What is a Virtual Assistant these days anyway?
And how has it changed over the past decade of internet growth?
The age-old issue of the title ‘Virtual Assistant’ and what it actually means, seems to have never been resolved, is continually tripping people up and causing confusing in the market.
Over the last 5-10 years I’ve been trying to convince everyone that the term ‘Virtual Assistant’ should refer to the collective of business owners providing B2B services, remotely.
The industry title.
Individuals keep insisting that they are a Virtual Assistant and that that is their title.
Yes, you are a VA, like a Tradie is a Tradie and a Doctor is a Doctor.
But what does that mean?
If you were a doctor would you simply put ‘Doctor’ on your business card?
No, you wouldn’t.
If you offer General Administration you specialise in General Administration (Own it! It’s important!).
You are in the VA Industry and you offer General Administration to business owners - ideally, a particular type of business owner.
Maybe you call yourself a Generalist or, better, an Administration Specialist.
If you’re too scared of the word specialist, maybe you need to upskill, because you really do need to know your shit if you are running a business offering it as a service. The VA Industry isn’t a space for half-arsed service offering - it’s for experts offering B2B remotely.
If you offer Copywriting, you’re a Copywriter.
If you offer marketing, you’re a Marketer.
Yes, you are part of the VA Industry - but it’s not your title.
And so this brings me to the issue of Online Business Managers comparing themselves to VAs.
If they feel the need to compare to highlight what they do, they need to compare themselves to Administrators or General Administration providers.
Because I never see a copywriting comparing themselves to a VA. Or a website designer to a VA.
It doesn’t make sense.
Online Business Managers manage businesses through team and project management. An Administration Specialist doesn’t manage teams and doesn’t direct projects.
That’s the difference. They really are a very different offering.
A VA though - what do they do?
Let me repeat myself - they offer B2B services, remotely.
That’s all of you champs.
So why do people, mainly women, fall back on calling themselves a VA instead of something more specific?
Fear? Confusion? Uncertainty?
Maybe they just define VA differently to me - and they think VAs are only in administration.
Even offshore VAs don’t limit themselves to the single offering of Administration. Businesses need help in so many ways and it would be crazy to limit remote B2B support to only admin.
I think some people who call themselves a VA and nothing else that defines it further, are either lacking self confidence in their offering, or they don’t yet know what they want to offer. Or perhaps they haven’t seen the offering that is right there in front of them (have a session with me if this is you - we can find it!)
My main concern is the lack of confidence. It concerns me for 2 reasons:
I absolutely don’t want anyone to run their business without seeing how valuable and awesome they truly are, and
If you use the title ‘VA’ as your ‘safe place’ while you offer ‘all of the things’, you are diluting the potential power of the Virtual Assistant Industry.
The first point is something that causes me a lot of distress. I see so many people starting their own business after experiencing a lot of messaging that they are ‘not good enough’ or ‘not important enough’ - especially those in the administrative services.
Admin Assistant, Secretary, Executive Assistant (EA), Personal Assistant (PA) - just like ‘The Devil Wears Prada’ where you are only worthy if you effectively slave yourself out to those higher in the bullshit corporate hierarchy. And even then, you only become worthy because they made you into this new powerful being.
Oh, fuck off!
The reason people push Administration staff so much is because
They hate the idea of doing that (bloody important) work themselves because they’d suck at it,
They have been indoctrinated to think that somehow this role is beneath them,
They know if the jobs aren’t done, they won’t even have a business to run and they’d be fucked.
OK, so I’m getting more sweary.
Deep breath.
The best clients don’t see business support services this way. They know that their support is their business angel and they are succeeding because of the joint effort. I love those people.
Happy thoughts, happy thoughts.
So let’s look at point number 2 - Using the VA term as your safe place.
When you’re starting out, I get that it can all feel very mushy. Yet many trainers will tell you to JUST START with your brand and put yourself out there. You don’t know what you’re offering but just ‘fake it till you make it’.
This is exactly why I encourage my students to explore their skills and how those skills can become services, work out who has the problem you can solve and then set up some foundations BEFORE you start marketing.
Because if you know your offering, who has the problem and how you solve it - working out your title, your business name, brand and wording becomes a lot easier.
If you find you are still simply calling yourself a VA, with no other definitions explaining what you do, you’re making your own marketing so much harder for yourself. Maybe it’s time to have a chat and see what the overall offering really could be defined as.
I’d love to know what you think.
What are your experiences with using the word ‘Virtual Assistant’ - is it used to empower or is it limiting?
What do you call yourself in your business?
Confused and want to work out where YOU fit?
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Spot on Rosie! It’s a really hard concept to get your head around when you’re starting out or have been doing the ‘VA’ thing for a couple of months or years. The term has changed so rapidly over the years due to technology and people just being more informed about services that they need.
On my About page on my website I explain my transition from being a generalist VA to a Copywriter VA like this:
“I started this writing caper in 2010 when I created Secret Secretary, a Virtual Assistant business in Australia. It evolved over the years from assisting keynote speakers, and small businesses run their businesses behind the scenes, to a copywriting business that gets to the heart of you and your business.”
I did this because I didn’t want to dismiss nearly nine or ten years of what my ‘Secret Secretary’ business was all about, and the fact that I’d changed my business name to ‘Shauna Upson Copywriter’ so didn’t want to lose all of that social and business networking that I’d built up. Let me tell you it was a hard decision and a scary time but I still hang out in the VA world cause they’re my peeps, haha. And I love that VYVA has so many varied and interesting ‘specialist VAs’.
Thanks Shauna!
I always love seeing VAs evolve as their skills and passions change – it’s the best thing about being self employed. We have so much room to move in as VAs and so many skills and services that we can tap into – it’s awesome! xxx
I changed the name of my business to combat this exact issue. I originally started as “Helping Hands Virtual Assistants”, and originally thought that everything I offered would be VA-level services. Howver, as I expanded, became “we” instead of “I”, and we progressed into offering more consulting or training based services, I had a lot of trouble with the way the consulting and training was being perceived. I tried to quote those services at a higher rate, although still more cheaply than I should have at between $90 and $120 an hour, but what kept happening was pushback along the lines of “$90 an hour for a VA?” and I soon realised that we had an image issue, because when we were offering training or consulting, those are not VA services. So, we rebranded as “The Helping Hands Group” with VA services, Consulting and Training as 3 clearly defined areas under that new umbrella name. I then went further again and re-badged our VA services internally as the affectionally known “Grunt Work”. As a result, there is now far more separation between the “Grunt work” and the consulting/ training, so I have no trouble quoting each at their apporpriate rate.
I think you have a very valid point Rosie, “VA” is the equivalent of “Doctor” and if we do not target the term more specifically for our clients, they assign their own value to it (as I found out!)
Hi Sarah
That’s interesting! Would training and consulting be considered virtual B2B? Depends on the topic maybe?
xx
Rosie