5 Things I Learned as a VA
“A much larger conversation has to be made about self-care since it encompasses other aspects of a person’s life. And knowing how to prioritize and protect yourself is the ultimate step toward self-care.”
As a virtual assistant, my journey has been filled with valuable lessons that have shaped me both personally and professionally. Working remotely has its unique challenges and opportunities, and throughout my experience, I gained insights that have been highly impactful and enlightening for me. I felt that I have grown more since then and put up a podcasting team with my husband and another partner, which eventually became this digital marketing agency.
I hope these five lessons can give you the confidence you need to take on your role in the career path you’ve chosen.
Cheering you on and crossing our fingers for the best!
Xoxo,
Anne
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TDE Episode 11: 5 Things I Learned as a VA
Anne: I know there are some people who hate a listicle podcast format. But me personally, I love it. Just the way my brain works - I like knowing what to expect. And I know a lot of people do too as well. And it has something to do with the need for control and always knowing or being on top of something.
Carl: I also like list-type articles as long as they’re done meaningfully and thoughtfully instead of some fluff writing pieces that’s very common nowadays. And we did do an episode on being a soulless content factory, so that’s probably where all the dislikes are based on.
Anne: Well let’s hope this episode won’t be considered fluff because this is based on our experience as a virtual assistant in my early days freelancing. I say early days because though I still remember getting hired for the first time like it was yesterday, that was way back in 2017 and six years have gone by since then, so yeah quite some time ago.
Carl: I’ll let you share your story and lessons learned from those meaningful years of being a VA that adds value to what we do now as a Marketing Agency.
Anne: And I’d love to hear your insights as well since you have a more expansive point of view, whereas mine can be a bit more microscopic since I’m drawing from my experience.
Lesson #1: Adaptability
I struggled early on with this since coming from a corporate set up, things were a little bit more systematic and more rigid in terms of processes and learnings. But in the first few months of VA-ing, I had to learn quickly since each client has unique needs, and being flexible allowed me to cater to their requirements efficiently.
Carl: Yeah, you can’t really say this is the only way to go about it because of tech and the internet. There’s always an alternative way, there’s always another tool or platform. You can’t settle or just be confined to what you already know.
The question is how fast can you adapt to a specific working environment especially in VA. Can you identify one situation where things got a bit shaky on your end because of the overwhelming tasks you had to handle?
Anne: The one thing I found quite intimidating back then was creating the customer journey for the marketing funnel. I had no idea what that was about back then. All I knew then was when I subscribed to a newsletter from a creator or online personality that I like, I get a weekly email. But little did I know that there was a whole different world and system that goes on at the back end. So setting all that up, that eas overwhelming for me at first. But again, adaptability was key and being open to learning. Because email marketing is a cornerstone of every business funnel.
Lesson #2: Effective Communication
Throughout the years, one thing I’ve learned is it’s not about how many big words you can inject in a conversation or how “illustrious” you paint a mental picture. At the end of the day, the only question that stands is: did my client understand me?
And this can be challenging to most Filipinos who are catering to clients in the US, UK, Australia or maybe even other parts of Europe, or even Asia like Japan, China, or Korea. English isn’t our primary language to communicate. Filipino is our native tongue, but yeah Filipinos are just super quick learners and they can even get the accents down to a T. But at the end of the day it’s not about the accent, your diction or pronunciation, or using big, “impressive” words.
It’s about the tone of your voice so you can convey the right emotion (if it’s an audio or video conversation), and getting your thoughts in order so your clients can easily understand what you’re saying.
Carl: It can even be helpful to give an outline of what you’ll be discussing with each other. Like “Let’s talk about these three points”, or “During this call, we need to finalize these two things.” These are important mental or comprehension cues so they already mark it in their heads, which paves the way for a much easier end efficient conversation.
Lesson #3: Prioritization or Time Management
Anne: So noticed I mentioned two philosophies, and this is because the concept of “time management” has been hotly debated throughout the years. That the correct term, as they say, should be prioritization or setting your priorities, because according to productivity experts, you can’t really manage time since time is a construct. And I don’t want to get too deep into that, but I do recognize that when I apply time-saving measures through prioritization, it helps me be more efficient.
Carl: Especially in the nature of our work. If you’re working independently, then you really need excellent time management skills.
And one of the main things that I want to add to it is your ability to not be distracted by what I call, the “little things” like eating snacks or a peek at your phone for a dose of your social media. I get distracted easily by our viber group once there’s a good argument that was thrown there and always restraining myself to respond violently for discussion’s sake….but yeah, working remotely presents so many challenges, and we can get distracted all too easily. So having this skill and discipline are key.
Lesson #4: Continuous learning and investing in yourself through enriching and educating yourself constantly.
Anne: When I was just starting out, I couldn’t really afford to buy courses online. So what I did is to enrich myself with as much free content that’s available out there. And also meeting with and working with a lot of clients has given me bits and pieces of learning here and there. Breadcrumbs of learning that eventually led into a whole yummy blueberry cheesecake!
Foodie-intrusive thoughts aside, the digital landscape is ever-evolving, and staying updated is key! So you need to have the proper mindset and readiness to upgrade your skill set.
Lesson #5: Self-care and setting boundaries.
Carl: Virtual assistants mostly work remotely, sometimes the boundaries between work and personal life have either been blurry or bled into each other.
Anne: And people are complaining about the supposed lack of balance.
Carl: Well, prioritizing self-care and setting boundaries is an advantage to those who are working remotely. I feel like the work-from-home nature of VA is attractive for those people who can get easily tired of the daily social interactions of an office workplace setup. You can easily retreat whenever you sense that your boundary has been crossed and need time to recover from it.
It can be alienating for some people we interact with on a daily. And that’s part of self-care: to protect yourself in situations where you can feel like you’re being
