Don’t Let Your Ego Get Stuck On The Job Title “Assistant”

by | Virtual Professional, Virtual Work Opportunity, Working Moms

{Virtual Work Opportunities for the week of February 27th….scroll down…. but we’d love for you to read our advice on how to land these great opportunities first!}

So many of the virtual work opportunities you see are seeking an “assistant” of some kind. Executive Assistant. Virtual Assistant. Because that’s the term the online world has come to use.

Not because you are only worthy of being an “assistant”.  Did you hear that?

The term VA is WAY too broad. It means a million different things. And if you’re like me, you aren’t in this to be someone’s “assistant”. You started your own business to possibly do something more. Yet as I dig into the job descriptions, it doesn’t look at all like an assistant. I see requests like this:

  • SEO Expert
  • Certified Project Manager
  • Web Designer
  • Copywriter
  • FB Ads Work
  • Social Media
  • Graphic Designer

Excuse me, but those are highly SKILLED positions and not just assistant work, ok?

Now, there is plenty of personal assistant work out there too. Travel booking, calendar management, customer service answering, file organization, etc. That’s definitely a path.

Have you heard me call this online business world the “wild wild west”? It’s true.

Business owners are all over the map deciding what they need. And service providers are all over the map designing a business and services that match their lifestyle. (Pretty amazing opportunity when you think about it that way.)

Some of these business owners want someone who can mind-hack their SEO AND book their travel. It’s ideal, right? Only one person to interact with and take some workload off their plate. I don’t see it as work that is below me when I can streamline their entire business.

It’s stepping up to SERVE and serve well. And as their business grows, you will move into the highly skilled roles and be able to hire a true assistant/apprentice for the other work. The business owner will see your time as too valuable to spend on more administrative tasks.

(Side note: I am going through this with my own VA team right now. We are finding everyone’s sweet spot and realizing there are more admin tasks we could offshore to a very low dollar Phillipino VA soon. My team doesn’t see this as a threat but as an opportunity to grow and advance their own higher value skillsets.)

When you see a virtual work description with mixed messages like “admin work + highly skilled at _________”, there are 2 things to consider:

1. Unrealistic expectations from the business owner

If they want to pay you like an admin assistant but expect you to do skilled work like SEO, web design, etc, then I would not take the work.

However, it’s worth a conversation to try to negotiate and explain. Which brings me to the next point…..

2. A potential to educate the business owner and step into a great opportunity.

It could be that this business owner is simply unaware. The market moves fast. It’s actually really challenging to figure out what kind of VA to hire and where to find the right one. I talk to people often who are in this dilemma. (and refer them to the right person in my How She Quits Collective community.)

If you’ve got the talent and can have the right guiding conversation with a business owner, they will immediately see you are too skilled to spend time booking their travel. (However, you could be a “right-hand girl” coordinator and have a lower dollar contractor of your own to do that work right?)

Start with a short-term agreement and see how it goes. Just maybe you will educate this business owner and transform their success.

To find these opportunities, we need to tell our ego to take a seat and explore those “assistant” types of opportunities to find the gold mine that is behind them.

This week’s virtual work opportunities are full of these “assistant” gems.

Read them with fresh insights on their potential.

Executive Assistant / Project Manager

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Perfect for that professional in corporate with certified project management skills who wants to move into virtual work!


Virtual Assistant with Video Smarts

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Room to grow for the right go-getter VA on this assignment!

Just a little bit of video know how can take you far in 2018. (HINT: This is all learnable for free. On YouTube of course.)


Virtual Assistant for Organized Tech Startup

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When they ask for someone who is “stable and organized”, they’ve likely already had bad experiences and definitely prefer that “professional” approach. I like the vibe I get from this potential project!


Virtual Executive Assistant

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Class Executive Assistant position…..with the modern twist of working virtually from home.


PT Health Conscious Creative Social Media Expert

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This entrepreneur is on the pulse of what’s working in online marketing right now. Repurposing FB lives. Hook up with them and stay on the cutting edge!


Superstar Phone Appointment Setter for Profitable Ad Agency

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Great entry level position for someone who loves to interact with people…..training included!


Are you a Virtual Professional who wants to be in a community of “professionals” and not “assistants”?

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Our goal is to tame this wild, wild, west with professional skills, at high-value rates while working from home and enjoying our families.

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