A common problem for a booked out Virtual Assistant is what comes next.
You can only trade your time for money while growing for so long! Eventually, something in the structure of your business will need to change so you can keep growing without burnout.
This is the exact spot I found myself 3 months into my business. I was booking clients with ease but knew that I could only take on so many. After all, my goal has always been to earn more and work less.
I found myself presented with SO many options of where to take my booked out Virtual Assistant business. Do you niche down and raise your rates? Hire a subcontractor to take over your least favourite tasks, grow into a full-blown agency or take that expertise and start coaching others?
Thankfully, we’ve got options.
4 Ways to Expand Your Virtual Assistant Business:
Niche Down:
This can look like the easiest route to take.
You’ve built a happy client base where you’re getting raving testimonials for your services already. Why not niche down to your favourite task and become specialized in this area? From now on, you’ll only help female entrepreneurs set up their email marketing to sell out their launch from a waitlist. At the same time, you’re building a dedicated audience who looks to you for all the latest tips on email marketing.
Specializing can be a great long term plan. In the process of doing what you love, you’re getting ready to build a course and train others on your specialty for a premium rate. How good does that sound?
Coach:
If you work in the online space, you might have noticed there’s no shortage of people trying to join us by earning online.
As I started to see success, my DMs blew up. I heard from people I knew in high school, some I’d met traveling and even a girl from summer camp when I was 12 asking me how to make money online.
Why not start offering mentoring or coaching packages for those in your DMs to increase your wages without wasting your own time. For me, this was offering Pick My Brain calls but I’ve seen plenty go on to become FT mentors replacing their VA income.
Hire a Subcontractor:
A subcontractor is an extension of yourself.
You hire someone to take on the extra work you don’t have time to do or don’t want to do. This was the first thing I did in my business.
My advice if you’re going this route, hire someone who loves the tasks you like the least. I hired my first subcontractor to take over IG engagement, FB group posting and graphics creation. My second hire was for the excess amount of blog writing I’d taken on with all my clients. I know some people who have their subcontractors only work on their business or for one client but it’s definitely a way to save a couple of hours in your day while still making money!
Become an Agency:
While you might be confused about how this is different than hiring subcontractors, I see a couple of differences between the 2 structures.
With subcontractors, there’s only 1 point of contact, you. In an agency format, you might assign VA’s to a client or have an OBM be the middleman with you between the VA’s and clients.
It’s also more common to offer a wider variety of services as an agency. If you have multiple VA’s, you’ll have more zones of genius than if you’re operating as a small team.
At the end of the day, we all started our businesses so we could love our lives on our own terms right? That’s why I never tell people how to expand just what they can do to expand. It’s common to feel like you’re burning out when in reality, you’re just ready for an upgrade.
Now let’s hear about you. How are you going to scale or have already? So many Virtual Assistant’s I talk to are growing faster than they thought possible right now. My 3-month timeline to transition might be halved with the majority of the world transitioning online now and I want to hear about it!
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