^{This transcription was automatically generated. Please excuse grammatical errors.}

Laura Nicole: 0:02

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 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.

All right, so you're here hanging out with me today because I know that you are really considering virtual assistants as a path of earning income on your own terms, but you're also really curious about how much money you can actually be making as a virtual assistant. Whether you are just wanting to make an extra five or $600 each month to have some cushion for gas and groceries, or to be able to take your kid out with some teammates after their last baseball game of the season, or if you're wanting to make $5,000, $8,000, $10,000 a month and replace your full-time income, both ends of that spectrum are extremely possible as a virtual assistant. So today we are going to talk about what kind of income is actually possible to be making from your home on your own schedule without forfeiting time with your family.

Laura Nicole: 1:24

In the United States, the industry standard accepted starting rate for new virtual assistants is between $20 and $35 per hour, but that is just the starting point, okay. That is not, you're not capping out at $35 an hour, but personally I think 20 to 35 as a starting rate for an industry that you're brand new to is pretty freaking good, especially when you consider that you don't have to go back and get a new degree or pay to get any certifications or anything to become a virtual assistant. You can just do it because you want to do it. And then what we would consider like an intermediate virtual assistant who maybe has some other skill sets that they're bringing to the table or has been doing this for a little bit longer, their range is going to be somewhere between $30 and $50 an hour. And no, we're still not capping out at $50 an hour. Really experienced VAs or VAs who are offering higher level skill sets, those things that are offering direct ROI for their clients, they can be charging between $50 and $75 an hour. And now, just to be fully transparent with you, I can guarantee that you will hear other VA coaches say that virtual assistants can make up to $100 per hour, but that is not something that I subscribe to.

Laura Nicole: 2:46

I do believe that virtual assistants, with that as your actual title, does have a cap of around $75 per hour, because if you are making more than that, then you're probably not actually still a virtual assistant. You've probably graduated and moved up a level to something that's called an online business manager, which that's a different topic for a different day. But I just want to kind of point that out because I know that out there and on social media, you probably will hear other coaches say that you can be making $100 per hour as a virtual assistant. And personally I just think that's a little bit of false advertising. So I just kind of like to point it out so that it's on your radar. One thing that I also want to touch on in regards to pricing which, yes, we will also have a whole other podcast episode about how to actually price your services but when you are starting as a virtual assistant, just because you're new to being a VA, I do not want you to under price yourself or undervalue your services, okay.

Laura Nicole: 3:45

I hear this from women who I coach all the time, who they could confidently easily price their services at $30 an hour or at least $25 an hour. But they tell me I'm just going to do $20 an hour for my first client, because they're my first client and I just haven't done this before. And they're coming from a place of saying, right, that they want to just kind of dip their toe in and not start too high because they're new to this. But if you are having that thought process, I want you to really look inward and be real with yourself, because oftentimes when we do that, it's not for the reason that we say it is. It's actually because we're scared, right? We're scared that nobody's going to pay us $30 an hour or pay us $25 an hour, and then we're just going to hear no, and then we're not going to sign a client, and we let that fear override what would actually be a good decision and in line with your experience and the skills that you bring to the table. Just because you're brand new to the VA space does not mean that all of your other experience just disappears. So if you've been a paralegal for the last 20 years or you've been an office manager for the last 10 years, then I better not catch you out there starting your VA rates at $20 an hour.

Laura Nicole: 5:00

Now, I mentioned at the top of this podcast that your income as a virtual assistant can truly be what you want it to be, whether that's $500, $5,000, $10,000 a month. It's just another perk of the flexibility that comes with being a virtual assistant. Because you are an independent contractor and you are your own boss, you have the ability to create the income that you want and or need in any given season of life. There are over 800 women inside of my coaching program, the Superstar Assistant Academy, and we have such a wide variety of income goals across them. We have a lot of women whose goal, literally, long-term goal is to just work five hours a week and bring in five or $600 as a cushion to their budget. We have a lot of stay-at-home moms who want to just add in that cushion. We actually have a lot of women who are either nearing retirement or recently retired who just want to have that extra buffer so that they can travel more and just have that ease of life.

Laura Nicole: 6:01

We also have a huge chunk out of those 800 plus women who are in that kind of middle range. They want to have a healthy supplemental income. Right, maybe they're a stay-at-home mom, but they're looking to make a couple thousand dollars a month. They want to be able to contribute to the vacation fund or paying off debt or paying off a car, or they have a full-time job but they also have things they want to save for, and so they're not wanting to work 40 hours a week or make $8,000 a month right, but they're in that mid-range. They would definitely like to have a few thousand dollars in their pocket every month for the work they're doing with clients. And then, of course, we have the women, who want to fully replace their nine to five, which is completely doable. If you listened to episode two, you heard my story about how I was able to replace my college professor salary in five months.

