Replacing My Teaching Income in Just 3-4 Hours a Day as a Virtual Assistant

Aug 12

You've likely heard me talk about how you can make an extra $500 a month as a virtual assistant and how being a virtual assistant is the best side hustle out there right now. But what if I told you that it's possible to replace your full-time income as one too? I'm diving into exactly what it looked like for me to not only become a VA, but replace what I was making in the classroom as a teacher while working a fraction of the time and how you can do it too.

So I got into online business about seven and a half years ago now, and my first side hustle that I started while I was teaching was in network marketing. Some of you listening to this episode might have also done or tried network marketing in the past. Some of you might be totally anti-network marketing, and some of you might be in network marketing right now. I just want to say this isn't an anti-MLM kind of deal because there was a time in my life where that opportunity made sense for me and my family. I was actually really successful at it. In fact, that's how I was able to leave teaching back in 2018 and step fully into the online space and making money from home.

Now, fast forward to after I had my first baby in 2020. Even after having a lot of success, I was starting to feel really misaligned with my network marketing company and the structure of the business as a whole. I started to think about what else could I do with my skills? Because I knew there was one thing for certain, and it was that if I was going to leave network marketing, I needed to figure out how to support my family financially, and I did not want to go back to teaching. I knew I wanted to be at home with my babies and going back to a ”job” job wasn't what I wanted to do.

So fast forward a little bit, and that's when I started my virtual assistant business. I knew what a VA was because I had a VA in my network marketing business. I didn't really know the ins and outs of it all, but I knew that I could figure it out. I didn't have a coach. I didn't take a course. I actually didn't really find very much information online at all when it came to building a business as a VA. I was just kind of taking what I could get and piecing it together, you know?

I was starting this business with basically what I knew from having a VA myself. At this time too, I didn't have childcare, my husband also worked, and I was six months pregnant. Yes. My oldest was 17 months old, so I was about to have 2 under 2 , and knew that I needed to find something I could do in the pockets of my day, like during nap time or after bedtime if I wanted to make the jump and do a pivot in my life and in my career. This is what really seemed like the best fit.

I also really liked doing a lot of the stuff that my VA was actually doing when I was in network marketing. The only reason I had a VA was that I just couldn't do it all. I needed someone to take things off my plate. Even though I enjoyed doing the things she was doing, I knew that those were things that somebody else could be doing in order for me to do what I needed to do. I needed support. So it's not like I didn't like the work that I was giving my VA. I actually really liked it and really would have probably preferred doing a lot of that versus some of the other stuff I was doing. That's kind of what made me think…okay, well, what if I just did that and did it for other people?

I basically looked at when I could work. This is kind of how I started to structure my business. I looked at when I could work. I knew I could work during nap time, after bedtime, and knew I didn't want to work on the weekends. I really wanted to have some boundaries in place because I had been used to working all the time. I literally remember thinking I don't remember the last time I didn't work on a weekend because in network marketing, I would work kind of whenever. Even with teaching, even though yeah, you have weekends off, but I was always grading or prepping or whatever. Then, before that, when I was in college and in high school, I actually had jobs that I worked the weekends because that's when I didn't have school or class. So I really wanted to put this boundary in, especially because I was about to have two kids, that I wanted to take the weekends off. So this left me looking at nap time, after bedtime, these pockets of my day, about three to four hours a day, Monday through Friday, that I could work on my business. So that was roughly like 15 to 20 hours a week. Isn't it crazy when you really think about the pockets of time you might have, and how much time there actually is. Even looking back now, I'm like, wow, I was able to find 20 hours a week that I could use to make money, and I wasn't having to miss out on the things that mattered most to me.

