Hi there. My name is Rachel and I am happily, but shockingly a VA. Shocking to me. I never thought I’d be here, or like it. Tuck in and I’ll tell you all about it.
I’m one of those cool creative types who is a fast learner but a fast thinker and I cannot, no cannot do the minutiae that accounting would take, for example. Because of my school and culture experience, I took that to mean I can’t do anything right for a very long time. I wasted a lot of time trying to fit myself into molds made for others. Over the adult years I learned it wasn’t that I was wrong it’s just the way I am and I can work with it. I found myself constantly trying to find ways to start a business, helping small businesses, but I just couldn’t make myself commit to just one role. Am I your financial advisor? Can I do sales for you? I wanted to do it all for everyone.
Then came along my friend Melissa.
“You should look into Virtual Assisting,” She said. “I’m doing it and I’m having a blast.”
“No.”
“Think about it!” She said.
“No. I don’t do bookkeeping or detail work. Nope. No way.” I politely, calmly responded.
“You don’t have to do details!” She explained and told me some of the projects she was working on. It was all that I wanted to do. Projects {I love things that end} and fun stuff. The next thing I knew I was signing up for Virtual Assistant Internship (VAI), per Melissa’s advice.
I found VAI to be a starting place, a guide to figure out just how do I get the ball rolling? It’s not so much having skills, but what are people looking for? Where are those people? And most importantly for me, I got to practice doing work for VAI which showed me what interacting with a client would look like, meaning how fast would I really be able to respond? Which platforms really work well for me? How on earth am I the only person having a hard time with Asana? (I got it now).
Personally, I’ve found I love getting the word out for small businesses. I have a banking background so I can quickly see where they’re missing customer interface, value presentation and all the goodness that brings in the money.
To anyone thinking of the Virtual Assistant career I’d say just do it. Join VAI. You get tons of insider info, trainings for free and most importantly, the experience. So when you get a real live client, you’re cool, you’re calm, this isn’t your first rodeo. You’ve done the correspondence, you’ve presented yourself and your work. You’re awesome. Go for it!
