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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 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

Before we dive into today's topic for the episode, I just have to take a second and reflect, feel grateful, all the things, celebrate, because this is the 50th episode. It's the 50th episode of your virtual assistant coach. And that's super, super surreal to me because I remember when I started the podcast and I was not convinced that I could do it or that it would be any good or that it would be helpful for anyone. It was so far out of my comfort zone. And honestly, it was kind of scary to jump into. But y'all have been so insanely supportive from the get-go. I get messages from women all the time telling me that they listened to the podcast and they found it helpful, or it helped them build up the courage to actually dive into virtual assistance. And it is just the coolest thing. So cheers to 50 episodes. Thank y'all for being here. Thank you for listening. Thank you for the feedback. Um, I appreciate each and every one of you. And I'm excited to keep it trekking, keep it going. 

Laura Nicole: 01:49

And today we are going to cover a topic that comes up a lot, um, especially with the women I coach inside of the Superstar Accelerator and the group coaching space where I'm working hands-on with these women. Something that comes up a lot in conversation with them when they are starting to network, right? When they have gone through the client magnet method, they are starting to actually implement the 15-minute networking method that I teach inside of there. And a lot of them want to use Instagram, right? Because so many online business owners are on Instagram. And a lot of the women I coach don't really have an interest in creating a business Instagram account, right? And that's not true, I don't think, just for the women I coach in the accelerator, but I just talk to women all the time online who want to be able to make money and create this income as a virtual assistant, but they're like, Laura, I don't want to create content. Like that's not my vibe. I don't want to have to do that in order to make this work. And I'm a true believer that you do not need to, right? You do not need to create a business Instagram. You do not need to be creating content as a means of finding clients. Um, I always say that it's a resource and it's not a requirement, but something that I am seeing women run into when they do go to start networking from their personal account, which you totally can. You just use your personal account and network and start conversations from there, is that women are feeling like maybe a little bit awkward because they're like, I'm just like this random person with a private profile that's like just a normal profile, has nothing to do with VA. And then I'm talking with them, and then I'm ultimately pitching them VA services, right? And so while it's completely fine to just use your personal account, that's all I've ever used, y'all. Just to like reassure you, I'm not just saying like, oh, that might work. It's truly how I built my income, was just using my actual personal account, obviously now for coaching, right? I have the hey dot Laura Nicole, which is probably what you guys are all familiar with, but I do have a personal account too. And that's what I used for those years that I was just working as a VA signing clients before I started coaching. And I was able to land clients and make a shitload of money that way. So it absolutely can be done, but I do also see why it could feel awkward to just be building those connections from like a totally personal, completely unrelated to VA account. And so something that we have worked through with multiple women inside of the accelerator recently on our coaching calls is helping them find this like happy middle ground, right? Helping them find a compromise where we've found ways to add in little touches on their personal account that also make it very clear if they're networking with someone and that person goes to look at their account, they're going to see these things and be like, oh, okay, like, yeah, she definitely is a VA and she takes this seriously, right? But they don't have to make a new account, build it from scratch, add this pressure on to be thinking of content and creating content. Like that's just a whole beast. And honestly, that's not where I want you putting your energy. I want you putting your energy into the actual networking and the conversations. So for today, I'm gonna give y'all um a little sneak peek into some of the coaching that's happened inside of the accelerator recently. And I'm gonna share with you the things that I have um guided the women in the accelerator who were in this boat, the things I have guided them to do on their personal Instagram accounts to again kind of have this meet-in-the-middle compromise where it still is your personal account. It's not as much as work, not as much work as a business account, but people will know that you're a VA still when they come look at your personal account. Okay,

