The real truth about working less as a Virtual Assistant
Be honest: Did you decide to become a VA because of all the people you saw online who were working on beaches for an hour a day?
I did!
Well, that was one of the reasons I started anyway.
My mind was completely blown when I found out there was a way to make a living online, and working less was the icing on the cake for me.
The thing is, one of my biggest stumbling blocks was that I thought if I was working more than a handful of hours a day I was doing it all wrong. I thought to truly have a business on my terms meant that I should work as few hours as possible - and that’s an excellent goal to have - but I was really stalled in the beginning when I didn’t have much of a business to speak of.
Since then I’ve of course created a business that supports my lifestyle and gives me oodles of flexibility, but I want to break through the messaging you might see online around where your VA business can take you.
How much ‘less’ is less?
The first thing to address is that each VA will have a different goal in mind. Some might not really care how many hours they work as long as they reach the revenue goal they have in mind, and that’s just fine. But from my experience mentoring VAs for the past 3 years, flexibility around working hours (and generally working less of them) is the most common theme.
The real truth of getting to the point where you can design your day and work less than your corporate job can take time and work. Becoming a VA was 100% the right decision for me, and when I matched my corporate salary I was working around 5 billable hours a day (and that’s a hell of a lot less than I was working in the City).
My advice to get to a place you’re happy with is to first work out how much you actually want to work.
Money
You want to work less but I’m sure you don’t want that to mean you earn less - right? So do yourself a favour and charge a respectable hourly rate!
As tempting as it might be to charge a low hourly rate to sign a new client, it won’t make you happy in the long run. It’ll also take you longer to build your business and longer to work fewer hours.
Seasons
You’ll have different seasons in business as a VA. Sometimes you’ll need to work more, and at other times you’ll work less. There won’t necessarily be a consistent pattern because the nature of running a business just doesn’t work like that!
When you first start up your VA business you’ll be in a busy season. You’ll be setting things up, building a presence, making new connections, creating systems, signing clients, working for clients…..yup, you’ll be in a busy season.
And once you’ve filled your client roster you’ll be in a steadier season, where you’ll ace your client relationships whilst still marketing to potential ones.
And then a bit further down the line you might find yourself in a quieter season, where you’ve perhaps grown your skills, raised your rates or built a VA team.
Hours sitting at a desk does not equate to higher quality work (or more paying clients), but you will certainly need to work more in the beginning to get everything up and running.
Stop comparing yourself
It’s great to look at other VAs for inspiration, but it becomes unhealthy when you start comparing your journey to theirs. I can categorically tell you that every single VA out there shares their highlights online. They won’t be showing how hard they’ve worked to get there, how many mistakes they’ve made or exactly how many hours they work. Their marketing is aimed at their ideal clients, so why would they?
I pride myself on not over-exaggerating and just telling you how it is online. But even I skip out every single detail of my day because a lot of my client work is pretty run of the mill and won’t excite anybody!
The point here is that you shouldn’t compare where you are with where another VA is, ESPECIALLY if they’ve been in business longer than you. And while I’m at it:
One VA’s version of being fully booked will be completely different from yours
One VA’s style of working will be different than yours
One VA’s ideal day will be different than yours
So no need to compare. Ok?