Laura Nicole: 6:53

The amount of income that you're bringing in on a monthly basis as a VA is based on a combination of a few different factors. Okay, so we have the two main factors, which are the rates that you're charging and how many hours you're working, but you have control of those things, because those are going to be determined in your contract. They are paying you for those services and then also how many hours you will be working for them on a weekly and monthly basis on average. So if you truly only want to be working five to 10 hours a week, then you're most likely signing one client who needs five to 10 hours a week. If you talk to a potential client and they tell you that they really need 15 hours a week and they know that that's the minimum, then it's your choice to just not sign that client, because that's not the amount of hours you're looking to work or the money that you're wanting to make. And on the flip side of that, if you're wanting to bring in more income, then you can add more clients to your roster, but you have control over how much income you're bringing in and how many hours you're working. It's just another aspect of virtual assistants that really lends to the idea of it being incredibly flexible, because you can scale up and down both with your hours worked and the income that you're coming in, based on the season of life that you're in, right? So summer break is here, right. And if you were working with clients and you knew that your kids were going to be home all summer and that you really wanted to be pouring into that time with them, then you could adjust your client contracts in the couple of months heading into the summer season, or if you have a baby, obviously you're probably going to need to adjust your hours with your clients for the first couple of months after that little bundle of joy arrives. And on the flip side, if you want to increase your hours, maybe you've had your baby home with you all this time and they're starting kindergarten in the fall. Number one don't cry, I'm sorry I mentioned it. But number two you're suddenly going to have more free time available, right, more time where you don't have your hands busy with your kiddo, that you could be adding more hours or another client to your roster and increasing that income.

Laura Nicole: 9:13

I have had a couple of different times in my five-year career as a virtual assistant that I have really adjusted how much I was working or the clients that I was carrying on my roster in order to achieve a certain goal, and One example of that that really sticks out to me is when we had moved out of my mom's basement. I kind of if you haven't listened to episode two, go back. We had moved out of my mom's basement, we had moved into our new home, we had been able to get our backyard landscaped again. If you've ever built a new home, you know the beast that is getting your backyard done, and we actually have been really fun and did a California closet install in our master closet. That was actually like one of my favorite rooms in our house. But once we had those things done, I didn't have to be in such a high gear hustle mode with my virtual assistant income. I had been working 40, 45 hour weeks because we had these big goals that we needed the cashflow for, but once we had paid those bills and we had finished those projects, I didn't have to stay in that space. If I didn't want to and honestly I didn't want to, your girl was tired, and the beauty of this is that I was able to adjust my contracts. I actually, at that point in time, ended up dropping a client who was someone I just really didn't feel aligned with anymore, and so it was a win-win all around.

Laura Nicole: 10:41

One thing that we definitely need to touch on right is what actually impacts your rates. I briefly mentioned it earlier, but I want to give you a little bit more detail so that you have a solid understanding of what kinds of factors can have an impact on the rate that you're able to charge as a virtual assistant. Okay, so number one is the services that you're offering, right? Not all services are priced equally. If you're offering a set of services, that truly is like general basic administrative tasks which are incredibly freaking important and every single client needs them, so they're fantastic to offer. It would be things like inbox management, calendar support, customer service, you know, doing Facebook group moderation, scheduling out your client's social media content, things like that. Those types of admin services are typically going to fall in that $20 to $30 per hour range.

Laura Nicole: 11:38

But then more specialized support, right? Things that are a little bit higher level skill you have to have learned and probably had some experience so that you're efficient at them. Things like doing tech setups, like building automations or funnels, or doing launch assistance if you work with a client who does launches in their business, helping with podcast production like uploading their episodes or writing their show notes, or if you maybe do some copywriting for your client, whether that's writing some emails for them or putting together a newsletter, or maybe you have bookkeeping skills from the full-time job you've had for the last 20 years those more specialized support services can command $40 to $60 per hour. Essentially, the more specialized the services, the more you can charge and also the more directly that your service creates an ROI for your client, the more direct path from your service to the client bringing in more revenue, the higher rate that you can charge for that service. So just an example of a superstar Assistant, academy student A, who is new to being a virtual assistant but she has decades of copywriting experience in a professional setting and she's offering copywriting services to her VA clients and I can promise you that she is damn sure not charging $25 an hour for those services because they're a more specialized skill set and they're a skill set that likely is going to bring direct ROI to her clients.

