What It's About
A military spouse becomes a Virtual Assistant General creating online courses and guiding new trainees.
Business Model
Skills Required
Complexity
Profit Potential
Words of Wisdom
Thinking about taking on a similar path? Emily provides these helpful words; "Assess your current skills and believe you can offer help to someone out there. Anyone can find a way to help online businesses as a virtual assistant if you're a go-getting and willing to figure things out."
Fun Fact
Almost 70% of virtual assistants are married and 59% have a college degree. Furthermore, the global outsourcing marketing is worth a staggering $85 billion dollars world while.
Notes from Chris
Episode 1177
It was ten years ago when Emily Reagan gave up a dream job to move across the country with her husband. It wasn’t the first time either. Her partner was in the military and moving was just part of the lifestyle. This was challenging. Life on a single income didn’t leave much money for luxuries. While Emily knew her role was important, she was still hoping to contribute financially. And soon she had an opportunity to do just that. A referral from a colleague led to a small job on the side. The task was quite simple, to help a small business with their Facebook presence and occasionally reach out to media outlets when they had something newsworthy. Both tasks were things Emily had done in the past, and she knew she could accomplish them with her eyes closed. The client agreed and Emily was put on a retainer for a monthly fee of seventy five dollars. It was a small amount of money but it meant the world to her. The money could go towards a date night for her and her husband, or a guilt free trip to the salon. But above all, it gave her a new sense of worth. After working with this client for a while, Emily was presented with a new opportunity. A friend gave her the heads up about a Facebook post she saw. A business owner in that friend’s network was looking for help putting together a media kit. Unlike her first client, this job wasn’t something Emily was familiar with and hadn’t done before. But she was a good writer, she knew the basics of PR, and above all, had a willingness to learn. She hopped online and studied everything there was to know about the process. In the end she delivered … big time. The client was so happy with Emily’s work that they kept calling on her services over the next year. Soon, she’d built a reputation as the person who could get any administrative task done. During this time, Emily had given birth to another child and the family was growing. They’d also moved a couple more times for her husband's military placements. All through that process, she kept her clients. The reason was that all of her work was done online. Without knowing it, she’d turned herself into a virtual assistant: a one-stop remote admin shop for business owners across the country. It was then that she saw the potential in the online space, specifically, the blogging world and Pinterest. She’d seen others online producing content, crafting sales funnels and marketing themselves. Now Emily switched into full-on business mode. First, picking up more client work to boost her side income into the four figures. Then, she saw the potential of teaching others how to do the same thing. She knew plenty of other military moms who’d love to make extra money on the side as a virtual assistant. This led her to transition her business from client work, to creating courses around becoming a virtual assistant. She produced content on her blog and created free PDFs with tips and tricks for others to get started. Eventually, she began selling a guide titled “The VA Crash Course”—accomplishing all that while her family grew to four children. Between her client work and selling courses, she’s earning over two thousand dollars per month, while staying at home and managing the household. Any future moves might be disruptive to her family of six, but not to her income.
MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
- Learn more about Emily and her business at her website, EmilyReaganpr.com.
SEE ALSO:
- Aussie Mom Earns $3,000/Month From Affiliate Links: After overcoming obstacles in her search for remote work opportunities, this stay-at-home mom creates her own resource website to help others. She gets paid when visitors click through to register for programs she promotes.
- Paralegal Takes Flight with Remote Work: A paralegal turns serial entrepreneur after getting the travel bug. She now lives in Thailand and helps others work remotely.
- Project Manager Helps Cubicle Workers See the World: When a corporate employee is told she can’t take a big trip because of her daughter, she starts a company to make travel more accessible.
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