned in the slightest. That is a huge risk for the business owner. It's much more cost efficient to be hiring in a freelancer as well. You haven't got all the extra hidden costs that come with hiring an employee. And a virtual assistant is going to be a lot more flexible in that support as well. Instead of having to hire in for a niche role within a specific department, the virtual assistant is able to help across all these different departments that they want to. And as you, the virtual assistant, I will say that you have the power and the control here to be supporting with services that you genuinely want to. You now have equal authority in your business with your clients. We are no longer an employee where there's a hierarchy. You have as much power in this dynamic with your client. If you don't want to do anything, then you don't have to. And this is where I can never go back to being an employee, someone telling me what to do in that capacity. The empowerment that you get from being your own business owner is literally second to none. And on that, I actually just want to go into a few of those perks that come with you choosing to be a business owner versus an employee, is you have so much more freedom. If you did have an employer again, they would be able to tell you where they wanted you to work, what hours they wanted you to work as well. As a business owner, that is your decision. You are able to literally have complete control over your life. You're able to decide your location, your time, your working hours, any way that you want to run your business. The choice is yours. And you know the best thing of all. Yes, I'm talking about becoming a virtual assistant. And in my eyes, this is the best way to get your foot in the door to the business owner world. It is the great first step. It's the best path, the least resistance, because this is where you're going to start. Controversial opinion. I would love for you to grow the business down the road. You can basically now become a business owner and realize that the sky is the limit. The growth opportunities alone with you starting this business is honestly so abundant. You are just starting on this road of becoming a business owner. And once you crack open that door nice and wide, you realize just the sheer amount of possibilities out there for you, the amazing freedom that you could be gaining from this lifestyle. You know what I would absolutely love for you to do is send this episode to your best friend that you've also been having this conversation with about how much you absolutely hate your nine to five job and you wish you were doing something else, remote working from your laptops. Send this to them because I feel like they will also resonate with this so much. And you know what I'd absolutely love for you to do, or if take you two seconds of your day, is if you could just go and review this podcast for me, give it five stars if you feel like it resonated with you, and just it really helps put this in front of other people who are feeling just like you and just like me when I first got started as well. Okay, so hopefully by this point we understand what a virtual assistant is, but what do they even do? As a virtual assistant, what's gonna look like for you on the day-to-day runnings of your business? What's it gonna look like when you're supporting your clients with those tasks? So, like I said, as a virtual assistant, you are a generalist. You are not meant to be a specialist yet. And what you can be doing is supporting your clients across all the different departments of their business, and these are the main departments slash services that you can be offering as a virtual assistant. We have admin, which can look like inbox management, calendar management, we have marketing, which could be social media marketing, email marketing, running ads. We have creative and design, which could look like branding and websites. We have events planning, which could look like, as the name suggests, you supporting with the back end, with the admin and the events, the organization. We have customer service and sales, which could look like outreach, that could look like customer support. We have projects, we have tech and systems that looks like tracking data, analytics, actually setting up softwares, and then we have projects, which technically is stepping into more of online business manager territory. We call that an OBM. However, you definitely can be supporting with projects as a virtual assistant as well, but just know that you definitely can charge a premium for that service too. And you're probably thinking to yourself right now, you know what? I actually could be helping with some admin. I could definitely help with some marketing and some customer service. That is amazing. That means that you're already five steps ahead. And this is the exact first thing that I get my guys to do when they join the Virtual Assistant Academy is to actually have a look at their experience, look at what transferable skills that they have that they can transfer into the business. Because I promise you, you are already sitting on so many skills from your current job that can be packaged up and can then can be sold to your clients in your own virtual assistant business. I pinky promise you, you already have transferable skills that you're sitting on right now. And just a reminder that you don't have to have years and years experience with these skill sets. You are a generalist. You just have to be as good as your client at a task to be able to conduct it and charge for it. And then if you want to go into specialist work down the road, you only have to be 30% better than your client in order to be able to charge a premium for it. So you are going to be able to package up these skills that you already have and you're gonna start that business. And just as a little bit of a case study for you, I want to reflect on my experience and what I analyzed as transferable skills from my nine to five job. So I used to be a retail window designer, very niche. However, a lot of my job was creative, but it was also logistics-based, it was operational. I also worked on big projects. So what I could see from my job is that I was gonna lean heavily into admin, creative, and projects. And then what I also saw was I had this big connection to the design world. So I