Question of the Week – Filling Your Virtual Assistant Practice

Q. How long did it take you to reach a full-time practice?

A. Sydni Craig-Hart:  The answer to that is really funny. How long did it take me? It took me one day. The reason is because I quit my corporate job on a Friday and started my Virtual Assistant practice full-time on Monday.  So,it didn’t take me very long.  I really had to dive in and make it work.

I don’t recommend that everyone do that.  I definitely recommend that people have a transition plan.  But, it worked out for me.

I had started my company in January and, as I mentioned, quit my job at the end of February.  By the time I quit, I had my first three clients.  By the time June came, I pretty much had a full practice just because my first clients retained a fair amount of my time.  My first three clients were using 75 hours of my time a month.  At that point, that was full for me because I was just getting my feet wet.

I had a practice full of my ideal clients probably toward the end of the year.  It didn’t take me very long for a number of reasons.  One was this was my baby for that first year. I didn’t do anything else but eat, sleep and breathe Virtual Assistance.

I really threw myself into it because I started the AssistU Virtual Training Program about six months after I started the company and was able to immediately implement everything I learned.  I had a really quick learning curve.  It just shows that it can be done quickly.

I feel very confident in saying that going through AssistU and immediately applying everything you learn and learning some quick marketing techniques along the way, you really can build a full practice in about six months.  It is possible to do that.

Laura Allen – Admissions Director at AssistU:  Within the first month I had three clients.  Adding that many clients at one time was a challenge for me.  It comes back to time management and the things you need to learn in-depth for each client.  I would highly recommend one client a month.  Adding them for six months until you get to that point is smarter than the way I did it.

Within six months, my practice was full.  It was actually too full.  I had to really step up my standards and boundaries and be able to say, “No. This is as much as I can do on my own.”

Within the first year, I was able to actually revamp my practice.  That’s when I went from the pay-as-you-go to the retainer clients, raised my rates, and kept the clients who were willing to stay on as retainers. I really made it an ideal practice with just a very few select clients.  That is where I want to be.

I have four clients right now.  My practice is full.  That’s going to depend upon billable hours.  One VA may be full at 100 billable hours and one may be full at 150 billable hours.  It depends on where you want your practice to be. Personalize it to your own preferences.