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Do you have what it takes to be an excellent virtual assistant? It’s difficult to answer this question if you don’t even know what it takes to be one in the first place. Nonetheless, one element should always be present for you to succeed. You should be dedicated to what you are doing. If you are dedicated, you will be able to turn challenge to opportunities. An optimistic attitude will make things easier. This includes improving your craft and learning new things. Motivation begets several positive traits such as motivation and hard work.
This time around, we will be looking at some personal traits and basic skills you need to possess or learn in order to become an excellent VA.
- Drive for learning. Virtual assistance is highly diversified, giving you a lot of room to learn new things. You should embrace the drive for learning for you to be able to keep up with the pace of the virtual assistant industry. Virtual assistance allows you plenty of diversity and if you want to stay at the top of your game, you are going to have to be prepared to learn on a daily basis. Are you up for the challenge?
- Discipline. You should be able to get your work done on a timely manner with the best output being made. This trait requires you to set priorities and asks you to have the ability to say no to outside distractions. Managing your time wisely is an essential element under this subject.
- Strong management skills. As a VA, you will be helping clients manage their business. You must therefore exhibit the mentality of managing your client’s business as if it’s your own. Basic knowledge or understanding on areas related to advertising, marketing, and public relations will be of great help for you to help your client grow his or her business.
- Strong organizational skills. Keeping the work of multiple clients together is among the several challenges you have to face with a smile. You must be extremely organized to serve your clients in the most efficient and effective way depending on their needs. Arrange files strategically for easy access and be sure to have some backup to address unexpected problems that could happen anytime.
- Strong communication skills. It is essential to have strong communication skills to be able to deal with your clients both verbally and written. Keep in mind that virtual assistants mostly communicate via email and fax. It is therefore necessary to have strong writing skills. Taking up a basic writing course whether online or in a local community college will help you improve your writing skills if you believe that this area is not your forte as of the moment.
- Proofreading ability. Clients expect your output to be professional in a way that it will reflect their business and even your clients themselves to their respective customers. You must therefore need to be keen with typos, spelling mistakes and grammatical errors.
- Computer skills. Since most of your work is going to be done on the computer, you must exhibit strong computer skills. This requires you to be good in popular word processing programs like Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect.
- Internet savvy. Knowing how to access the ins and outs of Internet related matter is a must to be a successful virtual assistant. Being technology savvy should also come along because aside from using online message systems such as Skype and MSN, you would be exposed to fax messaging and other systems. Coping up with advances in technology is crucial to give your clients the best service possible.
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It takes constant practice and application to hone all of the necessary personal traits of a good virtual assistant. In the same way, it also takes time to learn all of the essential skills needed. An excellent way to go along with the learning process is to start offering the services you excel in while you make ways to dust off those rusty skills and add some aspects in your arsenal.
If a client asks you to do a certain task you are currently unfamiliar with, be honest to say that you don’t have the skills yet needed to do the task but you are willing to learn. It would then be up to them if they are willing to go through the learning process with you. If the skill needed will benefit your overall service offering, then you might want to consider lowering your rate or not charging the client for the learning time. Think of the long run benefits and build up relationships at this moment that you are in the starting phase.