When it comes to determining your offerings, you want to start by considering:
- What do I enjoy doing? What are my skills?
- What programs or software do I have experience using? What certificates or training have I received?
- What skills or services are in demand?
Some of these questions you must answer from your experiences and training, while others you might have to spend some time researching.
To get you started brainstorming (and maybe even to surprise you a bit about what a virtual assistant can offer), I will provide you a list of twenty-five tasks that people often outsource to a virtual assistant.
25 Services to Provide as a Virtual Assistant
- Craigslist or other ad postings
- Discussion board participation
- Support ticket answering
- Blog commenting
- Blog publishing
- Blog management
- Social media setup, posting, and monitoring
- Recruiting
- Database building
- Telemarketing
- Project management
- PowerPoint presentation preparation
- Creating basic reports/spreadsheets
- Minutes recording
- Transcription
- Hotel and flight booking
- Calendar management
- Research
- File management
- Receptionist duties
- Follow up
- Booking appointments
- Setting up and maintaining autoresponders
- Setting up and maintaining shopping carts
- Email management/filtering
This is not an exhaustive list, but it is a very good place to start. There are freelance websites with literally thousands of people looking for a virtual assistant or someone just like you to do any of the twenty-five jobs listed above and more. One of the first steps, therefore, is for you to decide which of these tasks you want to do, that you have the skills to do, or which ones you can quickly learn and will enjoy doing.
Think Long-Term
As you determine the services that you will offer don’t forget to think long-term. Consider what you will enjoy doing most.
For long-term clients, I caution you to choose only those tasks that you will enjoy doing. It is perfectly all right to look for a short-term client doing one or more of these tasks to test if you will enjoy doing it, but I caution you to not take on a long-term position as a virtual assistant doing tasks that you are not 100 percent confident you will enjoy.
The wonderful part about being a virtual assistant is that you own your own business, you create your own schedule, and you have control of your time. Therefore, you don’t want to ever create a situation by taking on a client or tasks that you are miserable doing. Only offer tasks and skills that you can enjoy doing long-term.
Not sure where to start when it comes to starting your Virtual Assistant Business. Sign up for my FREE guide: 10 First Steps to Starting a Virtual Assistant Business.
