5 Essential Virtual Assistant Skills That Will Help You Grow Your Business

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Becoming a virtual assistant is no different than starting any other business.

You’ll need to have (or be willing to learn) a marketable skill—something you can offer your clients in exchange for a fee.

You can start with a single service and add others over time. Or, you might decide to stick with a single specialization and charge a premium for your unique expertise.

The choice is yours to make.

Regardless of how specialized your VA services are, you’ll still need to become somewhat of a generalist when it comes to running your business. This is the life of a solopreneur—there is always something new to learn.

The truth is there are so many things to learn, it’s hard to know where you should start. To call it overwhelming might be an understatement.

To be honest, the learning process never stops. I think that’s part of what attracts many people to the idea of becoming a virtual assistant. There is constant variety—every day is different and a new challenge is just around the corner.

5 Business Skills for Virtual Assistants

This process of learning all of these new virtual assistant skills might seem overwhelming at first, especially if you’re a new VA. But consider your hard work to be the equivalent of building a strong foundation. It will support the growth of your business for years to come and keep you on the right trajectory.

1. The Ability to Plan and Strategize

As a solopreneur, it’s way too easy to get caught up in the work that’s in front of you right now. What might happen tomorrow or next week can wait. I get that. When you’re feeling busy or overwhelmed, the easiest way to reduce stress is by putting things on the back-burner.

But here’s the thing: If you want to grow your virtual assistant business, you’ll need to develop the ability plan and strategize. It’s one of the crucial and prized virtual assistant skill you can develop.

That means looking three, six and 12 months down the road and anticipating challenges and opportunities that deserve your attention.

2. Stop Multitasking and Start Batching

We’re all guilty of multitasking. Even me.

For a long time, I felt like it was important to get better at managing multiple tasks simultaneously. At one point, I became so bad at focusing on a single task that I was doing something different every 5-10 minutes — often going back and forth between the same 2-3 projects.

I felt busy—running around like a chicken with its head cut off. But I never got very much work done.

What I’ve learned through experience is that very little good comes from multitasking. In fact, it almost always results in lost productivity and more frequent mistakes.

Giving up multitasking is not easy. It takes hard work and determination.

Learning to focus on a one thing at a time is the bomb. In fact, it’s one of the most valuable virtual assistant skills you can develop.

Once you’ve mastered the art of focusing on a single task, you might decide it’s time to consider batching.

Most of us reply to email as it arrives in our inbox. Depending on how busy we are, that might mean opening up Gmail 10-20 times per day just to read and reply to a single email. It might also mean picking up and checking the phone 20+ times per day.

Instead, try setting aside 1-2 specific times each day where you check and reply to emails. Maybe once in the morning and once in the afternoon. You might even consider setting up an auto-reply so that people know they are unlikely to receive an instant response.

Here’s a comparison of how a typical day might look before and after batching:

Before batching:

• 7 AM – Check and respond to client email

• 7:45 – Organize your tasks in Excel

• 8:00 – Client work

• 9:00 – Check and respond to client emails

• 10:00 – Social media promotion

• 10:10 – Check and respond to client email

• 10:45 – Client work

• 11:30 – Client phone call

• 12:00 – Lunch

• 12:45 – Check and respond to client emails

• 1:15 – Client work

• 2:45 – Post to social media

• 3:00 – Prepare a proposal

• 4:00 – Check and respond to client emails

• 4:30 – Post to social media

After Batching

• 7 AM – Client work

• 9:30 – Check and respond to client emails

• 10:00 – Post and schedule social media for the next two weeks

• 11:15 – Schedule two client calls

• 12:00 – Lunch

• 12:45 – Client work

• 4:00 – Check and respond to client emails

• 4:30 – Prioritize tasks for tomorrow

At first glance, it might seem like you’re doing the same volume of work—which you are.

What you’re doing differently, though, is reducing the number of times that you switch between tasks. This saves time while improves concentration and productivity.

For most VAs, batching should be a relatively easy strategy to implement. If you’re already working on a specific task, just get more of it done at the same time.

3. Learn to Communicate More Effectively

Communication is an essential skill for any virtual assistant.

Personally, I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve come to the realization that I need to improve this one particular skill-set.

You can never be “good enough” at communication. Whether you’re conveying your thoughts to a client or outlining payment terms, there is always room for improvement.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember about improving your ability to communicate is that 50% of communication involves listening. Listening makes you better at sales, better at conflict resolution and better at meeting the needs of your clients.

4. Develop Your Sales Skills

At the end of the day, no matter how you slice it, you’re in the business of sales. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a VA who specializes in real estate, WordPress or social media.

If you can convince your clients and prospective clients that you’re offering something—a product or service—that will make their life or business better in some way, you’re golden.

Sales shouldn’t be scary, difficult or overwhelming. All you need to do in order to grow your freelance business is put yourself out there consistently and share your message. Tell people how you can help them and then do it. Under-promise and over-deliver!

5. Commit to Personal and Professional Development

As a virtual assistant, your business is either moving forward or backward.

There is no static. Time never stands still.

If you fail to make progress—even small but measurable progress—you’ve lost some of your most valuable asset.

There is a reason that I put this “skill” at the end of the list. It’s because a commitment to personal and professional development has the potential to impact your business more than anything else.

But what is personal and professional development and what does it look like?

It’s the never-ending pursuit of knowledge and the desire to continually improve.

It’s the desire to seek perfection of your craft, to become a better salesperson, a better communicator and to understand more about the numbers behind your business.

It’s figuring out how you can provide more value and solve problems more efficiently for your clients.

Commitment to personal and professional development means being a better virtual assistant and business owner today than you were yesterday.

Improving Your Virtual Assistant Skills Benefits You and Your Clients

For many people (myself included), our side-hustles started out as a hobby—a way to earn a few extra dollars or set aside some money for an annual vacation.

If your business is like mine, you may have started by doing some occasional work for friends and family. Things slowly progress and before you know it, you’re taking on projects for friends of friends and your great uncle, too.

Then the referrals start coming in. Slowly at first and then before you know it, you’ve landed a big project.

The realization hits you: This VA side-hustle has turned into a legitimate business that requires actual work. You need to create packages, figure out pricing, hire a bookkeeper and a build better-looking website. And overhead! Holy crap, your business now has recurring expenses. Sales are no longer an option.

It can be overwhelming how quickly a casual VA gig turns into a full-fledged business. But once it does, you’ve got to make a decision: Are you going to run with this business—turning it into something great and escaping your 9-5 in the process—or are you going to let it flounder and go back to the status quo?

The answer to that question lies in your commitment to becoming a better virtual assistant. Not just in terms of your chosen craft but also in your desire to become a more well-rounded business owner.