How to become a tech-savvy VA

Would you like to make more money as a Virtual Assistant this year? Of course you do!

There are heaps of ways to bring more money into your Virtual Assistant business. I’m not going to go into ALL of them today, because the one I really want to focus on is this: embracing the tech.

In this week’s blog post I’m walking you through why it’s important to be open to learning new tech, why clients need support with their tech and how to decide which platform is the right one for you to learn.

Be open to learning new things as a VA, especially when it comes to tech. It doesn’t need to feel intimidating, and small steps everyday equal big results overall.

Why bother?

As a VA you’re of course an online business owner yourself, and even if you don’t consider yourself a particularly techy person, you need to become comfortable with learning new tech to run your business. You’ll need to be active on social media, use a time-tracking tool, use a call booking tool…..etc.And once you know how to use tech for your own business, you can also use that expertise to help your clients too.

The thing is, clients NEED support with their tech. Unless their business is actually tech support, they probably aren’t experts at tech themselves! And even if they ARE tech experts, their primary focus will be marketing to potential clients and working with their signed clients.

The whole reason people hire VAs in the first place is to pass work over that they either don’t have time for or enjoy doing themselves - and techy things are often the first thing on the handover list. If you decide to master a particular platform or become a tech VA in general, you can absolutely charge higher rates for that expertise too!

The great thing about all the tech tools out there is that they often have free versions you can use, or free trials. AND they have free help guides and learning resources, so there’s no need for you to buy an expensive course to master them.

One final thing: you DON’T need to master every single tool! Pick an area or one particular platform and focus on that. But before you do, see which type of support is in demand by your client base.

Ok, let’s dive into which areas of tech are the most profitable to support clients with.

Project management tools

You don’t need to be an expert in project management to use a project management tool, and my favourite is ClickUp. It has an enormous amount of functionality that I use for my own VA business, and you can also collaborate with clients too. ClickUp is a bit of a blank canvas and you can set it up in the way that works for you - or that works for your client - and you can use handy automation tools to streamline processes.

Email marketing tools

Pretty much every online business owner will have an email list and a lead magnet (if you don’t know what that is, I have a guide to email marketing here, and a guide to lead magnets here). There are heaps of tools to choose from including Flodesk, Active Campaign, Mailchimp, InfusionSoft, MailerLite, Hubspot…..there are more! Essentially you could help a client with an account set-up, opt-in forms, lead deliveries and automated email sequences.

Social media management tools

Do you use a scheduling tool for your social media posts? If not, why?! There are heaps out there with free versions that are perfectly suitable for your purposes, and you can use them for your client’s businesses too. Mastering a tool like this will allow you to schedule all the content your client has created (or you’ve created for them!)

You can create blog management packages too, which might look like this: Create and schedule blog post on website, create blog graphics on Canva, create and schedule social media posts for new blog.

Webinar tools

WebinarNinja, Easy Webinar, Zoom, WebinarJam, GoToWebinar……yep, there are a lot of webinar tools. They can be used for small webinars, live webinars, evergreen webinars, free trainings, paid workshops……heaps of things. And although a lot of them can be quite intuitive, becoming familiar with one or two will be of enormous value to clients who host webinars regularly and/or as part of a big launch. They are often incorporated as part of an automated email sequence too.

Website tools

I had no idea how to do anything on a website builder before I became a VA, but within 6 months I had built a (basic) website on Wordpress and taken on blog management for a client. Since then I’ve also learned how to use Squarespace, Wix and Carrd, and I could probably turn my hand at a few more too! Your clients will likely already have a website (and if they don’t, I‘m not suggesting you build one for them because we design is an entirely different kettle of fish). But you CAN include website maintenance and updates as part of your tech service arsenal.

Workflow tools

There’s a bit of an automation buzz at the moment. Tools like Dubsado have the capability to streamline everything from call booking to invoice payment - and beyond! There’s a bit of a learning curve with these tools though, which is why there’s such a demand for Dubsado set-up and maintenance. Dubsado has excellent free learning resources and you have the option to become a certified Dubsado pro too.

Summary

So, there you have it. Heaps of ideas for how you can become more tech-savvy not only for your only business but for your client’s too. Tech isn’t everyone’s zone of genius, but if you can make it yours you absolutely won’t run out of tech-phobic clients needing your help!