During this time, I decided to offer VA services and social media management services because I had been building a business on social media for about four years. I had a lot of experience in social media and social media strategy, all that good stuff. I actually offered both kinds of services. Then on the VA side, I was doing hourly retainers, which this pricing is something we really dive into in Beginner to Booked VA, so I'm not going to get super, super in-depth into it. But at this time, like I said, I was doing hourly retainers, and that looks like when someone is booking you as their VA, they pay X amount for X amount of hours. At the time, my rate was $30 an hour. If people wanted to book me for 10 hours a month, they would pay $300 on the first of every month to reserve those 10 hours, so $300 for the 10 hours. That's kind of what an hourly retainer looks like. Then, for social media management, I did flat packages that were based on deliverables. It was less trading time for money and more using my expertise in social media to create these packages that said for X amount, you are going to get X, Y, and Z. It was more of these flat packages that all the deliverables are the same, no matter who is purchasing them. This again, is something we dive into in Beginner to Booked VA, so if you feel confused about what to charge, pricing, all that kind of stuff, make sure to check out the program because it will answer all these questions. Right now we even have a self-study option, so you don't have to wait until our next live cohort to get started. You can just start and get going and you don't have to wait, which is great.

Doing all of this, doing the VA retainers, and then social media management packages, working about 15 to 20 hours a week, I was able to exceed what I would have made as a teacher in my first couple months as a VA. Then over time, it grew, especially as I niched down and identified other services that I wanted to offer like OBM services, which stands for online business manager. That's something I scaled to pretty quickly because I realized I have a skill set in strategy, especially when it comes to business and sales and systems and all of that good stuff. I started to really work with clients who needed someone to build out the systems and processes for them, and not someone that they could just delegate those to, because you can't delegate those things if you don't have them.

Now, I want you to think about what it could look like for you, okay? Where do you have one to two, maybe three to four hours a day that you could use for your business? Figure out how many hours per week that you can work with clients. I think you're going to be really surprised when you actually sit down and see you have an hour here, and a couple of hours there. Or you’re good with working on the weekends because that's when you have the time to work, so add a couple of hours there. Whatever that looks like for you. Then you're going to pick what your hourly retainer rate might be. This is probably going to land somewhere between $20 and $40 an hour based on your experience. I usually see our students landing around $25 to $35 an hour. Most clients are looking for 10 to 15 hours a month. So you can bring on multiple clients per month to hit whatever your income goal is. We're going to just do some simple, simple math. Let's say your retainer amount or your retainer rate is going to be $30 an hour. What would happen if you could bring home an extra $1,000 a month while working just an hour and a half a day, maybe like during your baby's nap time? That's where a $30 an hour working an hour and a half a day kind of retainer would look like. Now, let's say that you find an hour in the mornings and then two hours after your kids go to bed. That's another $2,700 a month. $2,700 a month because you found an hour in the morning and then two hours after your kids go to bed.

This is just honestly the beginning. This is before we even consider raising your prices, creating packages, or niching down. I know a lot of people want to skip the beginning to get to this part, but you have to start somewhere, which is why I talk so much about what would it look like to make an extra $500 or $1,500? Now what would it look like to make an extra $3,000, an extra $5,000? What would it look like to replace your full-time income? We have people who have gone through our program who have six-figure businesses now, okay? This is what is possible, but you have to start somewhere.

If you're like, okay Kate, I want to start, but I have no idea where or how. Beginner to Booked VA is for you. It's our signature program. It takes you through step-by-step how to get started, how to launch your business, and when you complete the program, you actually can submit your final project for approval and get your Behind the Scenes BFF VA certification, which not only sets you apart from other VAs, but it gives you the confidence that you need to know that you have everything in place that you need in order to start booking clients. The best part is we now have that self-study option! OOur next live cohort for the fall starts in September. Doors open to that on August 25th. If you are like, okay, I'm so in, I want to just get started. You can sign up for the self-study option today, like as you are reading this. If you decide down the road, you want to upgrade to the live version and get access to the weekly coaching calls and the Slack channel in our next cohort, you can totally do that. There is an option for you to upgrade. So there really is no lose in this situation. It really is a win-win. If you want to get started and you want to have that support that I didn't even have when I started, I didn't have someone walking me through how to do the thing and that's why I wanted to create something like this, then you can click here!

The whole point of this blog was that I wanted you to see how this is so possible for you. I wanted to break down exactly what it looked like for me, how I was able to replace what I would have made if I went back to teaching, just starting a new business as a virtual assistant, and how I was able to grow and scale it from there. I know because I've done it. After all, I've seen so many women through our program do it, and other people even outside of the program do it. I know it's so possible for you. I hope you see how it's possible for you. And I can't wait to see you inside Beginner to Booked VA!