What I’d Do If I Were Starting From Scratch Today (as a New Virtual Assistant)

Aug 14

When I started my business as a Virtual Assistant, it was admittedly pretty clunky. I knew what a VA was and what a VA could do, because i actually had had a VA myself before in a previous business, but I didn't know exactly how to get things up and running for myself or how I would find clients and all of the ins and outs of everything. So I turned to Google University and YouTube State, which worked out for me, of course, because I'm here today.

But my mission with Your Behind the Scenes BFF is to provide the things that I simply didn't have when I started.

Encouragement, education, and mentorship.

So, we are going to look back at the three things I would absolutely do again if I were starting my VA business from scratch, some of which I did and some of which I didn't, and maybe a little bit that I could have done better. Hopefully, all of the things will help you navigate the beginning of your journey and everything that's to come.

1. Take Inventory of Your Skills

So listen, I didn't formally do this, but I knew that I had a lot of skills because I had had experience in online business. So I knew it was going to transfer. That's not the case for everyone, right?

Some of you are teachers, nurses, stay at home moms, or you're in corporate might be thinking…I don't even know if I have the skills. I don't have any experience in being an assistant or in online business or whatever that looks like.

First and foremost, I want you to know that you do have the skills that you need in order to become a VA. I know this because I've helped over 500 women at this point start their businesses as VAs. I've never once come across someone who didn't have what it takes…like ever. But you have to be able to take inventory of those skills and really uncover what they are so that you can turn those into services and use them to help you book clients.

Now, we just recently did a podcast all about skill set and how you're actually more qualified than you think you are. You can listen here! But I want you to know that soft skills matter just as much, if not more than hard skills.

If you're thinking I don't have experience in these systems that online business owners use, or I don't really know anything about social media, etc. Stop right there.

Your soft skills matter, in my opinion and in my experience, more than what your hard skills do. You being a great communicator, you being super organized, you being a go-getter, you being able to be someone who just figures it out, that is so valuable in the role of being a virtual assistant.

You also want to walk through the actual process of identifying your transferable skills. So I have a couple of resources for you for that.

We have our free Discover Your Money Making Skillset Quiz.
We also have our challenge!
We have our five-day Monetize Your Skills Challenge. It takes that quiz to the next level where you're getting five days of coaching and training and helping you uncover those skill sets, but also showing you how they transfer to services and then what that would look like in terms of how much you could charge, how much you could make, time required for you to be able to make X amount of money as a VA, especially if you're someone who wants to do it on the side, from home, or in the pockets of your day, and the steps that you need to take to do that.

At the time of this blog, we are enrolling for our last live challenge of 2025 which starts next week on August 18th. If you are reading this after August 18th, we still have a challenge happening, it’s just not live! You will still get the recordings, the same trainings, the coaching, all that good stuff!
You can find that here.

2. Tell Everyone What You're Doing

For my millennials out there, don’t be Hannah Montana, okay? You can't live the best of both worlds, all right? Can't be Miley Cyrus in the morning, during the day, and Hannah Montana at night. I've been there, I've done that in a previous business, and I learned from that. I want you to learn from me in that way.
Visibility equals opportunity. I know that sometimes it can feel really hard to be seen, feel seen, or put yourself out there, but it is critical to the mission of you seeing success and getting opportunities that you normally wouldn't be able to get. It doesn't have to look like you posting on social media every single day, and going to a bunch of different events. It doesn't have to be complicated. It can literally look like you telling your friends and family what you're doing. And, “Hey, if you hear of anyone that needs a VA, would you mind sending them my way”? That is exactly how I got my first couple of clients.

I texted a couple of my friends that were in the online business space and said, “Hey, I'm going to start my business as a virtual assistant. If you know of anyone that's looking for a VA or looking for support in that way, would you mind sending them my way”? It's funny because it turns out both of those people actually needed a VA themselves, and I had no idea. If I had never reached out to them, who knows, they probably wouldn't have gone and hired someone else, but they didn't. That's an example of how visibility and just telling people what you're doing is going to help give you opportunity.

