If you think about working as a virtual assistant and have started talking about it around you, you might have seen some eyebrows raised in confusion as an answer. So, what can you say to friends and family when talking about your job? A generic definition could be: A Virtual Assistant provides administrative, creative, or technical support services to other business owners.
Depending on the field you are specialized in, your tasks vary, and therefore also your job description itself changes.
Below you can find different fields in which VAs could work. If you find yourself doing some of the tasks below, you can already let your friends and family members know in which specific fields you are working:
- Administrative Management
Developing various documents and working with Office 365, scheduling appointments, making phone calls, managing travelling arrangements, organizing calendars
- Organizational Management
Project Plan Creation
- Community Management
Engage with (potential) customers, monitor online activities and company/brand, build relationships with customers and industry professionals
- Bookkeeping
Budget planning and managing, keeping track of expenses
- Event management
Developing and sending out invitations, finding the right venue, booking catering, decoration, speakers
- Email Marketing
- Social Media Management
Content creation, communication with followers, maintaining a posting schedule, analyzing data
- Content Writing/Copywriting
Blog writing, learning material creation, content for advertising, slogans and taglines, websites, brochures, articles, video scripts, etc.
- Graphic Design
Design of graphical communication material (Logos, Website design, branding design); Podcast creation
- Video and Audio-editing
Creating an appealing video product out of raw footage.
- Website management
Website set-up, content posting, customer support, maintenance of website. Besides your offered services, there are still quite more activities you should mention when you are describing your profession as a virtual assistant. Unless you are not outsourcing one of the following activities, you are also:
- A time and self-manager
As a virtual assistant, you work from home and choose the tasks you want to take on yourself. This means that you also need to keep track of your own time, resources, and also your work-life balance. To be able to work as an assignment-based self-employed person, you need to have a high level of self-management.
- Your own IT support
When you work from home as a VA, you will obviously need technical equipment to communicate with your clients and do your actual work. This means that you will have to take care of yourself when your devices and the online tools you use are not working properly. So, troubleshooting within the technical structure is also part of your job.
- Your marketing department
You need to be visible to your (potential) customers. Therefore, you need a digital presence – either on different websites or via social media channels. And these also need to be updated. This means that you represent a marketing department to make yourself and your activities visible so that you get more orders.
- An accounting department
Every self-employed person has to pay their bills, has to pay taxes and, of course, has to monitor and properly account for incoming payments from clients. Now, of course, there is the option of getting support from an accountant – but especially in the beginning, you might want to reduce these additional expenses.
Here you can now see how many different tasks and roles you are responsible for. The next time you talk to relatives and friends, you should inform them about this.
To sum up: you are an expert in *insert working field* doing various tasks for your clients as f.ex. *insert some tasks* and much more. You work remotely and you might be self-employed. Therefore, you own your own business and are your own boss.
An example: You are an expert in event management and take on various tasks for your clients, such as developing and sending out invitations, finding the right venue, booking catering, decoration, speakers, and much more. You work remotely, which means you are self-employed and therefore own your own business and are your own boss.
References:
https://www.wework.com/ideas/professional-development/business-solutions/what-is-a-virtual-assistant#what-does-a-virtual-assistant-do
