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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

If looking at a cluttered desktop with a bajillion tabs open or 8,000 screenshots or at your own chaotic Google Drive stresses you the f out, imagine what your clients look like after they have been running a huge business for years. Today we're talking about one of those incredibly simple VA services that doesn't require fancy tech skills at all that can make your client's life so much easier.

Laura Nicole: 01:02

 File and drive organization. Okay, so what does that actually even mean? It's very straightforward. Literally going into your client's Google Drive, Dropbox, et cetera, cleaning it up and organizing it for them, creating a logical folder structure, moving loose files into the right places, even taking existing folders and niching them down into sub-folders so that they know exactly where they're going to find whatever it is they're looking for. Creating consistent file naming conventions so that they know what to actually search to pull up the folder that they need, archiving old or outdated files that they do not need in their face anymore. Essentially making it so that your client can actually find what they need when they need it without wasting time getting frustrated and feeling overwhelmed. And this isn't complicated work. It's just taking something chaotic, streamlining it, and creating a system. But clients need this so badly because business owners are constantly creating PDFs and freebies and taking photos and screenshots and creating graphics and sending contracts and having client documents that they're sending out. 

Laura Nicole: 02:21

They have launch assets and SOPs and spreadsheets and videos and random documents named final, final, final, actual, final dot PDF. An organization is usually pretty low on their priority list because yes, they could spend two hours diving in and cleaning it up, but they number one, don't want to. And number two, there's other things they could be doing in their business that are a hell of a lot more valuable and will actually drive revenue for them than spending the time to do this file cleanup. So that's exactly where you, as the virtual assistant with your little type A brain comes into play. And what this could actually look like as a client task would be having a client hand you their messy Google Drive initially and just saying, please make this make sense. So you can go in, create main folders by different aspects of the business, add subfolders, get those files named correctly, sort all of the things into their proper home, archive things they no longer use, and create that simple naming system that everyone can continue using moving forward. And so the initial project, right, usually takes some time and it's kind of messy because not only do you have to actually sort the things, you have to figure out the best way to sort them and what those folders and the breakdown is going to look like. But then once you've got it organized, ongoing maintenance of that drive and making sure that things end up in their right folders or get archived when they're not needed anymore can become a part of your regular support for your client.

Laura Nicole: 03:57

To give you a real life example, I have a client who we have her Google Drive set up perfectly. And she gets a ton of screenshots from her students and her community, messages people send, wins that they share, all the things, right? And those are so helpful in marketing her business and creating social proof for her to use to show, like, look, what I'm teaching works. But she will take multiple screenshots in a day and they just sit in her camera role if she doesn't drop them into the Google Drive. And then when she wants to use that screenshot, she'll think to herself, like, oh my gosh, I remember I took a screenshot of X, Y, and Z a week ago. That would be perfect to use. But then she can't find it because her camera roll has 44,000 pictures in it. And it's like they all look the same because it's just a screenshot of text. And so typically, like once a week or whenever she finds time or remembers to do it, she'll go in, she'll go through her camera roll since the last time she did a dump and she'll upload all of those screenshots into a folder called to sort. 

Laura Nicole: 05:08

She drops them all in, lets me know that they're there. And then I can go in and actually take those screenshots and sort them into the appropriate folder based on what they pertain to. And now next time when she thinks to herself, oh my gosh, that one screenshot would be perfect. She's not having to battle the scroll in her camera role. She can literally just go to Google Drive, click for the topic she wants, and see them all right there.

Laura Nicole: 05:34

 And the service is fantastic, y'all, for beginner VAs, especially because it does not require years of specialized experience. Your natural organizational skills are going to transfer over from past jobs, mom life, keeping your household organized. And even if you're not really familiar with Google Drive, it is super easy to learn. And it creates a very tangible before and after for your client. Like it's an actual relief that they can feel from something very simple that you did because you took the time and the care to do it correctly. So do not overlook this service because it feels simple to you. Yes, a lot of VA work, y'all, is very simple. This shit is not complicated. It's not hard. But it's things that need to be done behind the scenes to keep your client's business running smoothly. And if we are saving their time, we're reducing their mental load, we are making their business easier to run. And therefore, it has immense value. So if you're sitting here thinking, like, okay, organizing someone's Google Drive, I can absolutely do that. Good. That's the point. Because sometimes the things that feel incredibly small to you as a VA are exactly the things that your future client is going to be so thrilled to hand off to you. 

Laura Nicole: 07:02

If you want to see what other skills you already have naturally and from your previous job and life experience that could be turned into services just like this one, that would be super helpful to clients and easy for you to do. I would love to have you join us for a live four-day workshop called the VA starter sprint. It takes about an hour of your time each day and it runs from September 22nd through September 25th. But in those four hours, we are going to identify all of your skills that are going to be valuable in the VA space. We're going to actually then turn them into services and put them in a format that a client can hire you and pay you for. 

Laura Nicole: 07:45

We're going to get your skills and your services put into a professional VA resume. So you have that asset to actually go show to potential clients. And we're going to do a little bit of mindset work because that makes a really big difference when it comes to being successful as a VA. This workshop is literally one of my favorite things in the world to run because women get so much out of it. You get so much tangible takeaway of having your actual starting service set and a resume. But I think my favorite part about it is that on average, women finish this workshop having more than doubled their confidence in their ability to be a virtual assistant successfully and create income this way. And to me, that's just like the coolest thing ever. The workshop is only $7. And the link to join is down in the show notes, but I will be limiting the amount of women who can join because, as part of the workshop, you're going to do worksheets and turn them into me and get actual feedback and coaching each day. And so I always cap it to make sure that I can give everybody adequate coaching. So if that interests you, I would go to the show notes real quick, get that open, pop your $7 through, and secure your seat before they fill up. 

Laura Nicole: 09:04

If you love 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.