was then gonna be able to niche down my services to supporting design businesses. And this is another thing that I want to say is as a virtual assistant, you are able to support basically every single industry and so many different businesses with your services. If we think about the requirements of people that are hiring your virtual assistants, they have to have the need to start outsourcing, meaning that their sales are good enough. They have to have the desire to actually outsource, meaning they actually want to grow this business, and they have to have the budget for outsourcing as well. We're not gonna go for any broke clients. We are building a full-time sustainable income for ourselves, meaning that our clients have to have money for our services. So if we think about this, this is literally going to span across every single industry, and we're gonna be able to find our pocket, and what I refer to this is your virtual assistant niche, and this is exactly what I cover with my guys inside is finding those clients, that pool of people which you can tap into and you have an overflowing demand for your services. I will do future episodes on this so we can do a bit more of a deep dive into a virtual assistant niche. So, what I would recommend is to analyze your transferable skills, see what skill sets you're already sitting on, and then have a think about the types of businesses that you would love to work with and that are needing those skills as well. So, I personally was a creative virtual assistant working with interior designers because this is what I was passionate about. And again, like I said a second ago, is that you most definitely have to be passionate about your business. You're building this to actually enjoy your day to day. We don't have to work with clients that we're so bored about and we hate the thought of even working with them when we open up our laptop. So just know you can build this business rooted in fulfillment. I basically want you to have a look at your job title. So let's say that you are a personal assistant. I want you to actually look at that job title, pull out those really obvious services that are transferring immediately. So we can see it's gonna be very admin-based, maybe a little bit of operations in there as well. And then what I want you to do is just track those tasks that you're doing day to day, week by week, month by month for your current employer. Literally write down the exact tasks that you're doing in your job and then create a full list of maybe like 20 tasks. Then we're able to start analyzing it and see, okay, what transfers into a virtual assistant business? If, for example, we are going to be having one task in there, which is picking up my boss's dry cleaning. We know for a fact that it isn't actually gonna transfer into a virtual assistant business because that's too location dependent. And we're building a virtual assistant business so we can literally go move halfway across the world with our full-time online income. So we're not gonna be picking up our boss's laundry on a Tuesday. So just have a look, actually check off which ones are transferable, and then by the time you know it, you're gonna have literally a list of like 40 different tasks, three different service offerings that you are able to transfer from your nine to five corporate job. And a little bonus tip for you is I'd also love for you to look into your hobbies. Have a look and see what just makes you excited in life. Maybe you absolutely love fitness and you love working out and you have this huge interest into searching workout plans and nutrition plans. Analyze this in your life, see those things that make you excited, document those, and again, do the exact same thing of I have X hobby, let's say fitness and nutrition. I do my weekly shopping, I do my macro tracking, I do my workout plans, I track my progress. So many of these things you're able to transfer into the business. And then what you can also do is have a look at these hobbies and see that you can work in these industries as well. Let's say that you are a fitness fanatic, that means you could maybe work with PTs and gyms, maybe Pilate Studios, maybe you could be working with activewear brands. There are so many different businesses that you could be supporting that's gonna make you light your soul up, that you're actually going to love the work that you're doing because it's connected to you and your why. This is also something that I say all the time to my clients who I coach is you have to deep root your business in your why. If you're building this for freedom, own that. Own the fact that you are building this business to have a lifestyle which is based off of fulfillment, based off of freedom, based off of just you making the most of your 20s, your 30s, your 40s, wherever you are in life right now. You're doing this for a deeper meaning. And then whenever you have those days building a business where you're thinking, oh my god, this is a roller coaster, this is crazy, what am I doing? Deep root back to your why, and that will keep you going every single day. Okay, so we've done a deep dive into what a virtual assistant is, what a virtual assistant actually does, but now you need to understand what you are actually going to be selling. Yes, we understand what the services are and the tasks that you can be doing on a day-to-day, but how does that even equate to us creating this full-time income that we want to? So let me break down the numbers for you. As a virtual assistant, it is standard practice that you're going to be charging by the hour. You are hourly support for your clients. So the average rates right now, at the time I'm recording this in the UK, a virtual assistant is charging between £30 to £40 per hour. And then what happens is that you are going to sell in monthly packages of hourly support to your clients. For example, you have a client that is purchasing 40 hours of support from you. That means you're charging, let's say, 30 pounds per hour as a new virtual assistant. You have a package of 1,200 pounds per month on 40 hours of support for your client. That means you're going to be allocating 40 hours in your diary, around 10 hours per week, to supporting this client. And the most amazing thing, the other reason, well, there's so many different reasons why I love you becoming