Home Business Success Tip: Invest Time, Manage Money
“Time and tide wait for no one”, so goes the saying. However, if you wait long enough, the tide will come your way.
People who work from home (Homepreneurs) are popularly known as virtual assistants (VAs). There is a wide variety of tasks assigned to AVs. The most popular ones are Administrative Assistance, Customer Service Executive, Transcriber, Translator, Online Tutor, Ghostwriter and many more.
The biggest draw for aspiring virtual assistants/freelancers is the ability to work from home and generate income from it. As a practicing Virtual Assistant (Indie Developer/Home Entrepreneur) for the past 4 years, I frequently come across potential Virtual Assistants who ask me to guide them in establishing a career in the VA area.
I am more than happy to share resources and answer questions. Religiously, I reply with links to articles, forums, etc. 2 out of 10 people practice due diligence and come back to me after a couple of weeks to “discuss” things they’ve learned. I am very happy for them knowing that they have grasped the crux of being a VA.
However, 8 out of 10, on the other hand, spare no time in answering: “Please, teach me how to be a virtual assistant. I learn fast.” They see my repeated responses to access resource content as “washing my hands” for fear of competition.
There is no such thing as free lunch. Everything comes with a price tag. Becoming a VA is also no different. The monetary investment to launch your VA career is optional, not required. However, this requires another type of investment that no VA can deny. AN INVESTMENT CALLED “-TIME-“
“Watch the minutes, the hours will take care of themselves” is true to every word in a VA (wannabe’s) work schedule. Things could go both ways here. Spend a few minutes learning something new, you could be hired (for $) to implement what you’ve learned. Similarly, spend a few minutes aimlessly chatting/FB’ing, it could be an hour wasted to regain focus towards what you were initially working on.
Most VA hopefuls tend to lose their initial momentum well before 8 weeks into their first attempt. 10 weeks later, they just give up on the idea. 12 weeks later, they conclude that “work from home is all a scam”, and those who say otherwise are lying.
It has been my observation that such people approach VA opportunities in the conventional (read corporate) way. If only they had taken the time to read (&understand) through the content of the resource (shared by a friend/googled), the following might have been helpful.
- The coup of deleting fraudulent job postings and real ones.
- The art of profiling VA (yes, no longer
- called a resume or CV in the VA work environment)
- The tact of using faceless communication (no body language to impress your interviewer/client; applicants’ first screening level is by evaluating their email etiquette; once this level is passed, one is called for a voice chat/teleconference/video) cat based on the nature of the job.
- VA tools of the trade (and those specific to the nature of the job. For example, graphic artist: Photoshop and flash, transcriptionist: fast type, etc.)
- The warning signs for non-paying or custom sample clients, and how you can protect your work without jeopardizing a potential (genuine) gig.
- The most important thing: how to handle payments, invoices, transfer of funds to our local currency, tax information, etc.
Every aspiring VA should invest a great deal of their time getting to know the terrain and how this part of the industry works. In doing so, I do not guarantee that nothing will go wrong. Everyone will take a wrong step, and we are no exception. Even experienced virtual assistants burn their fingers. At least, you will be prepared when such a situation arises (God forbid!).
So you see… time is a lot like money.
You need to invest a bit (maybe you have to stretch here and there)
…so that, when you have projects in hand, you have the privilege of managing them.
INVEST IN TIME BEFORE REQUESTING PROJECTS.
MANAGE MONEY (TIME=MONEY) WHEN YOU ARE AWARDED THE PROJECT.