Laura Nicole: 06:07

 so I have five simple things that you can do to make your personal profile a little bit more appealing and make it make a little more sense that you're networking from it. And the first thing that I want you to do, you do not need to change your handle, right? Like the whatever handle you have for your Instagram account is fine. But on your actual bio, um, at the top of it, in the like where the bolded letters are, right? You can put like a name or a title up above the actual copy of your bio. I'm finding it's kind of hard to explain this part when I can't show you guys, right? But this is a podcast, so I just have to explain it. Go look at my account on Instagram. Um, if you don't know what I'm talking about, go look on my profile. You'll see that my handle is hey. And then to the right of my picture, above my posts and my followers and my following numbers, above that, there's a line that's in bolded font that says Laura, virtual assistant coach for moms. Okay. On your account, have it say your first name and then virtual assistant for and whoever your ideal client is, right? Virtual assistant for fitness coaches, virtual assistant for realistic realtors, virtual assistant for Etsy shop owners, or whatever your ideal client is. Okay. Very, very simple. It's still your personal account, but it's a very simple way to show people as soon as they click through from your conversation to the DMs, as soon as they click through to your profile, they're going to see that you are a virtual assistant for their niche, right? Because obviously you're going to be talking with people who are your idle client. Another super, super, super simple thing. 

Laura Nicole: 08:11

Number two tip, okay. Make sure your picture is of you. Make sure it's you. A lot of times on personal accounts, people either have pictures of their kids. I've seen people who have pictures of their dog, or it's just kind of like a picture of like not anything in particular, like just like nature or flowers or like something they think is cool. And again, when that profile was wholeheartedly just a personal account, that was fine. But if you want to network from your personal account, we need people to see your face, right? If you're talking to these potential clients in the DMs and they click through to your account, I want them to see your face. It needs to be a clear photo, it needs to be close enough up that they can actually see your face. Don't do one that's super far away. If you want one like with your kids in it, like if y'all took family pictures or something, that's fine, but make sure they can actually see you. Okay. 

Laura Nicole: 09:09

That's the most important thing. And then number three and number four, these are the ones that are gonna take you the most time to actually implement, but they're kind of like a one and done. Like once you implement it, you don't have to keep up with it. Okay. So in your bio, um, the bio being the copy on your profile underneath your picture, right? Like again, if you're looking at my bio on my profile for reference, my bio says helping moms turn everyday skills into flexible income from professor to virtual assistant to coach, 1000 plus moms taught, and then start here. So on my bio where it says start here, I want you to have a line that says something like book a discovery call to chat, or book a call to chat about working together, or click to see VA services and pricing, or click to see services and book a call, some combination of that, right? And the verbiage that you use is going to depend on which thing that you link. Okay, so this is where the more time-consuming part comes in. I want you to put a link in your profile. And when you do this, you're gonna edit profile. It doesn't go in the writing of your bio. When you edit your profile on Instagram, there's going to be a section that says link. So you're gonna you're gonna paste it in there, okay? And it will be clickable on your bio. But I want you to link one of two things. You're either going to go create a Calendly account. You can do it on Calendly, or you can use Google Meet if you are using like the Google Workspace, and you're going to create a calendar with your availability that people could book a discovery call with you. Okay. And you're going to create that. You're going to link it to your Zoom account. You can use a free Zoom account, a free Calendly, but create it so that if somebody were to find your account, or let's say y'all were chatting and then they go look at your profile and they click on this link in your bio, it's going to take them to a calendar. They can pick a time that you have available that works for them. They click it, they put in their info, they book it, they automatically get sent the Zoom link, and you get a notification that they booked a call with you. So if you go that route and you do a Calendly, right? Then the line you're going to put in your bio is going to be one of the, you know, click below to book a call to chat, or click below to book a call to talk services, or click below to book a call about working together, something to that effect. Okay. The other option of what you could put in that link is a link to your website. Again, a website is a resource. It's not a requirement. I coach tons of women who have a website and have created one once they decided to become a VA. And I actually coach more women who don't make a website. So it's definitely not a requirement. But again, this is something that if you put in the time to do it once at the beginning, you don't have to keep up with it. But it would be a really helpful tool. It can make you look a little more serious about the VA work, especially if you're networking from a personal account, right? But if someone sees that, but they see your website and your website is really well done, that backs up your credibility a little bit. And a website does not have to be hard to do. Um, I always recommend to my students that they use a site called Wix W-I-X. You can use their free version. They have like an AI template that you can start with. Um and it gives you a really solid template to work off of. And then you just kind of fill in the spaces. And on your website, you want to have an about me section, you want to have your services listed, you want to have your pricing listed, and you want to have a spot that they can click to either contact you via email or book a call with you. Ideally, book a call with you. And so if you choose to go that route and you're like, Laura, I'm just gonna make a Wix, a Wix website because that's gonna have the calendar for them to book a call anyway, built into it, and that's the link you're gonna put on your profile, then that line in your profile is gonna say something like click below to view services and book a call, or start here for pricing and schedule a call, something like that, right? There's so many different ways you can say it. But that piece is going to complete your profile. We want people to have somewhere to go. If you don't have one of these links in your profile, if they come to your page, if they end up on your page somehow or they were chatting with you and then they click through to your page. If you don't have one of these two things linked in your bio, they have nowhere to go. They have nowhere to go. And so that's that's not what we want, right? We want to guide them. We want to have a way for them to take the next step and book a call with us and continue that discussion. So so far we have updating the name on your profile so that it has some virtual assistant for whatever your idle client is, making sure that your picture is you, that it's you, not your dog, that you are adding that line into your bio about starting here, click here to book a call, click here to see services and book a call, etc. And then you are linking either a Calendly or a like Google Meet calendar that people can book a call from, or you are linking your simple website made on Wix that also has your calendar included in it. And the last thing that I want you to do, the fifth tip that I have to optimize your personal Instagram profile, is that I want you to create a like kind of about me type of graphic

Laura Nicole: 15:18

 in Canva. Okay. So go in Canva and look for or search in the templates for like an about me Instagram post. Okay. You'll have your picture of you on it and then just like words kind of scattered on it that describe you. Um, there's a couple women in the academy who have really, really good versions of this as their pinned post. So if you want to see those, send me a DM over on Instagram and just say, hey, Laura, can I see those girls' posts, like their about me posts as inspo? And I'll send you their profile URLs. I'm not gonna just like put them out there on blast on the podcast. But if you DM me, I'll send them over to you and you can go take a look. But it's a very simple graphic. And then in the caption is like an about me style paragraph, right? Where you're saying um kind of similar or expanding on what you have on your one sheet resume, you know, why you do this, what your passion is, some quirks or highlights about your personality. Like what makes you you, right? Put that in the caption and also share what kind of business owners you are passionate about supporting and in what way, right? So what services do you offer? We're not listing them, right? But saying, like, I'll take over all the admin that your brain doesn't want to think about, stuff like that. Put that in the caption. And then at the bottom of that caption, you're going to direct whoever's reading that to go to the link in your bio, right? So if you went the calendarly route, you're gonna tell them that they can go to the link in your bio to book a discovery call and chat about possibly working together. Or if you went the website route, then you're going to tell people at the end of the caption to go to the link in your bio to read more about your services and to book a call to chat about working together. All right. And you are going to pin that. You're gonna pin that post to the top of your page so that anytime anybody comes and looks at your page, they are seeing that as the very first thing at the top of your feed. Okay. You do not need to be creating VA content on this page. That's the whole point of using this page instead of creating a business account. But every now and then in a caption, if it makes sense based on the thing that you're posting, if it makes sense to drop in and kind of just make a tie, make a connection to VA work or to having that free time to be with your kids because they can free stuff up by letting you take it over, et cetera. Just wrap things into captions here and there when it feels natural to. And whenever you do that in a caption, again, at the end of the caption, you're gonna point them to the link in your bio. Okay,

Laura Nicole: 18:21

 so these are some really, really simple things that you can do to optimize your personal bio so that it makes you look a little more professional, a little more legit. Someone's not gonna be confused when they go from talking to you to looking at your profile and be like, wait, what? This girl said she was a VA and there's no signs of VA work on here, right? Like now it will feel more cohesive to the potential clients that you're chatting with, but it's not going to take a lot from you, right? Either creating the Calendly or the website is going to be the most time-intensive thing. And even either of those shouldn't take you more than 15 to 45 minutes to do, depending which one you pick, and then you don't have to touch it again. Hopefully, this is helpful. Um, I would love to see the updates that y'all make to your profiles if you fall into this category and you're like, okay, yes, I'm gonna go make these changes right now to my profile. I would love to see them once you do. So take a screenshot of it and send it to me over on Instagram. And I can't wait to see them and I'll give you a follow back and cheer you on on your VA journey. Thanks

Laura Nicole: 19:29

 for hanging out with me today on your virtual assistant coach. 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.