It’s almost one month when I lost my client and yes it is stressful because you don’t know how you are going to make your ends meet. At times, I feel down and lost but wait I know for a fact that clients come and go for different reasons so what am I fussing about!
Freelancing always comes with a huge risk especially if you go for it full-time. Okay, so what do you do if it actually happens to you? Here’s what I did:
CRY OUT ALL YOU CAN. PRAY. ACCEPT REALITY.
Umiyak ka lang. It’s normal to get hurt, to panic but don’t let it get your way. PRAY to God to give you more strength and ask to accept things the way it is. Sometimes you may feel sorry for yourself. Sometimes, you cannot accept it.I guess it’s because pride is in my heart and with the wrong mindset that I’ve been in the industry for so long and have great skills to use so why should I lost projects. But in reality, it’s not really about your tenure and skills. Accept the reality that at some point in our lives we will be tested. Accept the fact that we are not in control.
Once you accept it, get over yourself and think about God’s promise that he will never leave us nor forsake us. God is in control.
DO NOT GIVE UP
Keep on applying for more projects. I expanded my job marketplaces to other platforms like PeoplePerhour.com and fiverr.com.
WORK ON YOUR OWN PROJECTS
Since I have a lot of free time, I work on my personal website. See, I am writing a new blog post :). I am busy working on my 2 blogs and working as well on my affiliate marketing project.
VOLUNTEER FOR SOME WORK
Volunteer for some projects that will help you create a portfolio and can offer you for x-deal opportunities. It could also be a great way to expand your network. Right now, I am working on a website of a professional host and wedding event coordinator in exchange for referrals and promotion to her own network.
REACH OUT FOR YOUR NETWORK
Don’t be shy to reach out to your network and see if there is anyone who could help. They could refer you for projects and put in a good word for you. Who is this network? These are the people you have a personal connection with on your freelancing journey.
Yes, we may lose clients but let us think of it as an opportunity in some way. An opportunity that will help us improve on the way see things in life and the better way to manage our freelancing career.
In this season, I am reminded that :
God loves me so much not to disrupt me.
God shakes me up from familiarity so I will seek him more.
The rejection I got was drawing me closer to God so I can totally depend on him.
There is the pain, there is heaviness, the desire to quit but don’t be discouraged. Keep on moving! We will soon land again with a new project.
THE ULTIMATE TEST OF FAITH IS NOT HOW LOUDLY YOU PRAISE GOD IN HAPPY TIMES BUT HOW DEEPLY YOU TRUST HIM IN DARK TIMES.
How about you? What do you do when you lose a freelancing work?
Finding a direct client is one of the most exciting and at the same time something that will challenge you as a Virtual Assistant. This is because you have to do everything on your own, and in return, you will get to receive a higher payment since there would be no third-party website to do the work deal for you. You might be wondering now, where can I possibly find a direct client.
1. Referrals
You may ask your friends or people that you previously knew if they know someone who is currently looking for a helping hand online. You never know, maybe a common friend is what you are ideally looking for as an online client.
2. Free Job Platforms
There are job marketplaces that will not get any centavo from you as they offer a different business model. The most popular platform is www.onlinejobs.ph. It’s a platform for Filipino applicants only and the clients pays the platform by subscription so they can get access to database of applicants. Here’s one thing to remember, getting direct client has the risk of not getting paid but you just have to take precautionary measures to prevent of not getting paid.
3. Social Media Networks
Joining Facebook, Linkedin groups and Forums are other ways to acquire direct client. There are job threads posted on sites that you can get accessed to.
4. Online Marketing Strategy
Implementing online marketing strategies like SEO, Social Media Marketing and Advertisements can also be helpful when generating leads for your virtual assistance services.
COVER LETTER PREPARATION
At times, online freelancers fail to land a job because they come up with “undesirable” cover letter. It is either the client finds the message too boastful or too dull. So how are you going to do it?
Keep it short. There is no need for you to say a lot of unnecessary things just for you to look knowledgeable or worthy of the job. Just keep it formal short, and simple.
Next thing to note is that keep your tone formal. Yes, I understand that you would like to look cheerful and positive through writing. But there is a line that separate professionalism and the personality of being cheerful. So, keep it professional by being formal in tone.
Introduce yourself, be direct to the point by stating your objective in writing, give a brief yet informative details about your field of expertise, and say thank you. That’s it! No more, no less.