People can't hire you if they don't know what you offer. They can't hire you if they don't know what you're doing. So you have to be able to tell people about it. I actually did another podcast episode last week that was all about the reason you're not making sales is because you're afraid of selling (listen here!). It's really, really important to let people in on what you're doing because it's just nice to have people supporting you and encouraging you if they aren't a client, and just them knowing what you're doing is great. You just don't know what could come from that. Showing up and telling people what you're doing is such a great way for you to start getting the ball rolling on what it looks like to start getting clients and building your business.

A couple of low-pressure ideas for starting to share is texting a friend. Even just like a casual Instagram story. Just throw it up on your stories! “Hey, I'm starting my business as a VA”. If you decide that you're going to make a new Instagram account, make sure you tag that account and say “if anyone's interested in following along on the journey or you're looking to hire a VA, follow this page, and reach out”! Even posting in a local Facebook group. There's so many mom Facebook groups out there. There are so many local neighborhood Facebook groups. Just sharing again, very low pressure…”Hey, no big deal. Just want to let you know that I'm here and this is what I do and if you're interested, let me know”. You're not being annoying. That's something that I think comes up for a lot of people. You don't want to be annoying. You don't want to be salesy. You don't want to…fill in the blank. I think we all have a point in our life where we can kind of feel that way, but it all goes back to if you're not visible, then you can't give people the opportunity to work with you if they don't know what you're doing.

3. Get A Mentor And Learn From Someone That Has Already Gone First

Like I mentioned at the beginning, I really just went down the Google and YouTube rabbit hole and got resources and education from different places, which can definitely work. It did for me. You can definitely DIY the start of your business, but it would have been drastically different if I would have invested in some kind of mentor to come alongside because I would have gotten started so much faster, I would have skipped over a lot of the questioning and the overwhelm of if this is right, if I'm doing this right, if I should do this instead, etc. There was just so much information out there and that's one thing that's really hard when you're kind of trying to DIY it or Google your way through it is there's a lot of information out there that's contradictory, right? When there's so much information and you're getting pulled all these different directions, people feel really overwhelming versus having a specific roadmap that tells you exactly what to do, what steps to take, what you need, answers all of those questions, and also gives you accountability and community within that mentorship as well.

Having someone to ask a simple question to could be life-changing. It just saves so much time. It saves so many headaches. It would have been so much easier if I had gotten support, if I had worked with a mentor, if I had a roadmap, if I had just taken the guesswork out of it. I probably would have been able to make a lot more money a lot faster, to be honest. I also would have felt really confident in my business.

I also think credibility comes with mentorship. At least that's something we strive for with Beginner to Booked VA is we actually have a certification where when you go through our program, you go through our mentorship, you are getting certified as a You're Behind the Scenes BFF virtual assistant. That means to the outside world that someone besides you says, “Hey, you're client ready. You're ready to bring on clients. You have everything that you need in order to get started”. That sets you apart from people who don't. That's why Beginner to Book VA exists, right? It's something I created because it's something that I wish I had. I created it in a way that I would have wanted myself. Like I said, mentorship is not a requirement by any means, but it is a shortcut. It can get you to your goals and where you want to go faster. It also gives you some accountability. It gives you that community. I think that's really important when you're building your business.

So if you're thinking about joining Beginner to Booked VA, we actually are enrolling for our fall cohort starting next week on August 18th, we are going to open it up to the waitlist to start getting their seats. If you're on the waitlist, you're also getting a special little bonus. So I would highly recommend joining the waitlist. If you're also someone who just wants to get started today and feel like you don’t need the live support, where you get the six weeks of group coaching, you get a group chat with coaching as well over the six weeks, etc.. If you feel like you can just do this on your own, but need something to help you answer some questions and make sure that I'm on the right path, and get some resources. Then our self-study enrollment option might be a good fit for you too. That's something you could sign up for today and get started on your business. So both of those options are available to you! We would love to see you in either the self-study option or in the live cohort that kicks off in just a few weeks.

Those are the three things that I would do if I were starting from scratch as a new VA. I hope that this has helped you! These couple things really can make a huge difference by identifying your skills, making sure that you're telling people what you're doing, and also deciding if you are ready for mentorship. If you're ready to stop Googling and ready to start doing Beginner to Book VA is opening up for our fall cohort, like I had mentioned, and we have our self-study option. So you could literally start today or you can start with us in a couple of weeks. Either way, whether you do that or you want to just continue hanging out over here on the blog, I'm so glad that you're here and I'm rooting for you along the way!