Q + A #3: Building a 10K a Month Business
Hey, hey, hey! Welcome to the Desire to Done podcast for Virtual Assistants! I’m your host Billie Gardner!
Today I want to share a question I received from a new member in my membership program, the Introvert VA Club. When people sign up for IVC, they automatically get an email welcoming them and asking if I can help point them in the right direction in the membership platform. We currently have over 70+ trainings, templates, and resources, so I like to make sure people can find what they need.
Here’s the question:
I want to build a 4-figure a month business within six months' time. I eventually want to have a 10k a month business. How do I do this?
So, I’ll be honest, I don’t promise my members that they’ll make a certain amount of money with their VA businesses. It all depends on how many hours they can work, what their rate is, their ideal client’s budget, and the type of services they offer.
But I’ve been mentoring for several years now and know that if you’re strategic with your business, set goals regularly, and are motivated, you have a great chance of reaching your financial goals.
For example, if your goal is to make 10k a month as a VA or even half that, you’ll need to focus on niching your services and specializing in specific skills or online programs. Doing admin work will likely not get you to your financial goals. You’ll also want to target clients with the budget to pay a higher rate. And eventually, you’ll want to hire VAs to help you with your client work so you can bring on more clients or maybe even create a VA agency. You can also offer consulting, coaching, or passive income products to increase your revenue.
What are some niches that could potentially bring in more income?
Well, specific skills like tech and E-commerce are great niches. With E-commerce you could help Shopify stores or specialize in some other type of tool. Online Business Managers (known as OBMs) make good money. Web design, copywriting, and landing page creation pays well too. Leadpages is a popular landing page software. Building email funnels through a program like ClickFunnels, setting up Honeybook and Dubsado accounts, or building courses and memberships in Kajabi are other ideas. Another one would be assisting clients with Keap (formerly known as InfusionSoft). This software has the nickname ConfusionSoft for a good reason. It’s a beast of a CRM system that clients typically have no idea how to use. And the people who purchase this software typically have a nice big budget because the software is not cheap.
Another idea is offering VIP Days, where you help a client for a day. Since you’re accomplishing something in a day, you can charge more money. Clients are paying for a dedicated VA in a short period of time. It’s not uncommon to see VIP days for anywhere between $500 or a couple of thousand dollars. Again, it depends on what you’re offering your clients. For instance, you can offer a day of tech services or build a whole website. I did an episode on VIP Days where you can learn more. I’ll link to it in this week’s episode’s description.
But before all that, you need to start out by building a strong, solid foundation for your business. Don’t miss this step! I know from experience that if you hop right in without figuring out your ideal client or client processes, you’ll feel lost! You need to figure out what you’re passionate about, who you want to work with, build your processes and systems, create a contract, design your website, and more.
Once you have your business up and running, you’ll need to get some practice in. This might mean that you offer your services at an hourly rate instead of a flat fee or package rate. It also means your hourly rate might not be as high as your goal rate. You have to start somewhere and gain experience. It’s all part of the process. Eventually, you can fine-tune your niche and the type of services you want to offer, raise your rate to match your specialized skills, and step away from the hourly rate system and offer packages or charge a flat fee for projects. That way, you’re not being penalized for doing things quicker and more efficiently. To figure out a package or project rate, you’ll need to figure out your hourly rate and then multiply it by the amount of time it takes to do the package of services or projects.
So there you have it! If you want to make mucho buck a roos with your VA business, you need to be strategic, have goals, niche your business, and build a solid foundation.
We have lots of resources in IVC to help you along the way! We have a nifty rate calculator to calculate how much you want to make based on your available time and expenses, the Passion to Profit Plan to build your business from scratch, courses on how to use Honeybook and Dubsado, website templates to help you build your website, and the Get Clients Fast Challenge to find clients. Plus, in July, we’ll be releasing the Introvert’s Guide to Networking to help you find clients through online networking events. You can go to introvertvaclub.com to learn more and sign up. And guess what! It’s affordable! Yayyyy!
Thanks so much for tuning in! If you have a question for me, go to desiretodone.com/podcast and fill out the form at the bottom of the page. I’ll talk to you next week! Byyyyye!
