Start a Virtual Assistant Business in the UK in 10 Simple Steps

Are you seeking a high-paying and fast-growing remote job? You should consider becoming a virtual assistant. Due to the increased need for remote work after COVID and the adoption of virtual offices by new businesses, startups, and small enterprises, there is a high demand for virtual assistants.

The good news is that you do not have to be a college graduate or possess any special skills to invest. But getting these highly paid virtual assistant jobs when you have little or no experience in them can be very demanding.

Suppose you're interested in applying for a virtual assistant position but don't know where to hunt for clients or how to charge them. Don't worry. Incorpuk in this blog provides essential tips for becoming a virtual assistant and everything you must know. Keep reading and get informed.

What Kind of Services Does a Virtual Assistant Provide?

Companies hire virtual assistants for different roles that can be completed online. These roles can involve simple tasks like organising flowcharts or complex research. Virtual assistants are known as remote-work handymen.

If you want to work as a virtual assistant, these are services you can provide:

1. General Admin Work: When becoming a virtual assistant, starting with general administrative tasks is advisable. This encompasses managing emails, coordinating events, scheduling appointments, holding on-boarding, managing social media, developing invoices, etc.
2. Bookkeeping: This is very important because small or new businesses may require help with bookkeeping services. In bookkeeping, you will handle tasks such as managing financial transactions, preparing reports, handling payroll, creating invoices, and ensuring the financial records are well-kept.
3. Project Management: You can work as a virtual assistant as a project manager. Your role will be assigning projects to your teams, planning budgets, communicating with stakeholders, navigating contentious affairs, and planning budgets. You need to have experience working with tools like Asana and Jira.
4. Data Entry: Data entry work might be a good fit if you pay attention to details and are fast typing. You may transcribe data, enter information into a database, scan documents, and troubleshoot errors.
5. Virtual Receptionist: You would be like a traditional receptionist in this position. You would manage calls, answer and forward them to the appropriate individuals, reply to emails, and offer customer support while working remotely.
6. Customer Service: Here, you'd respond to customers' complaints, solve their problems, or offer information about the products and services that customers need, contributing to customer satisfaction and retention.
7. Miscellaneous Tasks: This can range from writing blog posts and monitoring social media accounts to running personal errands and managing websites as per client needs.

This list includes many general tasks a virtual assistant would perform. However, the day-to-day responsibilities will differ based on individual clients or the industry in which the virtual assistant works. As a virtual assistant, you assist your clients in completing daily tasks, allowing them to manage bigger tasks.

Steps to Become a Virtual Assistant in the UK

Here are the steps to become a VA in the UK.

1. Choose a niche

A virtual assistant (VA) is a general helper providing services to different companies or people. When starting your VA business, you must define your services and those you will not.

Let's see common VA duties:

1. Customer service
2. Research and data entry
3. Calendar and email management
4. Generating invoices and billing
5. Book accommodation and travel
6. Content management and website upkeep
7. Editing, transcribing, and reviewing work
8. Social media management and press releases

Most virtual assistants start with basic administrative tasks and then customise their services depending on their strengths and preferences. While some VAs focus on particular fields of expertise, others design unique services, such as email marketing or virtual business management, to make their services unique.

Avoid becoming a generalist; instead, specialise in one or two fields that interest you, for instance, health care or real estate. As your VA business progresses, you can gradually expand the range of services. Make a summary of the services you provide to ensure that the potential customers understand your worth concisely.

2. Develop a business plan

For example, you must create a business plan as a virtual assistant when setting up a new business. It is advisable to work through your business plan and update it frequently. If you're not seeking funding, don't make it overly formal, but it should outline the essential aspects of your business, such as:

1. Who is an ideal client?
2. How will you market your offerings?
3. Which services will you focus on?
4. What's your mission statement?
5. State your short and long-term goals.
6. What expenses will your business incur?

How detailed depends on you, but a clear understanding of your business before offering your services means a lot for the long-term perspective. Many sites offer templates where you can start or develop yours to use as practice for virtual assisting jobs.

3. Structure your VA business.

Like UK small businesses, you need legal structuring for your virtual assistant services. Here are the vital steps that you should ignore:

1. Choose a Business Structure: These business structures available to startups in the UK include sole trader, LLP, and limited company. Each structure has its own set of rules regarding liability, taxes, and ownership; therefore, consult an accountant for proper guidance when choosing.
2. Register Your Business: Once you have chosen a structure, register your VA services with the Companies House and HMRC to make the business legal and compliant.
3. Open a Business Bank Account: regardless of whether you are starting alone or from home, ensure you open a business account, which you use to transact once you start making sales.
4. Get Insurance: Recommended insurance that may be vital is professional indemnity and public liability, which would help protect your business assets from client-related activities.
5. Consider VAT Registration: However, if your turnover goes beyond £85,000, it is essential to register for VAT because this enables eligibility to claim VAT on business spending.

