In today’s episode, I share about the wide variety of services that can be offered as a Virtual Assistant (VA). Being a VA simply means providing an online or virtual service to another business or individual.
To help you determine what type of VA business you can build, I am taking you through a brainstorming exercise to dive into your background, passion and what you are already good at.
I’m also going to break down some potential types of virtual assistant business ideas, including general administrative support, graphic design services, social media management, individual services such as photo organization, and software expertise.
I would love for you to introduce yourself in the comments or drop me an email. I would especially like to know if you have suggestions for future topics.
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Melyssa: Hey there. I am super excited to jump into today’s episode. It was obviously very important that this be one of the first episodes, because I want to share with you that there is a super wide variety of services you can offer as a virtual assistant. And that’s really the basis for this entire podcast. Why I started it.
[00:00:22] Melyssa: I do want to clarify two quick things before we jump right in. One, is that working from home in your own online business is different from remote work. Remote work is where you’re a paid employee, working at the direction and discretion of an employer. Whereas owning your own VA business means that you’re your own boss. And while other businesses or individuals will hire your business to provide a service to them. You as the virtual assistant business owner set the parameters of that relationship, and more importantly, the rate for that service.
[00:00:54] Melyssa: The second thing I want to clarify is that being a virtual assistant is often described as [00:01:00] providing administrative support. And while this is the type of VA service I provided, it’s only one type. Online descriptions of the VA industry tend to give this very narrow definition of the administrative support aspect. And honestly, it’s just way too narrow for me. I have a super strong opinion that being a virtual assistant simply means that you’re providing an online virtual service to another business or individual.
[00:01:27] Melyssa: It’s really that simple.
[00:01:29] Melyssa: If you came to this episode because you’re excited by the idea of becoming a virtual assistant, but you’re just like, not quite sure what service you would even offer in your business. I’m going to share some ideas with you shortly.
[00:01:44] Melyssa: But first I have an exercise. You can actually also find this in my free, Quick Start Guide to Build Your VA business. I’ll put that link directly in the show notes below. This exercise is a great way to discover what type of VA business you want to build. I’ve [00:02:00] gone over this with many clients and it’s just a really great exercise.
[00:02:04] Melyssa: So here’s what I want you to do. I want you to grab some paper and we’re going to brainstorm. You can actually pause this episode after we go over the next couple of questions. Um, or set a reminder so that at some point today you come back and you do this brainstorming. I don’t want you to forget this. If you need to set a reminder on your phone, do it. I live and die by the reminders on my phone.
[00:02:26] Melyssa: First ask yourself, what do you have a background in? What is your education or training in? And I’m not specifically talking about college. I’m talking about any kind of education, any kind of training specialty. If you focus on anything, if you have a certification in something, took some sort of training course.
[00:02:43] Melyssa: Write all of those down. I want you to also write down all of your past jobs, go all go way back, girls. Let’s go all the way back. Write all those jobs down. And if you have a job right now, write that down and think about what’s coming up when you’re writing all of those things down. Is there like a [00:03:00] pattern?
[00:03:00] Melyssa: Don’t just give really vague answers. Try to write down the details of the things from the trainings and the tasks that you did in your jobs. Did you go to school for marketing was, um, there are certain specialty that you had. Are you certified in graphic design? What jobs have you had in your past or your present job that could actually translate into your own business?
[00:03:25] Melyssa: Next, what are you passionate about or what is something that you’d really like to learn more about? Do you use Pinterest in your personal life you like to scroll through there. You have all kinds of boards, but you want to learn how to use it for a business. Do you like editing videos for Reels or Tic Toks? Do you love being creative with your kids, lunchbox meals, brain dump, all those ideas that are coming up for you when you think about things that you’re super into, or you’re really passionate about.
[00:03:54] Melyssa: Another fun idea. I like to tell people to do is to think about something that you can talk about [00:04:00] for 30 minutes with no preparation. If there’s something coming up for you, you’re like, oh yeah, I could totally talk about this. Then that is probably something that you are super passionate about and write that down.