PORTFOLIO PREPARATION
If you do not have your website to hold your entire portfolio, an online file box will do to organize your portfolio. You may make use of Dropbox or Google Drive or any other online file storage. The key here is to make your files organized. For example, come up with a specific folder that contains all the spreadsheets that you had, another table for letters, and another table for other clerical jobs you have done in the past. Rename the files correctly so that the client can quickly go over your data and see the quality of your work.
Just note that in doing this, the files that you are going to include are those that you have rights over and not those that belong to the previous companies you’ve worked for if there are any. Organize your files, create a share link, and send it to the client and showcase what you got.
Ready to become a Virtual Assistant? Go, explore and enjoy the journey of becoming a virtual assistant.
Start hunting for your virtual assistant job at onlinejobs.ph.
Enjoying the first virtual assistant salary is the happiest result of hard work. Withdrawing your hard-earned payout from your freelancing job is one of the things that we are looking for as freelancers. Why not? We get to receive the fruits of labor, and we get to spend it with people dear to us! But what are some of the payment gateway that you can use in withdrawing your money?
First in the list is Payoneer, a global payment solutions that is already on it’s 12th year, in fact I am happy to be a Payoneer user for 10 years. It allows you to receive your payment through online banking transfer or if you wish, you can also use it for online shopping! Isn’t amazing? You can now receive your payments from all over the world without worrying about how to get it because you can do it in varied ways. Plus, it is also a safe gateway all in all.
The second in the list is Paypal, the top payment gateway for all the freelancers in the world. Just like Payoneer, you can also withdraw your payments through bank or ATM,
The third and the last on my list is withdrawing payment through local bank transfer if you are using Upwork platform.
Building your Virtual Assistant (VA) Profile
The greatest secret in building your VA profile is by making sure that you put all your skills which you think are necessary for a virtual assistant job. Skills like organizational skills, keen to details, prompt to schedule, communication skills, fluency and accuracy in working on documents, and the likes. Remember that clients would like to get to know you and what you are capable of doing because they would like to be sure that they are hiring the right person that they need for their job. So, putting all your desirable skills and other pleasant things about you will more likely sell like hotcakes to the clients.
Don’t forgot to add portfolio, platforms such as Upwork allows you to add it.
Two Ways to Get a Client
There are two ways on how you can get a client in the Freelancing world. First is through a job marketplace acquisition while the second one is through the direct client acquisition. The first one entails you signing up for a specific website and doing a complete profile. After that, you will have to go through different job posts and do your best to send an application and eventually once you are considered as one of the applicants, do an interview. The catch is, the site will be the one to receive and release the payment for you because they are the one managing the site and they get to earn by making job deals. So more or less, a percentage of your payment will go to the website, and another portion is by sending the payment through your preferred method. It is also a safe way of getting a client since the payment will be done and will be on an escrow (hold period) before you start doing your job.
The second type is through direct client acquisition where you will personally look for clients online through job posting websites. You will have to apply and negotiate on your own, and the site does not necessarily take a percentage from your earnings. The client will send the payment to you directly, and the agreement about the job will be between the two of you. The catch in this way is that there is no guarantee that the client will send the payment once you are done in the task since there is no such thing as escrow or hold period while you are doing the job.
Do you want to know where to find direct clients? Read the next post!
After identifying the potential project, you want to check how your direct competitors present their services to the market. Determining them may help how to better position you among the rest. Next step would be is to determine your virtual assistant hourly rate.
Let’s proceed to the next steps!
Using again your identified skills, go to Upwork, then place again the skill. From there you will see the list of freelancers who have the same skills as yours.
Go over each of the top-rated Upwork Freelancer, consolidate and observe how they presented their profile in a spreadsheet by identifying their title/brand, skills, overview and the hourly rate. Using this data, it will give you an idea on how to better enhance your profile and the skills you want to add to your skill set.
HOW TO SET YOUR VIRTUAL ASSISTANT HOURLY RATE
One of the commonly asked questions is how much to charge for your VA service. As a newbie, should I charge low or high? Pricing the services will depend on your goal and on your skills. In my end, I begin it by setting a goal on how much I want to earn, and then from there, I set a target hourly rate and minimum rate.
Set an annual target income
If I want to earn Php30, 000/month, that would be Php360, 000.00 for the whole year.
Consider the Expenses and Overhead
Expenses and Overhead are equivalent to the sum of Cost of Doing Business and Cost of Living.
