Today I interview Kat Durston, a nutrition student who teaches you how to start a virtual assistant business from home!
Season 2 Episode 13
More Information About Kat
- Kat lives in Michigan
- She and her best friend created Flourish VA (virtual assistants)
- She is currently completing her dietetic internship to be an RD
- She completed an art and design degree before pursuing a career in nutrition
What Is A Virtual Assistant?
A virtual assistant handles the online functions of a business. The daily tasks vary based on the needs of the business. For dietitians, the VA role could include:
- Answering emails from potential new clients for a private practice
- Creating social media graphics and captions
- Outreach to potential brands to work with
- Administrative tasks
- Blog writing support
- SEO help
- Writing email newsletters
- Developing resources and handouts
Kat says that a lot of dietitian businesses need support with marketing components of their businesses. This can include lead generation through SEO writing or writing monthly newsletters.
How Do You Get Started?
Even if you have no experience Kat says you can still find opportunities. She recommends finding jobs by:
- Volunteering your time with an RD who needs help
- Browsing the Pre RD website
- Networking on dietitian Facebook groups
- Asking friends if they need help
- You can also use job boards such as Upwork or Fiverr
- Making connections because word of mouth can be a huge source of referrals
Even if the pay is low you are still gaining valuable experience!
Do You Need Any Fancy Tech To Start A Virtual Assistant Business At Home?
Kat says no! She recommends using these tools:
- A premium Canva subscription to create digital designs
- A reliable phone or laptop
- A contract you can fill out with each client
- Some kind of invoicing system to get paid
The clients will pay the subscription fees for the services they need in their business (an example could be Mailchimp or Convertkit for email lists). The VA logins to do the work and then signs back out when they are done.
What Is The Most Challenging Part Of Being A VA?
For Kat, being on the clock and responding to clients at all hours of the day can be tricky. On one hand, she loves being available to help her clients, but sometimes her phone can blow up when she least expects it.
To improve this scenario Kat has started to implement firm working hours and boundaries with clients. She shares more tips in the podcast episode (you can listen to the interview at the bottom of the page).
How Can You Make Your Virtual Assistant Business Stand Out?
The good news is that virtual assistants are a hot commodity. Dietitians want more VA’s! There are certain things you can do to help stand out:
- Make your Instagram templates from scratch instead of relying on generic templates
- Improve your writing skills because writing is time-consuming for business owners, and they want to offload that task
- Learn how to develop a cohesive branding strategy for your client’s business
- Stay on top of the trends
- Learn what actions deliver the best marketing results, and then offer those options to your clients
- Collect feedback and references from past satisfied clients!
Ready to learn how you can start a virtual assistant business at home? Hit the play button below.
Missed an episode? Don’t sweat it. You can catch up on last week’s episode by clicking here: Youtube Strategies And Monetizing Your Channel Ft. Amy Hager, MS, RDN