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Five Steps to Becoming a Virtual Assistant
by Dana Wallert
So you've decided you want to start working at home and starting your own business.
Now, you've heard about being a virtual assistant and thought "I could do that!" Now what?
Here are five steps that I went through in becoming a virtual assistant. These
aren't official by any means, rather a little road map to help you get started.
1. Begin bidding on freelance projects. There are many sites online that allow
employers to post freelance projects they need completed. You are then able to
bid on those projects. Some sites offer this service free to those bidding and
others charge a nominal fee. A few of my favorite sites are
Elance and
Guru.com.
Your best bet is to bid on as many projects as you feel you are qualified to
complete. This is an important step because it will allow you to see what it's
like to work on a project to project basis. It can also give you a clearer idea
of what people are really looking for freelancers to work on and what services
you might want to offer.
2. Once you start looking around the freelance sites and are getting an idea of
what services you want to perform, you need to take an inventory of your work
space. Your home office must have everything a typical administrative assistant's
desk would. You also need to make sure that you have a work area that is separate
from all distractions. Just because you're working at home doesn't mean that you
aren't working just as hard, in fact you'll be working twice as hard for awhile.
3. At this point, the best thing you can do for yourself is spend as much time
as possible exploring other virtual assistants' sites. This will allow you to see
what you like and don't like on their sites. You'll also get a much better idea
of what services you'd like to offer and what prices you can reasonably charge
for your time. Note, I'm not advocating copying, stealing or plagiarizing in any
manner, just look around a lot to see what you're getting yourself into.
4. You'll notice when you're looking around all of these virtual assistant sites
that many of these professionals have different certifications and belong to all
sorts of different organizations. I would recommend looking into all of them
that you run across. It's really your decision on which ones you'd like to join
or whether you want to spend the money on those at all. However, many of these
organizations will help you with site development, marketing and promotion.
Plus, some potential clients will be more comfortable working with you simply
because you have their seal on your site.
5. Now, you're ready to start getting to work on your website. You've got to
be realistic with this. It is essential that your website look very professional
and express your mission and services in a very straightforward manner. If you
have web design experience and feel confident in your abilities, then by all
means get to work on your site.
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