Cost of Doing Business is the expenses incurred to generate revenue for the business. This may include but not limited to internet, laptop, electric bill, tax, domain registration, web hosting and seminar and workshops. Set the estimated amount you may incur for a year.
Cost of Living, on the other hand, is the cost needed to sustain a certain level of living. This may include but not limited to health care, SSS, PAGIBIG, and Philhealth.
Once expenses and overhead are determined, add this one to the target annual income and label it as Adjusted Annual Income.
In setting up the rate, we also need to identify the following factors :
Working Hours Per Year – How many hours you want to spend on your VA career. Is it 10, 15 or 20 hours per week? For example, I only want to spend 20 hours per week and that is a total of 1040 hours annually.
Off Hours Per Year – I am fully aware that I do not get any benefits like Sick leave or vacation leave but that doesn’t stop me from setting my own benefit:). So I set my vacation leave, sick leave and even holidays!
Non-Billable Hours Per Year – For that total working hour per year, set aside a percentage of hours allotted for your job application.
Target Hourly Rate – is the aspired rate so you can get your target financial goal in an x amount of hours.
Set your desired hours allocation.
We got the relevant factors, now it’s time to compute the target hourly rate!
In this sample computation, if I want to earn at least Php30,000 for 20 hours per week, then I need to charge for at least $13/hour. I use this target rate as my reference of rate negotiation, like, I set a minimum rate of $10/hour.
Ok, so are you ready? Go, set your hourly rate now! If done, check it on the next blog post below.
Working from home provides unlimited opportunities and all you need to do is find out what will work best for you. Indeed, there’s a lot of opportunities, some works for me, some did not and some are still work in progress. Here’s the 7 ways on how I earn money online while working from home:
Online Freelancing
I have been into the freelancing industry for a decade and I worked as a Virtual Assistant helping business owners grow their business with online marketing through Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing and Affiliate Marketing.I got my clients through Upwork.com and Onlinejobs.ph and this has been my primary source of income.
Home-Based Outsourcing Agency
As a freelancer, I’d like to step up to another level and started, Jass Online Solutions. Jass Online Solutions,is a home-based outsourcing agency that helps freelancers and business owners grow their business with affiliate marketing.
Information Selling Through Coaching Program
As a work at home mom coach, I help moms start home-based career. With this gig, I help moms start a home-based career. On this gig, I developed courses that helps moms transition from the corporate world to the freelancing world. I earn money by selling the home-based course.
Information Selling through Public Speaking
From the developed courses, I expanded it through live workshops . Workshops are normally on a 4 hours activity.
Event Organizing
This one was actually just out of curiosity and just volunteered and for some reason I enjoyed doing Event Organizing with Manila Workshops. As an Event Director, I am in charge of organizing learning workshops like Creating a Simple Business Plan and Setting Up A Winning Blog for your Business.
Online Selling
Well, this one did not work for me but I engaged into selling chocolates and perfumes but as a reseller only.
Before I talk about 7th way , earning money online is not a one-time shot, it takes a lot of patience, perseverance and it’s always about continous learning and of course it’s about taking action. Knowledge is not power, but application is POWER. No matter how many skills and bulk knowledge you have if you don’t apply it, then it’s nothing.
Last year, I changed my freelancing niche into Affiliate Marketing. Why Affiliate Marketing? Because this is a great opportunity for me to create a passive income through Blogging with Adsense and Affiliate Marketing monetization.
Blogging through Adsense & Affiliate Marketing Monetization
This is still work in progress but it is worth pursuing. This is because while learning and pursuing for the passive income, there is still conversion because I was able to make use of it as a freelancing service.
With Blogging, I explored on different niches like Korean Drama, Health, Travel, Dogs and Debt. I choose these niches as something that really interests me , like with Korean Drama, that is because I love Korean Drama Addict. 🙂 Health blog because I went through a condition called Ameloblastoma, a tumor on the jaw.
How can I earn money online through blogging? With Affiliate Marketing it is about promoting other people’s products and I can earn a commission out of it. For example, I am promoting Payoneer, if you click on the link HERE ,you sign up and receives at least $1000, both you and I will earn a $25 commission. Adsense on the other hand is a cost per click advertising program that allows publisher to place an ad on a website.
There are so many gigs, right? It’s a matter of exploring things and making the most out of it so you can earn money online while working from home. I hope this gives you more ideas and would love to see you take action on whatever journey you want to pursue.
How about you? Do you already have ideas on how to earn money online while working from home? Or do you want to know more ways on how to earn extra income from home? Watch the video below.
