In an era where work is getting increasingly harder to find, more and more people seek for alternative ways to make money. While the entrepreneurial folks invest money on startups, a growing number of professionals have turned to the Internet to lend their skills to whoever needs them for a fee. These people are known as virtual assistants, and men and women of their profession is highly sought after by businesses and other professionals in the online world.
Working as a virtual assistant can earn one competitive pay, and it helps that there are many online job platforms that can easily facilitate employment. It also offers a degree of freedom far greater than working full-time for any company could offer. Take working from home, for instance, and even the fact that most virtual assistants can practically set their own work schedule.
As such, it\’s not strange for one to find virtual assistance as a very attractive way to make money. If you are interested to get into this line of work yourself, though, you will need some preparations before you set out in your adventure.
Laptop. You will definitely need a computer for this new venture, and why should it be a laptop, you ask? Well, that\’s because laptops are mobile. They\’re best for virtual assistants who are traveling or always on the go. A laptop can also easily provide you an increase in flexibility, allowing you to work anywhere, at any time.
An Internet connection. Internet is another essential for virtual assistants, for very, very obvious reasons. For one, the Internet is your primary source of employment, and is the primary means of communication between you and your client. Furthermore, most clients will just hand you over files shared via the cloud for you to work on, and that would require you to be connected to the Internet constantly.
An online presence. You will have to learn to advertise yourself and let people looking for virtual help know that you are around to provide them service. As such, you will need to have an active online presence not only in social media, but also in freelancing platforms such as Upwork.
Some useful tools. Working as a virtual assistant will never be complete without helpful tools that will make your online life a lot easier. Here are some that we\’d recommend to anyone starting out in the virtual assistant business:
- Skype. The most popular IM software, Skype is perhaps the most favored communication tool by virtual assistants and their clients. Despite having been acquired by Microsoft a few years back, the software remained the most reliable of its kind in the market.
- Office applications. Expect to deal with a lot of work involving office applications as a virtual assistant. Microsoft Office may be a bit bloated with features, but it is your best bet in this regard. If you prefer going the freeware way, however, Open Office should be the closest you can get to Microsoft\’s popular office software suite.
- Dropbox. While not always necessary in work, it always helps to have a safe storage of files online. Dropbox is just one of the many tools that you can use for that matter, but it is one of the most secure ones out there, guaranteeing safety to your files.