a virtual assistant, but one of the other biggies is the fact that it's retainer support, meaning that when you sign on your clients, the intention is that you are supporting on a monthly recurring basis. That means you've just signed your client at £1,200 per month. And within your contract, you are monthly support. So, in terms of you transitioning from working your job right now to becoming a business owner, this is the most secure way that you can be creating your full-time income because it's sustainable. It means that you don't have to keep getting new clients all the time. It means that you sign on the clients that you're passionate about, that you love to work with, and then you're working with them month on month on month. It is, in my opinion, the best way that you can be going from an employee to your own business owner with that security and a good nervous system to create that full-time income for yourself. And then, in terms of what I suggest is that you max your capacity at 100 hours per month of client support. That's roughly 25 hours per week that you're going to be working on your clients. And that means if we crunch the numbers, as a new virtual assistant charging 30 pounds per hour at 100 hours contracted per month of client work, you're earning 3,000 pounds from your virtual assistant business. And that is your baseline. You can charge more per hour. And then what you can do down the road is be charging a bit more of a premium for bespoke packages. Maybe you want to add in some projects here and there. But as your baseline, you will be earning £3,000 from your business. And I don't know about you, but when I first started out as a virtual assistant, my main goal was to be able to replace my. Nine to five income, and that definitely did it for me. But you know what it also did? It granted me this life of complete freedom. The minute I had that income, you bet I was on that one-way flight going over to Europe and remote working from my laptop with my clients, but with a full-time online income. And I just want to give you a little bit of an extra nugget right now that when you are selling in these services, and yes, I will be going into so much more detail on how to actually sell in your services, how to market yourself, how to sign the clients, but just know the sheer amount of value that you're able to bring in your business. I really want you to kind of deep this right now because it really is such a great return on investment for a business hiring in a virtual assistant. So let's say that a business owner is hiring in you at 30 pounds per hour at 40 hours per month. They are investing 1,200 pounds into you as a service provider that's going to be taking on those 10 hours per week of admin support. And remember, I said that an average business owner spends around 20 hours per week on admin. They are delegating half of their admin per week to you. So they can focus on freeing up 10 hours per week, they can focus on their zone of genius. So they're investing 1,200 pounds into you. As a business owner, they value their time at 100 pounds per hour because they're a specialist, because they provide a service or a product that is in their zone of genius. So actually, if they're valuing their time at 100 pounds per hour and they're hiring you in for 40 hours that they're delegating this workout, that means that that actually equates to 4,000 pounds per month. So they're actually able to save so much money because they're hiring you in for 1,200 pounds, but they're able to free up 4,000 pounds worth and generate that in their business. And something I just find so fulfilling about becoming a business owner is that this support is actually going to feel so incredibly valuable to your clients. The amount of times I got told you are literally an angel has come down from heaven for me and my business. I got told that my coaching clients get told that as well. Because on if you're thinking about a business owner, they're at the point where they physically cannot do all this work by themselves anymore. They have to be bringing someone in. The impact that you are making through that offloading a task, through that delegation, it is going to make a huge impact in their business. And we all know that if we've come from the corporate world, we are literally just a number. We are kind of irrelevant, to be quite honest. However, when you're working with these businesses, you are going to be so important to them and the future growth of their business. Okay, I feel like that is enough information for you today. I'm hoping that your brain is feeling nice and juicy and that you're feeling like you've learned something new. So we covered what a virtual assistant is, what they actually do, how you can package up those services. And I'm really hoping that now you have been able to see if this is a path that you even want to keep exploring. And again, like I said, there truly are so many different ways that you can be, you know, becoming a business owner, becoming a digital nomad, creating a full-time online income, and becoming a virtual assistant is one of those ways. But of course, in my opinion, it is a path at least resistance. It is that method that you are able to get your foot in the door to becoming a business owner using all of your transferable skills. You don't have to go ahead and learn anything new. And then what you're able to do is create that sustainable, secure online income, already sitting on those skills that you have. And there you go, from your virtual assistant business, you're going to be able to create a lifestyle that is full of time freedom and location freedom. What I would absolutely love for you to do is if you found any value in this episode today, please go ahead and give this podcast a five-star review. That would honestly mean the absolute world to me. It will take you all of two seconds, and it means that I'm able to keep producing these videos for you, helping you literally completely change your life and live a far more fulfilling lifestyle. So I hope this gave you a little bit more extra clarity on what a virtual resistant is and actually getting closer to deciding if this is a path that you want to pursue to be able to become your own business owner. So I'll see you in the next one and have a beautiful day. Bloody future business owner. Bye.