When people hear “Virtual Assistant”, they assume it’s an online role that you can learn on the go. While you can adapt as you progress through this gig, in order to win the trust of potential employers or clients, it’s important that you have the skills required to position yourself as a top candidate in any pitch you make.
Here are 8 of the top skills you should know to excel as a virtual assistant:
1. Scheduling & Communication Management
As a VA, especially to a business owner or team lead, you’ll be responsible for managing their calendar.
This means organizing their meeting dates, updating cancellations & postponements, and also ensuring that all scheduled online meetings have links that connect to the right app (Teams, Zoom, Google Meet, etc.)
That means you’ll need to know your way around Google Calendar, Zoom, Google Meet, and Teams. For the communication apps, “knowing your way around” means:
- Creating meetings links and sending them out, or
- Setting meetings from within the app and connecting them to Google Calendar
Each app usually has clear instructions on how to do this, so you wouldn’t necessarily need a tutorial.
For Google calendar, things like color coding, setting recurring meetings & reminders, and editing scheduled events should be things you should know how to do.
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2. No Code Developing
The landscape for business is changing and most entrepreneurs are looking to find people with experience in no-code tools. These tools allow people with little to no coding experience to build things that would typically require an experienced coder. From websites to workflows, etc.
They may not look as “advanced” as a coded tool, but they do a good enough job and this is what your employers need.
To help you gain these skills, I got you this No Code Developer course on Udemy (Link below)
This course is going to take time, but each project and tool you learn and use from here will give you:
- Something valuable to post on your LinkedIn
- An in-demand skill to put on your CV and/or Cover Letter
https://www.udemy.com/course/no-code-developer/
The course instructor gives you directions on how to sign up for the apps, how to use them, etc. And there is a project with each one.
(You should have access to the course in your email)
3. Social Media & Community Management Skills
Most employers won’t (and shouldn’t) expect you to know advanced social media skills. That’s what a trained social media manager is for. They can teach you how to be one, but then that means you’d need to speak to them about being hired and paid as a social media manager.
I’m putting this here because it is not right for a VA to double up as a personal/executive assistant and full-time social media manager. Those are two completely different jobs and you should be paid accordingly.
Anyway, moving along.
VAs are often asked to help their employers with social media tasks such as:
- Scheduling posts
- Managing & responding to comments
- Commenting on partner accounts’ posts, etc.
If you’re being asked to develop & execute a strategy, then you need to ask for additional pay for this because that is not a “basic social media skill”.
In terms of community management, this is another area where basic skills should be enough. Anything more advanced, again, means you need to charge for working as a community manager as this is an entire role of its own.
Basic community management could look like this:
- Accepting or declining requests to join groups on Facebook, Telegram, or any other platform
- Moderating comments
- Posting on behalf of your employer or team (these posts should be created for you)
So knowledge of apps such as Facebook Groups, Telegram, Instagram, Discord, TikTok, will be a great way to set yourself up for success.
This is a good resource to watch and learn more: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYJIWeoxK3s
4. Task/Project Management
A common responsibility you’ll have as a Virtual Assistant is ensuring that all tasks for a project are on-track and completed. Back in the day, you’d need notebooks and physical calendars to make that happen. But now, project management tools exist to make everyone's lives easier.
Since your boss, or client, can’t follow up everything themselves, that’s where you’ll need to come in. To do this well, you’ll need to have experience with common project management tools like Asana, Slack, Trello, and/or ClickUp.
5. Email Management
Any business owner or team leader you have as an employer, or client, will have an overwhelming inbox they need assistance with managing. That means you’ll probably walk into an email inbox with 5,000+ emails.
Don’t let that phase you. There are many tips & tricks you can use to get that inbox down to 0 unread emails without having to read each & every single one.
Start with this article to learn about email management: https://horkeyhandbook.com/virtual-assistant-email-management/
You might need to help your “boss” with basic email marketing (this should not include coming up with campaign strategies, segmenting, etc. because that is an email marketer’s job and not a generalist VA). So knowledge of popular email marketing platforms like HubSpot, Zoho, and Klaviyo is a good place to start.
Ideally, your “boss” should give you basic training or guidelines for any email marketing or management tool they’ve been using, and it’s okay to request that because there are tons of tools out there being used at the same time.
6. Excel / Google Sheets (for Data Entry)
Most generalist VA gigs should not require you to have advanced expertise in Excel (though having it is a major plus and I 100% you learn Microsoft Excel. Udemy has a course on it here.
But at a basic level, you should know your way around the simple formulae, editing & formatting cells, arranging data in a way that is easy to read and understand, etc.
If you can’t get the Udemy course I linked, you can start here, instead, on YouTube.
7. Design
Design skills are fast becoming one of the most sought-after skills in a VA. You don’t need to be a pro in PhotoShop, Illustrator, or CoralDraw. Most of your clients, want someone who knows their way around Canva.
Canva fills the gap between people who need good designs fast and those who don’t have design skills. It comes with 1,000s of free templates and is quite easy to learn. The best way to learn this skill is through practice, but if you need a tutorial I recommend this one:
8. Copywriting
This is a key skill to know as a VA. I’ll even take it further and say everyone should have skills in copywriting. As a digital worker, the better a copywriter you are, the higher your chances are at landing high-quality gigs.
Copywriting is simply writing with the intent to advertise, market, or sell. You want your writing to lead to someone taking an action (calling you, email you, sign up to your platform, or buy from you).
Having copywriting in your arsenal allows you to move away from just being a generalist VA, and gives you a chance to target gigs with room for growth such as a marketing assistant role, sales assistant, or a digital marketing assistant role (yes, there is a difference).
This will help you craft social media posts that bring in results, emails that clients will want to read, and even blog posts that turn website visitors into warm leads (people interested in what your client or employer’s business is offering).
Refining your copywriting skills will also help you write better pitches, cover letters, job board bios, and presentations.
This is a course I 100% recommend to anyone who wants to learn the ropes of copywriting and improve their writing skills:
The Complete Copywriting Course
Bonus: Freelancing as a VA
If a 9 to 5 isn’t your thing, and you want to manage several VA roles at a time, then you should consider freelancing. As a freelancer, you’re in charge of your business. This position offers you more freedom to onboard more clients and set your rates accordingly.
This path can pose more challenges than a virtual 9-to-5 such as the difficulty of balancing multiple gigs, chasing payments due to you, etc. But if you’re someone who enjoys working for themselves and taking charge, freelancing could be for you.
I recommend starting with this course to learn the ropes of freelancing and navigating the top freelance platforms out there:
The Complete Guide to Freelancing in 2022: Zero to Mastery
The Bottom Line
The VA space is very competitive, and it’s going to stay that way for years to come. The best way to stand out is to have sufficient knowledge in at least 5 of the skills mentioned in this article. If you can, go the extra mile and learn all 8. It gives you an advantage over your competition and also allows you to land roles with room to grow into more advanced positions with higher pay.
If you want to remain a freelance VA, then the more you know and can do well, the more you can confidently increase your rates.
To get the best you need to be the best. To be the best you need to go the extra mile and do what everyone else is not doing. So, go through all the resources mentioned in this article, buy and complete the courses if you can, or find alternatives on YouTube to help you get started.
If you need help with getting the courses, or finding alternatives, just drop me an email at chipo@chipofaith.com and let’s see what we can do.
All the best and ace it out there. You’ve got this.