^{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.

Laura Nicole: 0:32

If you are currently working on becoming a virtual assistant and you are spending more time on trying to come up with a super cute, clever business name than you are actually building the foundation of your business, then this episode is for you, because we are going to talk about what you really need to get started and spoiler, it is way less than you probably think. So first of all, I want to touch on some things that I know you probably think that you need in order to get started as a virtual assistant and sign clients. There is a really good chance that you think you need to have a full-blown, beautiful, seo-optimized website with brand colors and a super cute logo and a full-on brand aesthetic, because you need the brand aesthetic for your full business social media, because you obviously need to have a full on social media strategy to get visibility right. You probably have also convinced yourself that in order to be legit, you have to have an LLC and you have to get a legit business bank account set up. These are all things that are nice to have. They are things that you probably will have down the line as you grow your virtual assistant business, but they are definitely not requirements and things that you need in order to start making money. What you actually need is clarity on who you help and what you offer, a decision on your rates. How much are you charging? How are you structuring it? Are you doing hourly selling, bundles of hours, doing a service package, a way to introduce yourself like a one-sheet resume that gives potential clients a really easy, quick glimpse into who you are and what you offer. A simple way to get paid.

Laura Nicole: 2:18

This is something a lot of new VAs try to overcomplicate, but you can literally just use PayPal and Venmo. You need a contract ready for when you sign your first client and we actually give you a contract template created by an attorney inside of the Superstar Assistant Academy. You need somewhere to show up right. You need to have Facebook or Instagram or threads or a combination of all three and the confidence to get out there and talk and connect with potential clients about what you do and how you can be helping them. And, in terms of actual equipment to do the work, all you need is a computer, a smartphone and Wi-Fi. That is it. I promise y'all that your first, second, third client they don't care what your brand colors are, they don't care if you have some super freaking cute logo. They literally just care if you can help stop them from drowning in their business on a daily freaking basis.

Laura Nicole: 3:15

There are some computer programs and softwares that will be super helpful to have ready, but again, we're not doing big tech setups. In order to start signing clients as a virtual assistant, I would recommend that you create a separate Gmail account right, so that everything related to virtual assistant work is going to one email. It's just going to make it way easier to keep track of. And then using a booking site for your discovery calls, whether that's Calendly or using Google Calendar. But you want to have a link that you can send to potential clients when they want to book a discovery call with you and then literally Zoom to host the call, or Google Meet to host those discovery calls. And then, if you are someone who likes to use digital setups in order to keep yourself more organized, you could also use a project management software like Asana or mondaycom or Trello just to keep your connections and your discovery calls and the onboarding process of your clients organized on your end. But all of those softwares I just mentioned, they all have free versions of them and you can just use the free version to start. You do not need to be paying for memberships across these different platforms.

Laura Nicole: 4:24

Well, this made for a really short episode y'all, because there's not really a whole lot of shit that you need in order to get started as a VA, which is a huge, freaking perk in my book. You just need to start. You need to get started. You can always polish later, you can add other tools and other resources and other marketing materials as you go, but all of the things I just shared with you, that is truly all that you need. That is actually required to get this ball rolling and get out there and start signing clients and bringing in income.

Laura Nicole: 4:57

If you would love to have some guidance from someone who has been there done that successfully on how to do things like get clear on who you help and your services and your rates, and even how to network and where to show up to get in those conversations with potential clients then I would love for you to join me inside of the Superstar Assistant Academy. It is my self-paced, proven, step-by-step program that shows you how to use the skills that you already have to sign clients, make money from home and create more time with your family in just 28 days. Over 800 women have already gone through this program and, on average, they're signing their first client in just four to six weeks. My five-step framework I have all the faith in the world will help you go from what do I do first? How do I set this up? To holy guac, I just signed my first client and I am so freaking excited.

Laura Nicole: 5:50

Check out the link for the Superstar Assistant Academy in my show notes and, as always, feel free to email me at [email protected], or send me a DM on Instagram @heylauranicole if you any questions at all, and I would love to chat with 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 co-worker, who you know wants to start making a flexible income. I'll see you all next time.