This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
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Hello and welcome to a brand new month. Chris Guillebeau, your host of "Side Hustle School" here, episode 2,678. Today, we're gonna talk about virtual assistants and how those virtual assistants can find higher paying gigs. Of course, every single episode of the podcast has a listener question or a tip, a case study, something that you can do, something you can apply, in your own quest to make extra money without quitting your day job, or perhaps to eventually quit your day job and do more of what's important to you. So specifically, we're gonna hear from this virtual assistant.
They've already been implementing many of the tips shared on this podcast, which is awesome. I'm always happy to hear that the show is helpful, but they're now ready to land higher paying clients and increase their income. This is a common question/challenge faced by many service-based side hustlers. How do you showcase your skills? How do you target the right clients and then command a premium rate?
Now that, of course, is the goal. You wanna increase your income, serve a higher quality client. So how do you do that? Let's see if we can help Olivia. Her question's coming up after this quick message from our sponsor.
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Hi, I'm Olivia, a virtual assistant from Austin. I love your podcast and I've been implementing many of the strategies you discuss. I'm now looking to land higher paying clients and increase my income. What tips do you have for showcasing my skills, targeting the right clients, and commanding premium rates as a virtual assistant? I wanna stop working for small-dollar gigs and start getting paid what I deserve.
- All right, Olivia, first things first. Let's talk about specialization. And I know my long-time listeners are familiar with me talking about this. It's such an important topic. Instead of being a jack-of-all-trades VA for a service-based business, you wanna focus on a specific niche or industry where you have expertise.
That is the number one thing you can do. So this could be social media management for real estate agents, project management for startups, email marketing for e-commerce businesses. Could be a number of things, but whatever it is, by specializing, you position yourself as an expert and can command higher rates. Again, number one recommendation. Now let's talk about offering premium packages, okay?
So instead of charging hourly rates, you wanna create service packages that bundle your skills and provide a comprehensive solution to your client's pain points. Like whatever they are struggling with, you wanna create a package. So you might have a social media success package that includes strategy, content creation, scheduling, reporting, analytics. By packaging, you can once again command higher prices and attract clients looking for solutions, not just hourly work. Maybe the last point is to communicate your value.
Like when pitching to potential clients, focus on the benefits and the results you can deliver. A benefit is not I will work for X dollars an hour. A benefit is I'm gonna help you increase revenue, save time, streamline your operation, and use specific examples to demonstrate the ROI of working with you. Communicating your value is so important. It's gonna help you justify those premium rates and attract the right clients.
So there you have it. Specialize, position yourself as an expert, offer premium packages instead of an hourly rate, and do everything you can to communicate your value. Those are three strategies that I think are really gonna make a difference. Let me know, of course, how it goes. Listeners, if you've got a question, you know where to go, sidehustleschool.com/questions.
New episodes every single day, seven days a week. I'm excited for what this month is gonna bring us and so much more. Thanks for being out there. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