4. Create an online presence.

Since you will be doing all your work online as a virtual assistant, it is crucial to create an online brand. A solid online presence will help attract clients, especially when you're a novice with no prior experience. This is how you should build your online presence:

1. Build a Website: having a dedicated website also allows your potential clients to follow your experience, credentials, and offerings. Leverage the success stories section and keep the website's contacts section basic with just an inquiry form.
2. Engage on Social Media: Ensure your company pages on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram platforms are up-to-date. Share content showcasing your VA expertise and engaging with your audience. This boosts brand awareness and obtains leads, provided your brand is properly positioned online.
3. Use Freelancer Platforms: Apart from your website, these are the important places to register on freelancer sites and VA directories, such as Upwork, People Per Hour, and  FlexJobs. They assist you in extending your clientele base and acquiring feedback.

5. Set your rates

As virtual assistants handle different tasks, having different rates and services is vital to obtaining more clients. Being more adaptable in your work type and charges benefits your clients and yourself.

It's necessary to offer the possibilities for 'one shot' assignments and 'work in progress to help you stay competitive.' although most VAs charge per hourly rate, you can include other pricing methods. You can adopt these options:

1. Hourly: Billing per hour is suitable for most VA work and appropriate for those still learning how long certain tasks will take. The only thing you should avoid closely is time estimates and billing for the work done.
2. Flat Fees: If the task is a one-off project, charging a fixed amount of money also proves effective, particularly if it takes only a few hours to complete. This method helps simplify the rate of negotiations for various projects.
3. Retainers: In retainers, the client pays weekly or monthly in advance for a specific number of hours or activities, which ensures constant work, steady income, and client engagement.

Whatever method you decide to use when setting your prices, avoid leaving your clients guessing about the billing methods or timelines. Preferably, the above details should be stated under a written agreement signed by the clients. This eliminates confusion and creates a business-like relationship from the onset.

6. Provide a payment system

Since you have determined how to bill your clients, it is also crucial to put structures in place for collecting and reporting on payments. As a small business owner, controlling the finances to optimise profits and minimise taxes is very important.

Wise makes it easy to accept various payment types securely and efficiently. It lets you create and send client invoices and intuitively manage incoming payments. This feature enables full monitoring of payments in real-time, so practically nothing can go unnoticed. Wise simplifies and handles these payments seamlessly, from credit card payments to bank transfers or different currencies.

7. Get clients

Despite your expertise in virtual assistance, it's all in vain if you have no clients to provide your services. Here are vital tips on how to attract new clients as a VA after launching your business:

1. Network extensively: Attend small business events and meetings to meet the clients physically. The 'personal touch' creates business relationships.
2. Offer free consultation: By offering free brief calls, your leads can view their needs and evaluate if your offering solves their problem. The consultations convert leads into paying clients.
3. Leverage your contacts: Email everyone in your network and introduce them to your new VA business and specialisation. Ask them if they know any business owners who could use help.
4. Run a referral program: Create a reward program to reward current clients who bring business to your VA business by providing them certain privileges. There is nothing as effective as word of mouth.
5. Run promotions: You can offer 10% or 15% for the first few clients. Offering discounted initial deals attracts new sign-ups.

8. Optimise your operations

As a virtual assistant, you should offer exceptional VA support with optimised internal operations. Use the following tips to maximise your productivity and systematise repetitive tasks.

1. Use project management tools: you can use the project management tool of your choice to boost collaboration with your team and ensure clear communication with your clients. These platforms help organise the tasks effectively, increase productivity, and get to know the current status of the projects.
2. Create knowledge bases: Develop centralised cloud-based repositories and wikis to contain information about routine client response protocols. This will ease the team's work by providing a point of reference, making work more consistent and efficient, and cutting down the time to complete tasks.
3. Evaluate systems continually: You should constantly assess the tools and methodologies that are most effective for the unique, distinctive focus. Upgrade systems to exploit innovations and reduce problems.
4. Automate the necessary: To boost efficiency, you can automate your admin workflows, such as scheduling social posts or sending follow-ups.
5. Schedule effectively: Use calendar management to balance time between client work and business development. Don't overcommit to the schedule; leave enough time for vital tasks and growth opportunities.

