How To Collect Money for Virtual Assistant Services

Internet Business Model Series
Service Business / Charge by Hour or Project

When setting up the structure of a virtual assistant business, the owner must decide how he or she will collect the money earned for the services performed. There are several ways to set up the payment process and each individual virtual assistant will need to decide what is best for their business.

Traditional Invoicing/Net 30 Days – If the virtual assistant does a lot of work for larger corporate clients, she may find that her clients will only do business with her if she extends Net 30 Day terms. With this arrangement, the virtual assistant will issue an invoice at the specified time periods or at the end of a project, whatever is agreed to prior to starting the project.

Speaking from experience, large corporations normally do not pay invoices within the 30 terms, it’s normally at least 45-60 days before the check is cut plus time for it to arrive in the mail. Virtual assistants who extend Net 30 Day terms should be aware and prepared for the late payment, however, these large corporate client accounts can be quite lucrative and may be worth the trouble. Issuing a Purchase Order or signed contract/agreement prior to accepting the job will help with companies that cause collection problems.

Traditional Invoicing/Due Upon Receipt – Issuing the purchase order or having an agreement where the terms are Due Upon Receipt will help the virtual assistant to get paid much quicker. Just like Net 30 Day terms, the virtual assistant will send an invoice at specified times or at the end of the project and wait for the company to send a check.

Credit Card Payment – The virtual assistant can set-up a merchant account and collect payment from the client using a credit card. An invoice will usually still need to be given to the client, but payment can be processed immediately at specified times. The virtual assistant can keep the client’s credit card number on file and charge it as soon as a project is completed and the invoice is approved. Credit card payments can also be processed through PayPal without setting-up a merchant account.

Retainer – Many virtual assistants collect a retainer from their clients. Often a discount is given when the client agrees to a certain number of hours of work per month charged if it is used or not. Since the client has already paid, they will most likely use the time, however, this is a nice way for the VA to estimate how much he or she will work in a month because the client as already committed to a certain number of hours.

The virtual assistant who decides to use credit cards can set-up a secure page on their website to collect and process the credit card information. This will make it easy for the client to pay on their own, especially for those who use the retainer method. The VA should be sure the flow of the website leads the customer to sign (virtually or by scan or fax) a contract or agreement.

This is the last article in the Virtual Assistant Series – Pay By Hour or Project. You can view all the articles in this series by clicking on this link – Internet Business Models/Virtual Assistant.

Our next series will be about setting up a business on the internet selling your own informational product.

Until next time…

Ciao!

Reba

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Rates to Charge as a Virtual Assistant

Internet Business Model Series
Service Business / Charge by Hour or Project

What rates do new virtual assistants charge their clients?

This is a hard question to answer. To charge what is considered a high rate, the virtual assistant must possess the expertise to back-up the rate and if that match is not present, return business will be impossible to get. On the other hand, charging a rate that is too low will not only hamper the VA from making a profit, but it will appear to potential clients that the experience and skills necessary to do the job may not be present.

New virtual assistants need to consult with professionals that are already in the business to learn what the market rates are in their locale or field of specialization. One way to do this is to join a forum for virtual assistants. There are many forums available but those where a membership is required is a better place to find answers to questions such as this. One great membership forum is VA Insider Membership Club. There is a fee for membership but the cost is well offset by the information available. When asking questions that are sensitive to your business such as what rate to charge clients, a “closed” forum will keep your questions and the answers private from your potential client base.

Another option for learning about the appropriate rates to charge your clients is to become a member of a virtual assistant association. Associations are there to help their members and surveys of rates charged in certain locales and for areas of specialization may be made available by the association to its members. Also, other more experienced virtual assistants within your association often volunteer or charge by the hour to provide mentoring and support to those who are just getting started. A few associations within the virtual assistant industry are:

• International Virtual Assistants Association (ivaa.org)
• International Association of Virtual Assistants (iava.org.uk)
• Virtual Professionals (virtual-professionals.com)
• International Association of Virtual Office Assistants (iavoa.com)

Credentials and certifications heavily influence the rate a virtual assistant can charge clients. Most clients will pay more for a virtual assistant who has taken the time to study and test to obtain recognition from notable associations. Certifications can certainly make a huge difference in being able to find new clients and the ability to charge a decent rate, especially when first starting your business. A few credible certifications are:

• VACertification.com
• AssistU.com

Pay rate is also dependent on training and the skills offered. A virtual assistant who can type fifty or sixty words per minute, knows how to transcribe audio files, and can create documents for marketing campaigns is considered to have minimum skills and will only command the minimum hourly rate. By adding skills like website design, internet marketing, graphic design, real estate knowledge and the like, a virtual assistant can increase her hourly or per project rate substantially.

