My Honest Experience with Working as a Virtual Assistant

My journey into the world of online business began with freelance writing. I landed my first gig through Craigslist that paid $25 per 500-word article.

Writing for money was a brand new concept for me and, honestly, I wasn’t very good at it. I would agonize over headlines, intros, and conclusions for hours. As a result, it would sometimes take me days just to write one short article.

Nevertheless, I had been bitten by the freelance bug and I wanted more. Eventually, I got better and was able to add higher-paying clients to my roster. I even started my own blog to showcase my skills and services. (Fun fact: my website is a fitness blog now, but back then it was more in the career/side-hustle niche.)

But I was still a very slow writer and found myself wondering if there was an easier way to work online without facing the drudgery of writer’s block every other day.

That’s when I decided to try my hand at Virtual Assisting.

Disclaimer: This article contains affiliate links, which means that if you make a purchase after clicking on one, I may make a commission, at no extra cost to you. The following is my honest experience with being a VA.

Hold Up - What Exactly is a Virtual Assistant?

A Virtual Assistant is basically an umbrella term for any freelancer who offers an online service. Traditionally, VA work is admin-based, but these days there are virtual assistants who specialize in all areas of online business, including social media, email management, project management, podcast assisting, graphic design, and more.

I was really into blogging so I had a lot of skills that paired well with VA work. For example, I specialized in WordPress management, content creation, and Pinterest management.

(I should note that you don’t need a specialization to become a VA. In fact, many clients are willing to train their VAs on the job.)

How I Got Started

I signed up for an online course called 30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success, which was created by Gina Horkey of Horkey Handbook. When I decided to become a virtual assistant, her course was a no-brainer for me because her freelance writing course had helped me find my first writing clients.

(This was a few years ago and the course has since been reworked into a membership platform called The #FullyBookedVA System. More about this at the end!)

The course helped me build the foundation for my business and taught me everything I needed to know about choosing my services, setting my rates, prospecting clients, pitching jobs, and more.

But the best part was gaining access to the VA Leads Facebook group. This is an exclusive Facebook group where Horkey Handbook posts the client leads they receive via their “VA Finder”, which is a form for business owners who are on the hunt for VAs.

The leads contain information about the client and what kind of VA they're looking for. The VAs in the group are then welcome to pitch the clients directly by email if they think they're a good fit for the client.

I kid you not, I landed 3 clients from that Facebook group alone, and I worked with all of them for at least a year.

What it Was Like Working as a VA

At my peak, I was working around 15 hours a week as a virtual assistant alongside my full-time day job. I loved the work because I was helping my clients with their blogs and I loved all things blogging!

I was able to pull it off because, with VA work, your work schedule is extremely flexible. Most of my clients were in completely different time zones so the general agreement was that, as long as the work was completed by the end of the week, it didn’t really matter what time it got done.

That meant I was able to do all my VA work in the evenings after work and on weekends.

Communication was primarily done through email and project management tools like Trello and Asana, depending on what the client preferred.

I was earning about $1500-2000 per month between my freelance writing and my VA work. Even my blog was starting to make a little passive income by this time.

I’m not going to lie, making that kind of extra cheddar felt freaking awesome.

It was 2019 by this point, and my spouse and I were getting prepared to buy a house. However, the house that we ended up falling in love with was a 90-minute drive from my day job.

There was no way I was willing to commute that distance, so I decided that I would quit my job and go full-time with my VA business. It was a terrifying but exhilarating time in my life.

The Plot Twist

That summer, two weeks before we moved away to a new city, I handed in my resignation letter to work (with no small amount of anxiety and tears), explaining that I was moving out of town and not willing to commute.

But, something happened that I wasn’t expecting: They asked me to stay on and just work from home.

It was a huge relief because I actually love my day job and was really sad about leaving. But at the same time, it was unexpected and changed the game plan entirely.

I agreed to stay and decided I would just keep on doing my VA work as a side gig on evenings and weekends. My blog took a bit of a backseat but I still tried to get out one or two posts a month.

I carried on this way for the next 8 months.

Burnout and Making Hard Choices

Towards the end of the year, my rosy little life started taking on a different hue. I felt like I was working every spare moment of my waking life and I was starting to burn out hard. My anxiety levels were through the roof and honestly I think I was losing it a little. My blog and writing fell totally to the wayside.

My partner had been pointing out for months that I couldn’t continue juggling everything and that something would have to go.

But I didn't listen, refusing to believe it was too much. I thought I just needed a break and assured him (and myself) that everything would be fine after our long-awaited beach vacation that winter.

Then the day we got back from vacation, I felt tears welling up at the thought of logging on to do VA work, and could no longer deny that a week away was not going to fix my burnout.

Something had to go. It felt like an impossible choice because I loved working at my day job from home, but my VA business was something I had built from the ground up by myself. I also desperately wanted to make something more out of my blog, which was making a little bit of money but seriously falling short of its potential due to constant neglect.

Finally, in March 2020, I chose to hang up my VA hat so that I could focus on my blog and have some semblance of work-life balance.

The Epilogue (aka, Where I Am Today)

For the past year, I’ve been continuing on with my day job while blogging and writing on the side. Although I miss VA work (and the extra income it brought) I am truthfully much happier now that I’ve restored some equilibrium to my life.

I’m incredibly grateful for my experience as a VA and it’s also really comforting to have that skillset in my back pocket; if I am ever in a place where I do need extra income, I know that the option to start up again is always there!

In the meantime, both my blog and writing skills have grown considerably. Although my blog hasn’t fully replaced the income I was making as a VA, the money I do make is all passive, which is well worth the tradeoff in my books.

Other than that, I’m enjoying the extra time I have for the things in life that don’t have anything to do with making money, like exercising, relaxing, watching movies, baking, reading, and - of course - spending time with my family.

Interested in Learning How to Become a VA?

If VA work has piqued your interest, you should definitely check out Horkey Handbook and their #FullyBookedVA Certification. The membership is designed to help you build a VA business from scratch and build the skills for a specialization if you so choose. (It also includes a course on how to become a freelance writer, which in a sense, is a type of VA work!)

If you want to learn more about it first, they have this great free download that includes 275+ services you can offer as a virtual assistant, a skills inventory, a self-assessment workbook, and some inspiring student success stories.

They also have a mini-course available if you want to dip your toe into the VA world to see if it’s something that will work for you.

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