Ep. 054 6 Common Virtual Assistant Myths Debunked

Listen to this episode below:  

 Subscribe to The Support Squad Podcast: Apple Podcasts | Spotify

 People hear “work from home” and they automatically think that you’re taking surveys or selling essential oils or bugging your friends & family to buy things from you. They also think that working from home means your work is easy or that anyone can do it or that you must not be making any money.

As a proud and successful online business owner, these myths and misconceptions drive me crazy! I’m Sharon Nissen, a virtual assistant mentor and the creator of The Support Squad. My mission is to help women build happy online businesses and find more ease, joy, & profit. Today, I’m going to share 6 common myths about virtual assistants and why they are SO wrong.

#1: It’s Easy

The number one misconception is that being a virtual assistant is easy. I think people have this perception that if you're at home and you're working on your computer, that you must be doing work that a monkey could do. 

They don't understand the complex variety of tasks that we complete on a daily basis.  

What do you do when your friends and family assume that the work that you do is super easy? You need to explain to them what it is you actually do. Break down some of the more complex tasks that you're doing for your clients. 

Also, for you new virtual assistants that are tuning in now and listening for the first time: if you have the misconception that this work is easy, I'm here to tell you it's not. There's nothing easy about the work that we do. My work on a daily basis is creative and challenging and fun, but I would never once ever describe it as easy. 

Marketing yourself online, selling your services to clients, then following through on all of the things that you promised - this is tough stuff you guys. You're gonna really need to buckle down and put a lot of work into your business if you want it to be successful. 

 #2: Anyone Can Do It

When I first started coaching and mentoring other virtual assistants, I used that phrase a lot. I was like "Anyone can be a virtual assistant, you just use the skills you already have." 

But over time I have realized that some people honestly are not cut out for this work. What people don't realize is the amount of work that goes into this, the amount of marketing that you have to do, the amount of sales that you have to do. Not everyone is cut out to do this.  

A lot of people also don't have the innate self-driven mentality that is necessary in order to sustain a business on a long term scale. People that are cut out to do this are people that are willing to put in the work, people that know how to research things, how to look things up, the first answer out of their mouth isn't "I don't know." 

You have to be able to seek out information if you want to be a virtual assistant. And you have to keep yourself motivated and on task. So if you're not so great at those kinds of things, this work might not be for you. 

#3: You Have Total Freedom

We work from home. We can take off at a moment's notice. We don't have a boss. We're our own boss. 

All of these things crack me up because I have never felt like I have more responsibility than I do right now.  

Yes, I can set my schedule, yes, I can do the work that I want to do, but I have people that are relying on me. My entire business relies on me. 

I was just talking to my friend Romaine Brown-Palmer, you guys have heard her on the podcast before, and she was talking about how it cracks her up when people say that they get to be their own boss. Because we really answer to our clients. There still is someone that we have to keep happy. 

#4: Work is Inconsistent 

My relationships, my contracts with clients are so consistent. I've had the same clients for years, and I also know that if I lost one of those clients, I could easily go find another one. 

My month to month doesn't look that drastically different because of the way that I've set up my business. I couldn't deal with the anxiety of knowing that next month I wouldn't know how much I was going to be making, or that there was wildly different income coming in month to month. 

Some months when I have a launch in the parts of my business outside of my virtual assistant business, I get a huge influx of income all at once, but my regular income from my clients hardly changes month to month.

#5: You Can’t Make Any Money

I have found that you can build a very comfortable life from a virtual assistant income.  

It just takes finding your ideal client, finding that premium service or that premium set of skills that you can offer and then making sure that you price yourself appropriately.  

You don't have to settle for the lowest bidder ever. There's always gonna be someone out there setting their prices lower than you. There's always gonna be clients out there that are looking for that lowest price. That doesn't have to have anything to do with you. 

You can be successful, you can make money, it just takes getting clear. 

#6: It’s the Same as MLMs or Taking Surveys

When people hear “online business” or “work from home”, they automatically think multi-level marketing, or taking surveys. They think that you're gonna be adding them to Facebook groups you don't wanna be in or that you're sitting at home just taking surveys and generating like 25 cents for each survey. 

 People still don't realize how big our industry is, how diverse it is, how many different things you can do, and how much it is growing in this gig economy that we're turning into. 

 Virtual assistants are not going away. This industry is only going to get bigger, and it's so much different than selling something in a multi level marketing business, or taking surveys. This is skilled work that takes skilled people, and you get paid real money for it.

Share this episode on Pinterest: