How to Become a Virtual Assistant with No Experience

So, you’re thinking of becoming a Virtual Assistant. Then you’ve come to the right place!

While the VA industry is a very competitive one, it also has a low barrier of entry.

So what do I mean by this?

Being a virtual assistant does not require you to have any past experience!

Sure, having worked as a VA before could increase your chances of landing a job.

But even if you haven’t worked as a VA before, you can still convince clients to hire you.

After all, it’s one of the best stay at home mom jobs because it offers you the opportunity to build a lucrative career while you take care of your family.

So if you truly want to pursue a career as a virtual assistant, then you need to have the right mindset!

To help you bag a VA job, below are tips on how to become a virtual assistant with no experience:

Know what your niche is

Before finding VA work, you first need to know what your niche is – or that thing you’re 100% sure you can really excel in.

For example, you can recall your past work experiences and choose the jobs that you enjoyed the most doing.

However, you can’t guarantee that they offer VA jobs for your skills.

Therefore, a better way to determine what you should specialize on is by looking at the marketplace.

You see, there are different VA jobs available. And finding the right one can be quite confusing for those with little or no experience.

To settle on a niche, you can go to websites like UpWork to check for available VA jobs.

Make sure to read the job descriptions of each so you can figure out which ones play to your strengths.

You may not have a lot of work experience yet, but if you find a VA job that fits your specific skill set, then, by all means, go for it!

Take online courses

If you’re serious about turning your VA job into a long-term career, it’s important that you continuously try to improve your skills.

The more tasks you can do, the more job options you’ll have, which will pretty much set you up for the rest of the year.

Even if you’re still searching for jobs, you can already try looking for courses that can help you learn more about the niche you want to specialize in.

For starters, you can try signing up for free courses from e-learning platforms like Coursera or Alison.

If you want to earn a certificate after you complete your course, you can also try investing in paid courses.

Having proof that you’re an eager worker will lead you to higher-paying opportunities.

Network with other VAs

The virtual assistant industry continues to rise, and the best way to land jobs is through other VAs.

Aside from job boards and professional marketplaces, virtual assistants find work via word-of-mouth or referral.

Whenever you meet other VAs, be sure to ask them if anyone else is looking for your services. It’s possible that they are offered VA job but pass on them because their plate is full.

More importantly, you can leverage your network with other assistants by learning more about the industry.

Find out the best practices, tips, and advice on how newbies like yourself should prepare for a career as a VA!

A good way to start networking is to join Facebook groups and other online communities.

Groups like Virtual Assistant Network Group and the International Virtual Assistants Association (IVAA) are great places to start.

These communities provide amazing support for beginners who want to get an inside look into the profession.

Befriend knowledgeable people in the industry, engage in meaningful discussion, and absorb as much information as you can to help build your career.

Perfect your pitch

One of the most difficult parts about working as a virtual assistant is mustering the courage to apply for your first VA job using different online job marketplaces.

Now, assuming that you don’t have a portfolio to show prospective clients what your capable of just yet, your success boils down to crafting the perfect pitch.

The key to writing a compelling pitch even when you don’t have experience yet is this:

Identify the client’s problem and provide a specific solution.

If you can lay down your pitch by providing a foolproof strategy on how to develop and implement it, the better!

It won’t matter if you have no sample work to show as long as your pitch proves that you are indeed knowledgeable in your industry. The perfect pitch gives you a huge advantage over your competition!

But, what if a client steals the strategy you’ve presented in your pitch?

Unfortunately, this is a common problem in the VA industry that can’t be helped. When you get to that point, you only have two options:

First, do your research and avoid shady clients.

Second, create a unique strategy that only you can pull off.

Practice your craft outside of work hours

No matter how perfect your pitch is to prospective clients, it can only get you so far.

If you want to succeed as a VA, you’ll need to show clients that you can walk your talk.

This is where the hours of networking and learning as much as possible about being an online assistant should come in handy.

Basically, what you want is proof that you’re capable of offering your virtual assistance to interested parties.

One way to do this is to implement your techniques and strategies on your own site.

For starters, you can build a site by signing up for a WordPress or website builders like Wix and Weebly.

Then apply the tactics and techniques you learned that should prove helpful in landing clients.

Create content, design a beautiful site, optimize the site for higher ratings – whatever it takes to impress your target clients!

Also, run tests to grow your site traffic and show prospects that your strategies work. Whether your specialty is in e-commerce or real estate, make sure to learn the tricks of the trade even after your work hours.

Conclusion

If there’s one thing you need to learn from this post, it’s to never underestimate determine.

The tips above prove you that you can become a virtual assistant with no experience.

At the same time, it doesn’t mean that it’s okay to not have any experience at all.

Eventually, you’ll have to apply your knowledge over time to garner experience and generate more clients along the way.

But you have to want to succeed.

Now, I’ll be honest with you:

Starting out with no experience in the virtual assistant industry is hard work!

As mentioned, it’s possible to get a job as an online assistant without any experience.

But you’ll have to persevere and be determined if you want to establish a sustainable and long-lasting VA career.

Again, just follow the advice in this post and make it work so you’ll be on track to working as a VA for a very long time.