We’ve all had these emails in our inbox or seen them floating around on social media – often followed with the phrases ‘Smash your way to success’ or ‘business mastery’ or ‘positive mindset’. You know the ones, they promise financial freedom, six figures in six months, a Ferrari in the garage of your mansion, days spent playing on your private beach with the children… All yours for the minuscule investment of $999/month, etc, etc…
Now, most of us hit the delete button – but is what they are saying true? What if you really could be a six-figure income virtual assistant?
Myth 1: 6-figure incomes
A lot of these incomes are measured in $ dollars. “6 figures” invariably means around $100,000 = £80,614* approx, so your target earnings each month are £6,718. It seems a bit more achievable now, doesn’t it? (correct at the time of writing… Obviously, check the exchange rate!)
But this also nods to the fact that it is a very American way of selling – it doesn’t always work with UK customers for that reason, but there are a few big-name American motivational speakers / business ‘strategists’ out there who really push this sales technique for all industries (not just the VA industry).
Myth 2: It’s all for spending
In order to earn £6.718 per month at an average £30/hour you would need to bill 224 hours’ work, which is 52 billable hours a week. Plus, on top of those 52 hours, you’ll have your own admin, marketing, invoicing, etc, to do, which brings the hours you would need to work up to around 65 hours…. Very hard work, but do-able with a bit of effort and no other commitments.
Except realistically, your clients aren’t going to sit around for you to complete their work when it suits you. They’ll want it done when they want it done, and you won’t reach 52 billable hours a week unless you can fulfil that, so the people earning 6-figure incomes, MUST be using outsourcers to complete some of the work.
And then I would go further and say that in order to make sure that the outsourcers are working to the same standards you do, you would need to increase the amount of non-billable admin hours you spend on your business in order to check their work, thus reducing the number of hours you have for paid client work. Meaning even less of your time will be available for billable hours.
So a big chunk of that 6-figure income is coming in the door and straight back out again to outsourcers. I’d estimate that probably something between 65%-75% is going in pure outsourcing costs. Then add on the money you have to spend in order to market the business effectively (updating your website, SEO, newsletters, mailouts, finance costs, etc.), which you need to spend in order to get enough clients to achieve your 6-figure income. Those costs are probably something like 10-20% of the turnover. So we’re looking at you taking home, at best, 25% of your 6-figure income, which is £20,153/year. At worst, you may only just be breaking even. A lot will depend on you being able to keep costs low and client-spend high, which isn’t always the easiest thing when dealing with freelance contracts.
As VA Sarah Bradley says: “Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity”.
Your Ferrari is looking rather unlikely now, don’t you agree?
Myth 3: Anyone can do it
Based on the above, you’ll still be working a 65-hour week as a solo VA. You probably won’t have enough cash to hire someone to manage the business, so you’ll be very much tied to your desk Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm. That precludes school runs, popping to the shops or going to networking meetings. Whilst Blackberrys are brilliant, you shouldn’t be using them whilst driving or talking to people!
If you have a team of associates, you also need to be quite tough. Your role is to make sure the clients get their work back on time and perfect. As much as one can sympathise with one’s dog being sick or a child throwing juice all over your laptop, a Lead VA’s first commitment is to the clients. That sort of brutality is sometimes difficult for multiVAs to master, they have to divorce their personal feelings from the situation.
Lead VAs do tend to get on with all their VAs on a personal level – their team are truly skilled, after all, and remarkable people (otherwise, you wouldn’t have hired them!). But in the same vein, they are not going to let them damage their business reputation by handing in late work or work that’s not up to scratch.
Myth 4: It’s for bog standard VA work
Here’s the sneaky bit – and this is where we think the VAs claiming a 6-figure income really need to ‘fess up:
The 6-figures is not earned solely from being a VA or standard VA services
VAs who have achieved these figures have done fantastically well for themselves and we whole-heartedly applaud them for that – rather than being jealous, we should thank them for raising the profile of what we do..
But looking at some of their VA businesses, there’s no way they are earning those incomes from it alone – Google their names and see what else comes up – booked, courses, memberships, coaching, mentoring, training, premium VA speciality services or other passive incomes.
In conclusion, yes, absolutely this income is possible – but don’t let people tell you that it is easy; it entails hard work, focus, a key skill set, growth and dedication. Food for thought! And if the course does not cover all the above, particularly if it’s a virtual assistant course then we would advise caution.
For more information on how to find the right trainer, coach or mentor, see this post.