[00:04:17] Melyssa: The final thing I want you to think about is whether you’re already doing something for free that you could be making an income from. Are you the go-to person in your friend group for creating flyers? Does your family always expect or depend on you to be the one to like organize all of the family photos from a family vacation?
[00:04:35] Melyssa: You can also ask your friends and family, this really simple question. What am I good at? Seriously. Like go ask them this question. We’re often so hard on ourselves. But people who love and support us are likely to mention things that you might not even have considered. So write down what they come up with and see if that’s something that you’re going to want to turn into your virtual assisting business.
[00:04:58] Melyssa: I know it might seem weird [00:05:00] to go through these exercises, but it really is a great way to help come up with the idea for your virtual assisting business. Now that you’ve done some of that brainstorming. I want to share with you some potential types of virtual assisting business ideas. Remember virtual assisting businesses are not all.
[00:05:15] Melyssa: Remember virtual assisting businesses are not one size fits all. You can offer administrative support. This could include tasks like data entry, calendar management, email inbox management. Light bookkeeping, travel, booking an appointment setting. As a general administrative virtual assistant, you can offer just one of those services or a combination of any of those tasks.
[00:05:40] Melyssa: You could also offer graphic design services. You can create templates, book covers, make flyers specialize in lead magnets, or just specialize in social media graphics. Again, any combination or just specializing in one of those things.
[00:05:56] Melyssa: The social media industry is huge right now. [00:06:00] You could manage social media accounts, create social media content. Do social media engagement. You could specialize in just one platform or you could offer to set up Pinterest accounts and manage them. There’s really, again, a wide variety of things that you can do within that social media aspect.
[00:06:22] Melyssa: You can offer services to individuals, people who need help. Hello. As moms need help. If you’re really stylish, you could do online consultations with what colors of clothes would look best on someone, or you could have them send photos of their outfits to you to provide ways to style them.
[00:06:41] Melyssa: You could organize photos. I’m totally ashamed to admit how many photos I currently have on my phone. I would gladly play someone to like, if I put them all in a Dropbox and have them organize into yearly and monthly folders. Delete the extras. That would be such a relief for me. Or what [00:07:00] about custom meal planning? You could have families fill out a survey of their likes and allergies and each week you could provide them a custom list of dinners.
[00:07:08] Melyssa: Oh, my gosh kids lunches, you could provide customized lunchbox ideas for families for every day of the week.
[00:07:15] Melyssa: There’s also a multitude of software programs out there that entrepreneurs need, but often don’t have the time or desire to set up or master. You could become an expert in a certain software and then offer to set up and even manage that software for them. There are certain softwares, um, like Dubsado HoneyBook and 17 Hats that are client management programs that entrepreneurs and businesses sometimes use to manage their client projects, invoice communicate, do all kinds of things in there. But they’re kind of a pain in the butt to set up. So a lot of people are really willing to pay others to do that for them. [00:08:00]
[00:08:00] Melyssa: You guys, I feel like I just said the word you 1 million times. The list I just went through is really not exhaustive by any means. I hope it got you thinking about some possibilities for the VA business that you can create.
[00:08:18] Melyssa: As I mentioned before. I go through these exercises and examples in my free, Quick Start Guide to Build Your VA Business. It’s available at my website at melyssamunday.com and I’ll put the exact link in the show notes. I also offer a VA Velocity Intensive, where we hop on a Zoom call for 45 minutes together and brainstorm that all of this out together, it’s a customized brainstorm just one-on-one you and I go over that together. So I’m also going to put that link down in the show notes.
[00:08:48] Melyssa: If you’re going to take any of these ideas and turn it into your VA business, I absolutely want to know, send me a DM on Instagram. I’m at Melyssa Monday or at Mamas Making More. So I can [00:09:00] celebrate and cheer you on. I would also super appreciate if any of you would take a screenshot of this episode, share it on your Instagram stories and tag me so we can spread the word to other moms that they too can have the ultimate flexibility by starting their own VA business.