Laura Nicole: 13:13

Kind of going hand in hand with that is your experience. Okay, your past experience absolutely counts and should be factored in when you are setting your rates as a virtual assistant. All right, even if that experience was not in a virtual assistant role. If you have years of admin experience, if you've been an admin assistant or an executive assistant or an office manager, if you have been a teacher or worked in healthcare and been a medical assistant or a vet tech or a dental assistant, or you've worked in customer service or in retail y'all. All of that experience translates into professionalism and initiative and reliability. That brings value, which means that it has to be considered when you are deciding your rate. In addition, right in combination with the services that you're offering, and as you gain more experience as a VA, your rate is going to go with you.

Laura Nicole: 14:10

Remember we talked at the top of the episode about how new VAs are going to be making $20 to $35 an hour. Intermediate VAs can be bringing in $30 to $50. And then the more experienced advanced VAs can be bringing in $50 to $75. Because the thing is is that you're going to learn so much just by being a virtual assistant. You're going to learn new systems and new softwares. You're going to find things that a client might say like, hey, I want to have you help me with my podcast, because my normal girl for the podcast specifically is out, but she can train you really quick and I want you to take it over for the next month and you say, cool, that sounds really fun. And then you learn it and you're like, oh my gosh, that's actually really fun. I want to get better at that so that I can offer podcast management as a service. So that experience has taught you a new skill set that you can now turn around, add to your resume and raise your rate. And I know that from firsthand experience.

Laura Nicole: 15:10

Okay, right now, five years into this, as a virtual assistant, I specialize in offering launch setups for clients. I work with course creators who launched their course, whether it's through a masterclass or through a live challenge, and I handle the tech and the backend. I build out their funnels, I build out their automations, I set up their sales pages, I create their products that people can purchase. And when I tell y'all that I did not know at all what a funnel or an automation even was just three years ago? I had no freaking clue, but I learned from the work that I was doing with clients and now my experience and my skill set is worth so much more. And yes, obviously right, as you gain experience, as you learn new things, then when you sign a new client, you can raise your rate for them.

Laura Nicole: 16:05

But I do want to reassure you, too, that just because you sign a contract with a client at, let's say, $30 an hour, that doesn't mean that you're now stuck working for that client forever in perpetuity for $30 an hour, as you work with clients. As you grow with clients, as their business grows right and your responsibilities increase, your rates are also going to increase with those clients. Your rates are also going to increase with those clients. Sometimes it's because you bring to the table a conversation of hey, I'm doing a lot more, now we need to get this compensation in line with that. But from my experience, most often clients, when they recognize that hey, I've added a lot onto Laura's plate and she's killing it, they'll go ahead and offer you the rate increase because they value you and they appreciate you and they want you to feel well compensated for the work that you're doing and the value that you're bringing to their business. So just because you sign a client at X number of dollars per hour does not mean that that's still what you're going to be making from them in six months and a year and two years down the line.

Laura Nicole: 17:11

The third and final component that I want to mention to you that can affect the rate that you charge is less tangible, and that is your confidence. Clients and potential clients will pick up on your energy, okay, and when you show up with confidence and when you articulate what you do clearly and you position yourself as a solution for them, not just a helper, not just a task rabbit, but as the solution that is going to help them propel their business forward. Clients are going to be so freaking happy to pay you for that, happy to pay you for that. But on the flip side of that, if you're second guessing yourself, if you're feeling unsure, if you're kind of shrinking down, if you're saying, well, my rate is usually $25 an hour, but what they are not going to feel confident, or that you feel confident, right, they'll recognize that they will clock that and they're not going to want to pay you that rate or maybe even work with you at all, because they're going to be concerned that you don't even have the confidence in yourself. Confidence in yourself builds trust with your potential clients and that trust is what gets you paid.

Laura Nicole: 18:28

One question that I get asked all the time from women who are asking me about virtual assistance and they're trying to figure out if it's something that they want to look into is how quickly can they actually be making money? And there's not a magic number, right. There's no specific timeline and it's going to be different for every single individual. So the only way really that I can speak on. It is based on the data that I have from the women that I've coached over the past two years and of those 800 plus women, on average my students are signing their first client within four to six weeks of when they start and they make the decision like, hey, I'm going to become a virtual assistant. And that's not to say that it's going to take four to six weeks, right. I have had so many women come through who signed clients way faster, like Elle who did one of my four-day Discover your Superstar VA skill events and she left that event with her skills, her services and her resume and went and hopped in her local Facebook group and shared it and literally had her first discovery call four days later and signed that client on the freaking spot. So it could be four days, it could be four weeks, it could be four months. It is so different and so unique to everybody and their process and their journey, but it truly is not something that has to take like six months. Right, it could really be happening very quickly. And a lot of women who I coach, of which I am totally on board with this, I recommend this to them, even if their ultimate goal is to replace their nine to five.

