How to Make an Extra $1,000 a Month as a VA
This is a fun post for me because we are talking about money. And look, I know that lots of people have lots of feelings when it comes to talking about money, but I actually think people should talk MORE about money, especially female entrepreneurs. A money mindset is something that I think the majority of people struggle with or have struggled with in the past, and I believe of the ways to combat that is to talk about, and yes, even celebrate money…. especially as female entrepreneurs.
Money doesn’t buy happiness… but money creates opportunities. And for me, the income I made is directly correlated with #1 the clients I get to help and serve, and #2 the opportunities I get to provide for my family and others in our community – whether that is saving for my kid's future, saving for mine and my husband's retirement, booking a family vacation or even just the daily things like being able to shop for and buy clean, organic groceries and products for my son who has allergies or giving to our church.
Money doesn’t have to be evil despite what some of us might have believed growing up.
So that is what we are going to do today! We are going to talk about money. And specifically, how to make an extra $1000 a month working part-time hours as a virtual assistant.
Virtual assistants make a wide range of income. It depends on the VA, their work schedule, their goals, their experience, how long they have been in business, their services, the way they structure their packages, and so on.
I know I have talked about this on the podcast before but I think that there is incredible power and freedom in a side hustle. Multiple streams of income are more important than ever right now with the rising costs of well, literally everything. So let's break it down!
First things first, there are so many different ways to price your services. The most common ways are to charge hourly, book hourly retainers, or create packages. I personally have run my business and hour agency based on hourly retainers 90% of the time over the last year and we are actually moving into package-based pricing here in the next few months! So just keep in mind, if you set your rates one way, it doesn’t have to stay that way forever. I also don’t think that there is a “right” and a “wrong” way to do any of it! Sure, there are pros and cons to each, which I will get into at a later date, but you just have to figure out what works for you.
So let’s talk about charging hourly. I am going to lump both the traditional hourly billing and hourly retainers into this category. The difference is with traditional hourly billing, you would clock your hours and then bill your clients after the work is completed (whether that is every week, biweekly, or month). Hourly retainers mean that your clients book and reserve your hours for a certain amount of time for that month! They pay ahead of time for the hours they are anticipating using. I would say this is the most common way VAs charge especially if you are doing a variety of tasks for your clients!
Let’s say in either case, you want to work 2 hours a day, 5 days a week because remember, we are doing this on part-time hours. That is 10 hours a week. Multiple that by 4, 40 hours a month. At $20 an hour (what I recommend VAs start at if they are just launching their business and don’t have a ton of experience just yet), that is $800 per month. Just like that! I want you to pause and think about what an additional $800 could do for you and your family right now.
But, if your goal is $1000 a month, we still need to find an additional $200 right? So let's just up it to 3 hours a day, or 15 hours a week. That brings you to $1200 a month.
I want you to keep in mind a few things:
❋ I am not accounting for taxes and expenses. This would be your gross income or income you are bringing in before taxes and expenses. Next week I am actually going to do a podcast episode on what my overhead was when I was a solopreneur (because it is different now that I have an agency and a team). And I am not a CPA or tax professional so you will want to chat with someone in your area about how much to put aside for taxes. But personally speaking, we put aside 25-30% of our business income and we pay quarterly taxes. Again, this is going to be specific to you and there is a lot more that goes into it that a professional can speak on, but just to give you an idea!
❋ Also, these hours that you are working, the 2-3 hours a day, do not need to look sequential! They can be 1 hour in the morning, 1 hour in the afternoon, and 1 hour after your kids go to bed! Or it can be even more broken up than that. So don’t stress if you are like uh, I don’t have three hours in a row 5 days a week. That’s okay!!
Also, let’s not forgot to mention, that is $20 an hour. As you raise your rates, you will make more money, in less time. For example, $30 an hour working 2 hours a day, 5 days a week? There is your $1200 a month. Obviously, I know you can do basic math but sometimes it helps to hear it broken down by someone else!
These hours could be working with 1 client, 2 clients, 3 clients, or more! It just depends on what your client's needs are! I would say, generally speaking, most clients I come across are looking for 10-20 hours a month. Just for an idea!
The next way that you can structure your services is by offering packages. This is most common when you are offering specific services like social media management, copywriting, content creation, Pinterest, etc. But, it is possible to offer packages if you are focused more on admin-type tasks too, it just might be a little more challenging to come up with your packages if you are offering a zillion different services (believe me, I’ve been there).
Let’s say you want to offer social media management services and move towards the more social media manager route and you create a couple of different packages. You are going to offer a retainer package that includes a custom social media strategy for one platform (Instagram), content creation including graphic templates and copy, monthly analytics report, post scheduling, two hashtag sets, and inbox management. I am totally just spitballing here and giving an example, so if you are wanting to niche down more to social media management def put some more thought into what is included in your packages and how much you are going to charge BUT for the sake of this post, let’s say that retainer starts at $1000. That is one client you need to hit your goal! But maybe you start a little lower, at $800 a month, but you also offer social media strategy calls where you help someone build out their social media strategy for them to then take and go create content and you charge $1-200 for that 60-minute call. Then you need one retainer client and 1-2 strategy calls per month.
Again, keep in mind that pricing and rates should be based on a lot of different things including the client’s ROI, your experience, the value of the service, etc. But with specialized services or niching down, generally speaking, you are able to charge more because you are positioning yourself as an expert. Not that you couldn’t position yourself as an expert as a more general admin type VA (you should do that lol) but with specialized services or niching down, people are coming to you most likely for strategy AND implementation whereas, as a virtual assistant, your clients will likely already have a strategy in place and want you to execute said strategy. I hope that makes sense!
If you haven’t read our blog post about niching down, after you read this one, go check it out! I give my thoughts about the whole idea and how I don’t think you need to niche down right away. Our agency is coming up on 1 year old and we are just now really honing in on our services and offers and starting to niche down. More on that coming in the next couple of months!
And also if what services you want to offer/how to package your services or set your rate is hanging you up from starting, our signature program The VA Roadmap has a couple of modules all about this! Plus with our VIP enrollment, you get access to our Facebook group to mastermind and bounce ideas off of not just me, but other women in the group who are working on their businesses too! Enrollment for the program closes March 17th, so def head to either @yourbtsbffuniversity or yourbtsbff.com/varoadmap for more details and to get started!
Before we come to a close - I want to be very clear: this is a business and while for some, this might happen in your first month, second month, or third month in business… for others, it might not happen in your first year! And that is OKAY. Everyone's journey looks different and I think it’s easy to fall into the trap that “this isn’t working.”
I don't know if you have seen that meme, but there is a meme of two men mining for diamonds. And one man is chugging away, super close to getting to the diamonds, and right before he gets there, he stops. And he turns around.
Maybe because he was tired.
Maybe because he felt like it was taking too long.
Maybe because he didn’t believe in himself.
Regardless of the reason, he quit RIGHT BEFORE the magic happened.
But the other man? He kept digging. And he reached the goal!
In the 5 years I have been an entrepreneur, I have learned so many valuable lessons and one of them is that when you are feeling the most resistance, is when you are the closest to a breakthrough. So just keep that reminder in your back pocket for when things get hard and you feel like quitting and instead, remember your why and keep going.
Okay that is all I have for you today! I hope this was helpful and got you dreaming a little bigger when it comes to your goals for your business.
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