6 Lessons We Learned from Running a Virtual Assistant Business

Welcome to our blog!

We’re coming up on two years since we started our business, and it’s mindblowing how something that started as a random WhatsApp chat became a fully realized business.

I’m serious… that’s how it started. One thing led to another and we were registering things, setting up websites, getting systems in order, and getting our first client. Looking back, it felt like a whirlwind, but it was quite scary because we were launching something we didn’t know about at all.

Now as we’re about to celebrate 2 years in business (probably with sushi and wine like we did last year, lol), we’re ready to share the lessons we learned about starting and running a toddler virtual assistant business.

1. Your Business Needs a Solid Foundation

Listen… we read it all: “How to start a virtual assistant business”, “What is a virtual assistant business?” “Who needs a virtual assistant?” The greatest lesson we got from there was simple:

A virtual assistant business is a business first of all.

It doesn’t matter who needs you as a virtual assistant or who needs your business if you don’t get the fundamentals right. The thing with anything that you build is that it needs a foundation before you even get to building the pretty part of the structure. A business is the same: solidify your foundation before you even think about the pretty stuff. You know, grateful clients and lots of money *winky face*. Here\’s a few things you need to consider, write down, and execute if you want to start your virtual assistant business right:

• Your business plan: Business Name, branding, ideal client, services you’ll offer, rates, projected income.
• Expenses you’re going to run into: How much will it be to register that business? How much is the website? What tools are you going to use and how much will they be per month (or per year, if you’ll be paying the fees annually)? Are you going to take any extra courses?
• Documentation you need: Contracts, forms, proposals, client onboarding & offboarding, etc.
• And so on…

We had the “luxury” of being perfectionists so we did not take any other steps or even start looking for clients until we had this part of our business on lock

2. Play to Your Strengths

I’m so fortunate that my business partner is an introvert who likes going outside sometimes because I happen to be the creative hermit who doesn’t mind spending days at home as long as I have food, entertainment & clean sheets to sleep in. I say this because if we didn’t have that perfect balance, there are things that never would’ve been done. I do the creative & techy stuff, she does the admin and finance stuff and that balance between us has kept our business running solid for these (almost) 2 years.

No one is perfect. No one is the whole package. Whatever is your strength, use it to get your business started, and whatever you’re weak in, you’ll have to document it, get help with it, or push through till you can pawn it off for your business to grow.

3. Don’t Underestimate the Skills You Have

I’ll let you in on a little secret: I learned all I know from doing administration at my local church when I was in college. Well, when I say local church, I mean a Zimbabwean mega-church that has over 120 branches all over the world. Shout out to my choir and band directors at the time for making me manage all those musicians and help plan all those events… it was a lot of work.

I also learned from blogging and doing my social media, managing a huge Facebook group that has over 200 thousand members, and won a local community award in 2015. I learned from my day job: as a doctor, documentation is key, so of course I learned the importance of writing stuff down. We need that as a virtual assistant, don’t we? Everything needs to be written down, or else it doesn’t exist.

Your experience & transferable skills are truly a thing; do not underestimate them.

4. Never Stop Learning

The type of people who need a virtual assistant tends to be small businesses, solopreneurs, and startups that do most of their work online. The online space is constantly evolving; one business tool will be the hot thing, and the next time, it’ll be replaced by another. Don’t be complacent. Always learn, always search out the new thing potential clients are talking about and learn about it. It all comes back to foundations: once you get a solid understanding of a piece of software, you’ll be able to translate your knowledge to others as you go along.

When I started in Email Marketing, I started with MailerLite. It was pretty simple to use, but I was determined to know it in and out to get the best results for my client. To do that, I took their certification course, and when I tell you the possibilities that opened up for me just by taking that one course. I was able to switch from one platform to another with ease and adapt to the slight differences easily. Now, we have clients that use everything from Flodesk to ActiveCampaign, and we have no problem using whichever one they want.

5. Start from Where you are With What you Have

I’m a bit of a Twitter junkie (just a little, I promise!), and a few days ago there was a video circulating on the timeline with Mariah Carey saying “I’m gonna do the best with what I got!” It was pretty funny seeing it, and then it hit me while I was writing this: Sometimes, you just have to do the best with what you have at the moment.

My partner and I only had the foundational things on lock, if I’m to be honest. We had no idea about how to craft a good package, what exactly our professional boundaries were, or what our ideal client looked like. Our first business photo shoot was so good (shout out to Levi Castain Photography. If you’re in Harare, Zimbabwe, book him, he’s so amazing), and then a few months down the line, realized we took a series of really nice photos… but not branding photos!

But I love them, and I’ma stick beside them.

Some of these things can be tweaked, and we tweak them on the regular. Don’t let the desire for perfection stop you from starting something excellent. If you have the foundation down, start your virtual assistant business; the pretty stuff can be worked out while you’re working.

6. Community is Important!

You will hear this from me a lot, but being in a community with fellow virtual assistants and service providers will change your life for the better. We got our first clients from Facebook groups, we had communities on Instagram chase us down to be part of their directory and keep in touch with us. See: here we are, and here too! Thank you so much HerHq and VAB for chasing us down to be part of your community.

We made an amazing business connection who refers clients to us. Our clients refer clients to us. My very first client goes so hard for me no matter what, I\’m overwhelmed by her love and support.

Do not underestimate the importance of a likeminded community. Besides the client referrals and the valuable advice, there is something about knowing that we can rally behind someone going through something we relate to.

Family is another community that may not be a client but will be your biggest cheerleader. Our branding was done by our aunt and uncle who are graphic designers (thank you from the bottom of our hearts, mbuya & sekuru). Our families have been our rocks and provided support and expertise whenever we needed it. We remain grateful and we’ll always say that a business that stands with the strength of its community is a business that will go far.

Find your community, build your community, and you’ll see your business go far.

Well, this is us introducing ourselves to you all, and giving back to the community that supported and cheered us on as we started. I\’d love to hear from the seasoned business owners. What lessons did you learn? Let’s hear them in the comments!

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With you in business,

Nawena Virtual Solutions