Laura Nicole: 20:04

Most women still want to start out with just like five or 10 hours at first. Right, so that you can kind of dip your toe in and get used to it, because it is a whole new thing that you're starting and you want to be able to have the time to really acclimate your schedule, figure out when it's going to work, how it's going to work with your family, get used to that first client and get your system. You know, like when it's new and it's the first time there's going to be hiccups, right, there's going to be things that you're like ah, that didn't go exactly how I wanted. And so when you start small and your first goal is like okay, my first goal is to work five hours a week at $25 an hour to make 500 bucks this month Please do not clock me on that math y'all, because I am notoriously terrible at math, but I think I did that right. But even when you're starting small, that income coming in is going to make a difference. Like Jay who joined the Academy in February and literally exactly 30 days from when she started, she signed her first client. That was 10 hours a week for $25 an hour, so that's $1,000 now coming into her family's budget every single month. I really want to reinforce that.

Laura Nicole: 21:18

Becoming a virtual assistant is not a get rich quick scenario. Okay, there's so much money to be had here. If you want to make $10,000 a year or $110,000 a year, we can make that happen, but it's not a sprint. So if you are one of those women who's listening and you're like, yes, Laura, I need to get the hell out of my nine to five. I cannot do this anymore, kudos to you. I know that you can accomplish that. But I do want to encourage you, when you're thinking about your monetary goal, to break that down into phases so that it feels less overwhelming, right? Because if we're sitting here thinking, oh my gosh, I need to replace $60,000 or $80,000 or $100,000, like no shit, that obviously is going to feel impossible when you're starting at zero. But if you break it down and think, okay, my first goal is to make $1,000 a month, my second phase goal is to make $3,000 a month, and you kind of split it down into smaller segments of income that are going to be easier to focus on and just feel way more possible and way more doable, then all of a sudden you're going to be in phase three, making 6k a month and realizing that you can go quit that job.

Laura Nicole: 22:38

Okay, I know I promised that these episodes were going to stay brief and I have accidentally turned into a chatty Kathy this time, which I'm sure is bound to happen time and again. But I just want to leave you with a couple of examples and other stories of women who have come through the Superstar Assistant Academy, just as real life examples for you of what this can look like. It is not to brag, it is not to sell you on anything. It's just because I know how powerful it is to hear about other women, other women, other moms who are in the same boat as you, who took this chance on themselves and now they're making real money as virtual assistants. These few stories that I want to leave you with are not one in a million right. They're also not overnight successes. They are just real women who decided to go for it and now they're getting paid, and this is just the proof that this path is doable, and if it's doable for them, then it's doable for you too. So I hope you will feel inspired and motivated.

Laura Nicole: 23:43

So I was just catching up with our SAA student S, who is now five months into her journey of becoming a virtual assistant. She is currently charging $35 an hour. She has two ongoing clients and she's working about 15 hours a week. So at the moment she's already bringing in $2,000 a month. And then there's A, who added a client to her roster over the winter. That was for 30 hours a week at $35 an hour, which was an additional $4,200 a month coming in on her journey toward leaving her corporate job.

Laura Nicole: 24:18

I just recently got an update from Jay, who had joined the Superstar Assistant Academy nine months ago as just a little baby VA. At the time she was barely making $1,000 a month and she just sent me a message the other day to update me that she now has $5,000 set in monthly retainers. So every month on the 1st her clients are paying those invoices and she has $5,000 coming in the door. And she still has inquiries flowing in consistently from new clients who want to work with her inquiries flowing in consistently from new clients who want to work with her. E has a full-time job that she absolutely loves and she's been using VA work as a supplement successfully for the past two and a half years. Just recently she raised her rates by 40% and signed a new client a week later who was more than happy to pay her that higher rate. A is a grandma with a full-time job who has created 9K in supplemental income in just six months, and K is one of my students who recently did a trial month with a new client at $25 an hour and then they bumped that rate to $30 an hour after 30 days. She's a single mom who's working 15 hours a week with this client, which means that she's bringing in just shy of $2,000 a month from one client, and it's a client that has infinite potential to grow together and increase her responsibilities and her rate.

Laura Nicole: 25:43

I could keep going, but we would literally be here all day. These are just stories of updates that I've gotten from women in the last couple of weeks. Hopefully that's leaving you feeling inspired, and if you want to see how much you could make, I want you to grab my free VA income calculator so that you can play around with what your income could look like right now, based on a starting rate and how many hours you currently have available. But then you can also run it again and see what you could be making in six months from now or a year from now, right as you know, your rates would probably have gone up and how much availability you think you would have. I'll leave that link in the show notes for you. 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.