9. Work and make necessary adjustments.

Once you have clients, ensure you provide high-quality work to build your reputation and leverage further work. Ask your clients to refer you to other businesses or request testimonials that you can add to your site to boost your reputation.

After working for some, you will realise the tasks that suit you better than others. With that, you can adjust your niche or narrow down your VA services as you grow. This will enable you to raise rats and work with specialised clients.

10. Add to your virtual team

When you get to the point where your schedule is fully booked with your clients, it's time to scale and build your team as a virtual assistant. Expanding your team has the following benefits:

1. Offering a wider range of services
2. Accepting more projects and clients
3. Enhanced responsiveness to clients
4. Provide deeper expertise and specialisation

You can begin with an exclusive virtual assistant responsible for all administrative duties or a junior specialist in fields like IT and marketing. After that, you can plan for the necessary growth of your team by hiring new roles.

After hiring a team, you can implement these practices to ensure harmony:

1. Regular team meetings, as well as general training sessions.
2. Cross-training among assistants
3. Coordinate and ensure that tools are maintained and processes are recorded.
4. Individual meetings with each team member on an agreed-upon preset weekly schedule
5. Reward for excellent performance

Qualities and Skills of a Virtual Assistant

If you want to be a virtual assistant, here are the qualities and skills you should have:

1. Communication skills: oral and written communication skills are important for any virtual assistant, irrespective of the years worked. This is important because communication with clients, customers, and colleagues mainly occurs over the phone, via email, or during presentations.
2. Time Management and Organisational Skills: You will complete quality work on time by ensuring you've managed your time and resources. As a VA, you should be well-organised and able to plan your time well to meet the set deadlines.
3. IT Proficiency: A virtual assistant should also be computer literate to perform their duties efficiently. This skill is important for several activities, including navigating the Web, using cloud-based tools, typing and document editing, making appointments, and delivering files in various formats.

What are the Top Virtual Assistance Services?

Here are the tasks that have the most demand for virtual assistants:

1. Customer service

Businesses are outsourcing activities such as consumer service through calls or messages. Some even have preset answers for the frequent questions that clients will likely ask. Further, you may apply software to forward the calls to the respective departments effectively.

2. Social media marketing

Since social media is becoming an increasingly significant part of branding, some virtual assistants may include social media management as their function. Highlighting any experience in organic or paid social media campaigns can be a big selling point for any potential client.

3. Internal email communications

Include it in your resume if you are fluent in more than one language. VAs capable of communicating with international clients or accurately translating text into foreign languages will likely have wider job opportunities.

4. Time management

Personal assistants are usually contracted to arrange appointments for clients ranging from small business persons to employer executives. Time management is very important as the clients rely on the planner to remind them of meetings with business partners and potential customers.

5. General weekly reporting

As technology advances and drives more sophisticated analyses, clients seek assistants to turn data into knowledge. Understanding how to make clear and concise reports and presentations is an important skill that can differentiate you.

6. File management and maintenance:

Organisational skills are relevant for virtual assistants since companies sometimes require assistance organising and archiving documents within their files. If you are familiar with Google Drive, Dropbox, or any other cloud storage solutions, ensure your potential clients know about them.

7. LinkedIn lead generation

Specialising in LinkedIn, especially for lead generation, can be a great niche to focus on. Mention any interaction you have had with LinkedIn. This is an important platform that B2B companies use to expand their market and generate leads.

How Much Does a VA Earn in the UK?

Virtual assistants' pay in the UK can range from £10 to £35 an hour. Clients pay most freelance VAs from across the world, and therefore, how much they earn depends on the rates they set and the amount the clients are willing to pay. Virtual assistants with higher skill levels, like in data entry, project management, and WordPress management, charge more than the average UK.

Form Your Company with Incorpuk Today

At Incorpuk, we will help you through the company formation process and file your confirmation statements to help your business stay compliant. Whether you're a UK resident or a non-UK resident, our team is ready to provide guidance and help you establish your company in the UK. Contact us here today.

Winding Up

Setting up a virtual assistant business in the United Kingdom is a lucrative opportunity for remote workers. Picking the right niche, creating a credible business plan, building a social media presence, and offering reasonable prices can help you attract customers and establish a VA business.

As your business grows, consider hiring more employees to provide additional services and serve more clients. You can develop a VA business that meets clients’ needs and demands in different markets by obtaining the right tools and employing the right strategies. Kindly contact one of our experts here if you need any help or have a question starting a VA business in the UK.