Gems.
- I still think the virtual assistance was just the quickest way to make money online. It is just the easiest entry point. It’s just an awesome way to kinda get your feet wet in this whole online space.
- Now with building an online course, let’s take that because that’s what I did. You really do have to have an audience.
- It’s a mistake honestly that pains me sometimes to see – people will be in the service industry and they’ll be like I’m gonna create a course; so they spend three months creating this phenomenal course with so much content and they just pour their entire heart to it. And they’re like okay, now how do I sell this thing? Oh, you went about this all wrong because really it’s all about building that audience first.
- I built up this course and I thought this was going to be amazing. And then I tried to sell it and literally one person bought. I spent two months creating the course and I just got $97 for my two months of hard work. And I made the mistake where I didn’t ask my audience what they want.
- Grow an audience, ask your audience what they want, and then create that thing.
- Another big tip: when you’re ready and you’ve had that audience; you’ve asked them what they want, it’s still not time to actually create the thing. In my opinion, come up with an outline of a course.
- And so what’s great, too, about only having two products is that I basically do only one sales push per quarter. So Q1, I only sell my signature course. Q2, I push my membership site. Then back to the signature course then back to the membership site. So I really only have to sell hard once a quarter, which the rest of the time I’m just giving away new content and just giving to my audience which feels really good for me.
- For me, having just one big time that I sell my course per quarter feels really good. Now I do have an evergreen funnel running in the background as well so that’s something else
- There’s no one way to do it.
- Mindset shift: That I’m a mom. And definitely one of the biggest mindset shift that I’ve had to overcome and I feel like I’m still working on is definitely mom guilt, which is so dumb. I started my VA business when I was pregnant with my first kid. I did it because I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom.
- You have to find what’s right for you. But mindset part of it has just always been this reassuring that I am a better mom when I’m happy. When I’m happy, my kids are happy. Our motherly instincts are going to take care of our kids. We’re going to love them. But our motherly instincts don’t always do that for ourselves.
- I feel like it’s always important to be influenced and mentored by someone. And you’ll go through different seasons; that person is not gonna be the same person all the time as you develop and as your business grows. And so the three tiers of relationships. You should have somebody pouring into you; you should have kind of friendships with people at the same level as you; and you should be pouring into other people. And so that’s what I’ve tried to model.
- I invested in paid coaching. And for some people maybe you can’t make that huge investment in paid coaching. But a lot of these people do have courses. So maybe you can’t get that one-on-one mentorship through their high-tier coaching program; but if there’s somebody that you really respect and they have an online course you can take, then I recommend at least starting there.
- Reading all the free stuff on the internet is not gonna get you where you need to go.
- You probably have services that you already know how to offer. And so the big thing is define what you can do. It can be as simple as I can do data entry and answer customer servicing calls. If that’s it, that’s okay.
- Then you need to decide on an hourly rate, which I recommend starting out on an hourly rate.
- And then beyond that, it’s getting clients.
- I recommend to people: don’t spend time building a website; don’t spend all this time doing all the back end stuff. Because even your contracts and your processes and all of that – if you just go out and start marketing, you start telling people about your business and then someone wants to hire you, that’s gonna light a fire under your butt.
- decide on your services, decide on your hourly rate, and then just start telling people.
- It’s gonna be uncomfortable. But go get ready.
More about Abbey: Abbey Ashley is the Founder of The Virtual Savvy. She helps aspiring virtual assistants launch and grow their own at-home business from scratch. Abbey started her own virtual assistant business in 2013 and was able to double the salary from her full-time corporate job, working only 20 hours a week…in just 30 days! She’s since gone on to grow a multi-six figure business and retire her husband ALL from her at-home business. It’s now her passion to help others start their own VA business so they can taste the freedom and flexibility of entrepreneurship as well.
Find Abbey:
- Get the VA Checklist: thevirtualsavvy.com/checklist
- Join the Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/vasavvies/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheVirtualSavvy
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thevirtualsavvy/
- Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/thevirtualsavvy/
Relationships that made an impact:
- Bryan Harris, former boss
- Dana Malstaff, Boss Mom coach
- Mariah Coz
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