Starting a Virtual Assistant Business? Do NOT Re-invent the Wheel
When you start a new business, you have a LOT on your plate. The first of many steps should be to write your business plan. Even if you don't need a business plan to secure funding, putting it down on paper serves many purposes. To name a few, your business plan helps organize your ideas, outline your vision and goals, identify your target market, determine your start-up costs, and develop a marketing plan. As I state in the title of this post, you do NOT need to re-invent the wheel when it comes to your business plan. There are many great resources online. The one I really like walks you step by step through your business plan. It is offered by SBA.gov and you can find it here.
As a virtual assistant, your clients will depend on you to be organized, efficient, proactive and thorough. These are just a few of the components that will align you as a critical value-add service to your clients. So the question is, what do you need to do to get into that position? First and foremost, you need your own business systems set up to keep your daily administrative tasks to a minimum. This will give you time to focus on prospecting for new clients and building the relationship with existing clients. The business systems you put in place will require various documents and resources that you will rely on every day as you build and grow your business. I am here to tell you that you do NOT need to re-invent the wheel trying to develop your own business documents, templates, marketing materials and resources from scratch! With a little research, you can find many websites that offer business documents for virtual assistants. What you want is a core set of materials that you can incorporate into your business systems and processes immediately. You want products that won’t require a lot of re-work to make them ready to use and by all means, you want to get the most for your money!
I started my virtual assistant practice in 2008. I did the research before I launched my business. I filtered out the unnecessary fluff and I used my experience documenting business processes in from corporate jobs to create my own business forms. My goal was to come up with a set of simple, replicable and repeatable tools to keep my day-to-day operations running smoothly. I fine-tuned them during my first few years in business, and have made tweaks here and there, but for the most part they have not changed in many years. Now I offer them in various packages as print-at-home resources for new or existing virtual assistants. Feel free to check out my business section of documents here.
I love what I do and know there are a lot of people out there with the drive to start a virtual assistant business who just don’t know where to start. I also understand that most of us who start a virtual assistant business want to make it happen with minimal overhead and smart investments. So don’t re-invent the wheel, take advantage of the work I’ve already done!
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Katie Bauer started Effective Virtual Assistance, LLC, in 2008. Based out of Northern Virginia, Effective Virtual Assistance, LLC partners with small businesses locally and nationally to give business owners the time they need to focus on core business and revenue generating activities. With a firm belief that when a client is successful, that reflects on her success, Katie’s goal is to go above and beyond with each and every client task and project.
Over the years Katie has been contacted by aspiring VAs through clients or directly via her website, asking for insight and advice. She realized writing a short eBook to share her experience along with offering some of the documents and tools could benefit other Virtual Assistants. Visit her Etsy shop to find these great resources.
Website: http://www.effectiveva.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/effectiveva
Email: Katie@effectiveva.com
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