The virtual office assistant online training course teaches you how to become a virtual assistant including what a virtual assistant does, what skills are in demand today and how to discover your own niche offering. This course will also teach you how to provide virtual assistant services, how to start your own virtual assistant business and how get clients. Topics covered include how to set your rates, how to create a business plan, how to network and find clients and how to work with clients.

What is a Virtual Assistant

A virtual assistant (VA) is an independent contractor who provides services to individuals and small and medium sized businesses via the internet. As virtual assistants only charge for the hours they work, more and more self-employed individuals, entrepreneurs, and small business owners across all industries are reaping huge savings and benefits by hiring them. These benefits include increased productivity, savings in office real estate space, employee benefits, training and more.

What do Virtual Assistants Do?

The field of virtual assistance is extremely broad and can involve skills ranging from basic office skills to more specialized skills like email and calendar management and social media specialist. Those who possess specialized skills can make much more money than those who possess basic office skills such as word processing and typing. Virtual assistants are often classified as generalists or specialists. Generalist VAs perform a broad range of basic, administrative tasks whereas specialist VAs possess higher-level expertise in one or more areas, such as social media, graphic design or web design. As a virtual assistant, you can choose exactly what kind of work you want to do and who you want to work with. Currently, all types of virtual assistance is in demand and growing.

Services Provided by Virtual Assistants

Virtual assistants can provide any number number of services that can be done remotely.  As with any profession, successful VAs need to possess basic office skills like word processing, communication, problem solving as well as other valuable hard and soft skills.  Virtual Assistant skills are by no means limited to just office skills although as a Virtual Assistant, you’ll find your office skills are in big demand. While, according to bls.gov, the overall employment of secretaries and administrative assistants is projected to decline 8 percent from 2021 to 2031, the need for virtual assistants doing remote work continues to grow.

Some jobs you can do from home that are currently in demand are for virtual administrative assistants who can assist clients doing advanced document formatting, creating spreadsheets, managing and generating expense reports, mail merge, take meeting minutes and project coordination.  Other in demand office skills include managing calendars and email, maintaining contact lists and planning travel arrangements, The jobs that are in the most demand though tend to be specialty skills like blogging, email marketer, video editor, bookkeepers, tech support specialists, customer service representatives, project managers, author assistants and event specialists. Many virtual assistants will start out as a generalist and eventually choose a specific niche to specialize in. 

Virtual Office Assistant Online Course?

This Virtual Office Assistant Online Course includes 9 weekly modules and focuses on the most important skills for the Virtual Assistant. While we all have our own unique hard and soft skills that we possess, there are specific skills that you absolutely must possess to be able to function efficiently as a Virtual Assistant.  These skills are covered in the following modules:

1. Module 1 – Introduction to the Virtual Assistant Career. This module will take an in-depth look at the virtual assistant career including what exactly is a virtual assistant, the entrepreneurial, hard and soft skills required to run a VA business, the skills you absolutely must possess, the different services that VAs offer and benefits to both the VA and the client.
2. Module 2 – Soft Skills you Need – Today’s clients want professionalism so having the soft skills required to conduct your business with professionalism will be key to your success and allow you to build good relationships with your clients. Professionalism is aspiring to meet the highest possible standards of your profession rather than a set of minimum requirements.  Professionalism and soft skills go hand in hand.  Professionalism is something that a virtual assistant can’t do without and as you will find out in this module, is what will set you apart from other VAs. 
3. Module 3 – Translating your Hard Skills into Services. Often called finding your niche, this is taking a deep look at your hard skills and deciding which ones translate into services. For the virtual office professional, hard skills are the technical office skills, such as computer and technology skills, that you bring to your business. Hard skills can be learned and can be acquired through training, work or a combination of both. Hard skills are considered transferable which means, once learned, you can transfer them from client to client. That’s because hard skills are standard across industries. For example, the hard skills for an administrative assistant position would be very similar at several different organizations and industries.
4. Module 4 – Tools and Technology – There are so many tools on the marketplace today that one can easily get overwhelmed by wondering which tools they should know. The good news is that most of the tools you will need to start your business are either free or can be purchased for a very low cost. This module will cover the equipment and tools you will need to get started as a virtual assistant.
5. Module 5 – Determining your Rates – Setting your rates is probably one of the most challenging aspects of running your virtual assistant business. One of the reasons is that the amount VAs charge can vary significantly depending on your geographical location, the services you are offering and your level of experience that you bring to the table. This module looks at all the different factors to take into consideration when setting your rates as well as the pros and cons of how to charge your clients and ways to get paid.
6. Module 6 – Setting up your VA Business – The very first item in the VA set-up process is to decide upon is what type of business entity your business will be run by. In this module, you will examine the different legal structures from which you can choose and the advantages and disadvantages of each. You will also get an introduction to business planning and an overview of the key components of a business plan and resources to help you create your very own plan. Choosing a business name and how to get a business license in the city or county where you reside is also explored.
7. Module 7 – Establishing an Online Presence – It’s practically impossible these days to run any kind of business without having some kind of an online presence. This is where your clients will find you and where they can learn about you and the services you have to offer. In this module, we’ll look at which social media sites are particularly effective for the virtual assistance business and what are the most important items to consider when building a wordpress website.
8. Module 8 – Networking and Finding Clients – In most larger business, finding sales prospects usually falls into the hands of the sales person hired to sell a particular product or service. However, like most tasks of a virtual assistant, finding that first client will usually come down to you. Once you get your online presence established, this module will teach you how to contact some prospective clients and pitch your services. How to find prospects to pitch, exactly what a pitch is, what elements should be included and some techniques for making a successful pitch are explored.
9. Module 9 – Working with Clients – In this module you’ll learn how to identify clients you’d like to work with, how to respond when you get client inquiries, how to do a client consultation and how to locate and use legal contracts when you land a client. Lastly, you will learn how to work with your clients once you get them by building relationships using your soft skills and establishing good communication channels.

Sign up for the Virtual Assistant Online Course

To improve your office skills today, take the Virtual Office Assistant online course on officeskills.org.

The Virtual Assistant Online Course is just $129.00 and is taught in the Office Skills Collaborative Online Classroom. The Office Skills Collaborative Online Classroom is a fun and interactive way to learn Soft Skills. Get the benefit of learning online while being in a classroom environment with an instructor, other students, discussion forums, chat rooms, lectures, presentations and video demonstrations.

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