For the most part, depending on expertise, virtual assistant rates vary from twenty to fifty dollars an hour but can go quite higher when more expertise is offered within a specific field. Specialization in a certain field can really help increase the rate a VA charges. For instance, a virtual assistant with real estate experience will command a higher price within that specific group of clients.

In order to get the hourly rate that is deserved, a virtual assistant must start his or her business with as many skills as possible and attempt to specialize as quickly as possible into a field of interest. The more the VA knows, the faster and further the business will go. With this in mind, I’m going to once again talk about Tawnya Sutherland’s Virtual Business Start-Up System.

If you are interested in starting a virtual assistant business and think you have qualities that would make a good virtual assistant, it’s worth your time to get as educated as possible. As discussed in this article the more skills you have the higher the rate you can charge. In addition to your skills, you really need to consider how you’ll market and conduct business as well and Tawnya’s Virtual Business Start-Up System can help you with that.  Tawnya Sutherland not only started her own virtual assistant business from scratch but built it up to the level where she now earns over $100,000 a year. She has assisted numerous corporate administrative workers and mentored various business people who are in career transitions working towards self employment. She also works directly with new and experienced virtual assistants.

If you want help starting your virtual assistant business check out Tawnya’s Virtual Business Start-Up System.

The next article in this series will be the last. We’re going to discuss how to collect money.

Ciao!

Reba

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Who Needs a Virtual Assistant?

Internet Business Model Series
Service Business / Charge by Hour or Project

A huge percentage of the marketplace today is made up of small and home-based businesses. Some of these businesses are so small the term solopreneur was coined to describe them. The owners of these businesses are quite often stretched to their limits to get everything done and administrative work is often left to be done last. These businesses are prime candidates for virtual assistants.

On the other hand, large corporations are good candidates for virtual assistants as well. With new technology and the internet, work can be completed and turned in by a person working in a totally different location than the person assigning the work. Many large corporations are taking advantage of this ability to use offsite workers and saving thousands on not only payroll but office space, equipment and benefits.

When it comes to home-based and smaller businesses where the owner is the person who handles most, if not all the work, a virtual assistant can help that business owner focus his or her efforts where they will be most productive. By allowing a capable virtual assistant to take over some of the administrative tasks, the business owner can add value to their own time by spending it on the tasks that will grow their business.  Time spent on marketing, customer service, and planning will have a much higher pay-off to their business than time spent on administrative duties. And smart business owners know this and understand the price of a virtual assistant is small in comparison to the alternative. These small business owners realize that spreading themselves too thin by trying to it all is not the wisest use of their time and as their business grows, either the marketing and managing of the business or the administrative duties will suffer.

In addition to the small business population, corporate clients are in constant need of administrative help as projects present themselves and growth occurs. The virtual assistant with the necessary skills to handle a particular project is the perfect choice for the same reasons it’s a good choice for a small business owner. The cost of a permanent employee goes way beyond the hourly rate paid to that employee. Although most large corporations are solvent and can afford to hire a permanent employee when the need arises, they are also held accountable for the bottom line and hiring someone permanently when the work could be done on a contract basis is not prudent. For this reason more and more companies are looking to the virtual assistant to handle projects and duties that used to be done in-house.

Basically many kinds of companies, from the “one-man show,” right up to the largest Fortune 500 company, are using virtual assistants. The market is wide open for the skilled professional to start and grow a successful virtual assistant business.

Now, just think how all your years of experience and the skills you’ve accumulated over the years will translate into a successful virtual assistant business. This is a business where baby boomers who have worked as executive assistants can really trump. As a boomer you not only have years of experience and the skills necessary to do the job, but you’ve had so many dealings with people in so many situations, that you’ve learned patience, time-management, client relations, and myriad of other things that will work to your advantage. What a great industry in which to grow a boomer business.

In my last post I told you about a program by Tawnya Sutherland that will help you break into the field and teach you how to start your marketing program to gain a clientele. Today I want to show you her other website and message board where you can go to learn and get your questions answered.

The link here will take you to a page on her site that sells her VA Insider Membership Club. I’m leading you to that page so you know it exists and you can see the differences between the free membership and the paid membership. The page is pretty clear showing in a table the benefits of the paid membership. Personally, I’d look around a bit, join the free membership board, and then later if you decide you want to start your own virtual assistant business, consider the paid membership only after you purchase the Virtual Business Start-Up System, well, that is, if you plan on buying the VBSS. The reason I say this is because the VA Insider Membership Club is half-price is you own VBSS. Do definitely don’t do anything right this moment, first use the free membership and then make your decision only after you’re sure you like what you see.

Next we’ll talk about the skills necessary to consider starting a virtual assistant business.

Cheers!

Reba

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