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Laura Nicole: 00:02

Welcome to Your Virtual Assistant Coach, the podcast for moms who want to make money from home on their own terms. I'm your host, Laura Nicole, a successful six-figure earning VA and coach who replaced my college professor's salary in just five months back in 2020 after my daughter was born, and I have never looked back. I'm here to help you build a profitable, flexible VA business that fits into your family's lives so you no longer feel like you're living just to work. Let's dive in. 

Laura Nicole: 00:33

A fear that a lot of women have to work through when they are deciding if they're going to become a virtual assistant or they're starting the process. But in those beginning stages, before they've signed a client, this thought keeps popping into their brain of why would anybody want to hire me? Maybe you've had that thought as you're like, God, I would love to do this. It sounds so cool. It would give me that flexible income. Like it's exactly what I'm looking for. But why would anybody want to hire me? Because maybe you don't have any previous VA experience. Maybe you don't feel like you're super techie or know a bunch of different programs and softwares. Maybe you look at everything that other VAs know how to do, right? And you're comparing their step 14 to your step one. And so you're wondering, why would a business owner choose me, though, when there's all these other people they could choose? And I want to share something with you today that came directly from a recent QA that we hosted inside of the VA Income Lab with an online business owner who has been in this space for eight years and has been hiring and working with VAs to support her in her business.

Laura Nicole: 01:48

 Because what she actually looks for in a VA and what she knows most entrepreneurs and most small business owners look for in a VA is probably very different than what you're thinking that they look for. And this specific topic of conversation was something that resonated really, really strongly with the women in the income lab. And so I want to make sure that you hear it as well because I think it will be a big confidence boost for you. When you're brand new into the virtual assistant space, it is really easy to assume that the woman who is going to get hired is the one who knows the most. The woman who can use every platform, who maybe already has experience in the space, the one who has the fanciest website or the prettiest resume, or the one who creates the coolest and most consistent content on their social media platform. But my sister Diana, who was our QA, she comes in quarterly to the income lab. She has been running her online business for eight years, a very successful business, and she has built an entire team supporting her. And she told the women inside the income lab very plainly that she does not care about a giant list of hard skills, and that the opposite was actually even true in most cases. Most of the women that she has hired had no prior experience at all in the VA space specifically. And the biggest thing that Diana said she looks for is actually incredibly simple and so easy for us to overlook. 

Laura Nicole: 03:29

But she said several times during this call, do I actually enjoy talking to this person? She described it as wanting to be able to look at her calendar and think, like, oh yay, I have a call with Laura today, instead of like, I have a call with Laura. Right? Because think about it from the client's perspective. If they're bringing someone into their business, ideally long term, most business owners want to bring people in that are going to be with them for a while. They know that they're going to talk to and interact with that person regularly, whether it's hopping on calls or communicating in Slack or texting back and forth. They're going to be trusting them with parts of their business and problem solving together. Clients want somebody who they vibe with. I have talked to so many business owners who have hired VAs. And when I ask them what was the thing that made them decide which person they were going to hire, I hear all the time, oh, she was just a vibe. We just, it was so easy to talk to her. They want to bring someone on the team that they enjoy having on the team because you are not just a checklist of skills. You're a person they're choosing to work alongside daily in their business. Now, do you need to be able to do the work and actually provide the services? Absolutely, right? But if they have a list of a hundred women in front of them who all have the same ability to do the work, they're going to hire the women who they get along with and like the most, not necessarily the one who has the most experience or has the more softwares and programs they know on their list, right? They're going to bring someone on who they just like. 

Laura Nicole: 05:22

And there are a couple of other things that Diana said were super important to her. And again, these were Diana's answers, but she's kind of speaking for the vast majority of entrepreneurs, right? She has been in masterminds with tons of other big-time business owners. She has a lot of friends in the entrepreneur space and they collect, like she collectively knows that a lot of these business owners think about it the same way. So the other huge thing that Diana looks for is can you follow directions? Because as a VA, right, we need to be detail-oriented and organized, and we need to be able to follow the instructions given to us by our clients because they are going to give you instructions. They are going to teach you how they want things done in their business. And so when Diana is hiring and she shares with her audience that she's hiring, she actually puts a tiny random instruction inside of her applications. She'll tell them to do something like put an emoji in the subject line or tell me your favorite color in your email response. I have another friend who's a business owner who gave people like a five-word sentence to say at the end of their video that they recorded for her. And if it wasn't there, then they were immediately disqualified. And the same thing happens with Diana. She says the majority of applicants miss that tiny random instruction inside of the application. And then they're immediately eliminated. Because if you miss a simple instruction on something as important as the application, when you're trying to make the best impression and put your best foot forward, then the client is left wondering what details you're going to miss once you're inside the business. So this is such an important reminder that you don't need to know 8,000 different platforms. Your clients are going to teach you their platforms. And so you do need to pay attention. Read carefully, communicate well, do what you say you're going to do. Those things specifically make you insanely valuable to your clients. 

Laura Nicole: 07:27

And the last really big piece of this puzzle that Diana and other business owners are looking for is wanting to hire people she knows she can train so that she can teach them how things are done inside of her business and her systems and her processes. She doesn't necessarily want someone coming in saying, well, this is how I've done it for five years, or this is how I did it with my last two clients. She wants somebody who is teachable, who is willing to learn how her business operates. And that fact alone should take a lot of pressure off of you if you are brand new to the VA space, because it proves that you don't have to know everything. You just need to be teachable. You need to be willing to learn. Clients know that they're going to teach you pieces of their business. They are expecting that. And so showing that you can be extremely detail oriented and pick up on things quickly and be coachable and teachable just raises your value. 

Laura Nicole: 08:30

So why would they hire you? Right? Let's think back to that. Okay, but why would they hire me? Well, maybe they would hire you because you're detail-oriented and you're dependable and you communicate really well because you're easy to talk to and they just like you and you're willing to learn, you're willing to be taught, and you care genuinely about doing a really good job. Those things sound really simple, right? Because they're not super technical or really in-depth and involved. But to the business owner, they are everything. So please stop assuming that you need another certification, that you need to learn 15 other softwares or different services that you can offer to have more experience under your belt before you are hireable. Because you most likely already have the exact qualities that the right client for you is looking for in their virtual assistant. 

Laura Nicole: 09:29

And if you're listening to this and you're thinking, okay, maybe I could do this, right? You've had that little confidence boost of like, oh yeah, that's totally me. Maybe someone really would hire me. I would love for you to join me tomorrow for my free VA masterclass. I am going to walk you through the big picture of what VA work actually looks like, the kinds of services you can offer, how flexible this work can be, and to help you start identifying the skills that you already have that could translate into paid VA work. So if you've been listening to these podcasts and you're trying to make the decision on if virtual assistance really fits your lifestyle and your personality and your income goals, this is the class I want you in to help you get those answers. It's happening tomorrow, and you can grab your free seat through the link in the show notes. I will see you there. 

Laura Nicole: 10:18

Thanks for hanging out with me today on your virtual assistant coach. If you loved this episode, be sure to share it with your best friend, your sister, or even your favorite coworker who you know wants to start making a flexible income. I'll see you all next time.