In April 2017, I participated in an online survey of virtual assistants. The survey's purpose was to gather information about our industry. The results are out and I'm enjoying reading them to see where I fall in the continuum of the 445 virtual assistants who responded. I hope you'll find it interesting too, whether you're a fellow VA or someone who has worked or might work with one.

Image by Tungilik (Own work) [CC0], via Wikimedia Commons

Length of career, part-time or full-time, and certification

I'm part of the only 6% who have been working as a VA for 8-10 years; I'm actually at 10+ years but 8-10 was the highest option. This makes sense, as the virtual assistance industry is a fairly new one. I guess that makes me an early adopter :)  

I'm in the 61% who consider our VA business to be part-time, as I don't work a full 40 hrs/week (not on VA work anyway, wink).

I fall in with the 67% of VAs who don't have a VA certification (which aren't "real" anyway; I...

Hey creative entrepreneur, virtual assistant, or woman aspiring to be . . . this is for you. This site is for you and, as I was conceptualizing it and building it, I always had you on my mind.

I want this to be the perfect place for you. To that end, I "re-did" Marie Forleo's B-School which included going through the lessons again, with this site and with you in mind.

I found the process fascinating! So I thought I'd do a little blog series and share my notes and thoughts from my B-School homework. This first post derives from B-School's "Start the Right Business," Lesson 3. Here are the questions and my answers. 

Who are the people you and your business will serve? Who exactly is your product or service for?

My business will serve and is for: aspiring/current creative entrepreneurs and virtual assistants.

What is her day-to-day life like?

If aspiring creative/VA: She's a busy mom working a day job that she tolerates or hates. She's exhausted from having to get...

What is Kajabi? It's a platform to easily sell your content online - courses, e-books, membership site, coaching groups, even physical products. It's an all-in-one solution that let's you have everything under one roof: website, blog, landing, sales, and checkout pages, e-mail marketing system and more. It's pretty amazing, actually.

I'm a Kajabi Konvert

And proud of it! Heh. That was kind of obnoxious, right? But I'm totally serial. I discovered New Kajabi in December 2016 and, after taking a walk-through with a free trial, decided pretty quickly that THIS was my new best friend. 

• I'm also a proud Kajabi affiliate because I believe in this product so much and love to share about it. Please know that any Kajabi-related links in the rest of this post are my affiliate links - and they actually save you money so I don't think you'll mind, right? There are other affiliate links as well. Thank you for supporting my work in this way :)

Analyzing All the Options

When I...

You want to become a virtual assistant and you're wondering: 1. Do I need to take virtual assistant college courses? and 2. Do I need to be certified? These are common questions I hear from aspiring VAs so I wanted to share my thoughts.

Simply put: No and No. There, isn't that great news? :)

1. Do new VAs need to take a Virtual Assistant college course?

No, you don't need to take a VA college course to get started working as a virtual assistant. There are community colleges like this one which offer certificates in Virtual Assistance. On the one hand, I'm glad they exist because they do get in front of college students; it's another way for the world at large to learn about and perhaps take part in this amazing profession.

On the other hand, when I look at this college's example, it seems to me it's a curriculum cobbled together from other subjects like Accounting, Business, and Computer Science. Instead, all of the classes should be from the College of...

I've always wanted to document the journey I took from being a "cubicle-dweller" to having my own business and working from home full-time as a virtual assistant. So on my 10th-year anniversary of becoming a virtual assistant, it seems like a great time. It's a long story and you certainly don't have to read all of it. But I hope that if you do, you find it encouraging. If I can do it, so can you! So here we go ....

My career story

First job

I started my first job at age 13; I was a papergirl. For you youngsters, that means I'd get up at 4am 7 days a week - at 3am on Sundays because the paper had comics and ads - to fold papers, load them on my bike, and deliver them to doorsteps in my neighborhood. Then one evening per week, I'd go around knocking on customers' doors to collect payment, hand them a written receipt, and hopefully collect a tip :)

Retail, clerical, managerial, analyst

After that, I worked in a video rental store, clothing store, insurance agency, and...

I started following Jessica Turner's blog, The Mom Creative, because we have a lot in common so I enjoy reading her stuff.  We're both moms who work at home, we're bloggers, and we love taking photos.

I enjoyed following her journey as she published her first book called The Fringe Hours: Making Time for You.

Here's a blurb about it:

For the woman who is doing everything for everyone--except herself: Ever get to the end of the day and realize you did nothing for you? In this practical and liberating book, Jessica N. Turner empowers you to take back the fringe hours--those little pockets of time you already have in your day--in order to make time for your passions and practice self-care. Based on original research, The Fringe Hours helps you overcome common hurdles that prevent women from taking time for themselves regularly. You'll also discover tips for maximizing the time you have and discover how living this lifestyle makes you a better wife, mother, and friend.

God bless the day the internet was invented (by Al Gore, right? bwahahaha!). Because it opened up a whole new world of possibilities for people like us – shy, quiet types who want to be social and who want to own a business, but not with, like, real people out in the big world. That would involve lots of face-to-face situations with strangers and we’re not super crazy about that idea.

How Things Used to Be

Don’t get me wrong. I *can* do those things – work and socialize with people out in the real world. I did it for decades and quite well, thank you very much. I think most people who know me in real life find me kind, sociable, and smart. But truth be told, I’ve never felt 100% comfortable. (Please tell me you can relate!)

If given the choice to attend a friend’s party or stay home with the new novel I’d been dying to read, I’d prefer the book (but would go to the party because it was expected of me). I’d shake hands, look...

Do you love reading books about online business? I do! At any given time, I’m usually reading one alongside whatever novel I have going.

Here are 3 books I’ve read and recommend to all online entrepreneurs.

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Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook: How to Tell Your Story in a Noisy Social World by Gary Vaynerchuck

Gary Vee gives great advice on how to use each social media channel to give, give, give (aka jab, jab, jab) to your audience, then make the sale (right hook). Lather, rinse, repeat. My takeaway: Keep the right balance in your social media efforts; you can’t just sell, sell, sell to people. They’ll tune you out or turn you off.

#GIRLBOSS by Sophia Amoruso

You may have heard of this book recently due to the popular Netflix series "#Girlboss" that was recently released. This is the...