A Virtual Assistant- Top Three Skills To Learn

Editor’s Note:

I’m super excited to share an article with all of you today from Tiffany Parson, who has been with A Real Change for over 9 years now. She runs and oversees our Inner Circle, manages all of our groups, and is one of the client care representatives who are serving thousands of clients every month in our group environment. She has also taught classes, trained team members, and even worked on our website!

Grab a pen and paper while Tiffany shares with you some of the skills needed to be an effective VA in the online world.

With love,

Sandi Krakowski

A Virtual Assistant- Top Three Skills To Learn

by Tiffany Parson, ARC Client Care Groups Manager

If you were to ask me what skills are important for a virtual assistant to have, hands down I’d say communication and people skills.

Written communication skills are high on the list for virtual assistants because it’s the primary way we communicate with clients. Whether it’s via email or social media, for the most part a new client relationship starts off in written form.

This particular skill is one of the top three to learn for virtual assistants especially when it comes to social media.

There may not be an opportunity to explain further what you mean and you may not have room to go into depth. Social media skills requires you to communicate concisely and clearly with fewer words than an email.

A virtual assistant can be instrumental in keeping the activity alive on social media for online business owners by scheduling posts, answering questions, watching for inappropriate posts, and more.

While all clients may not require you answer questions on their behalf, it is important to know the part social media plays in your clients’ businesses. It’s a part of understanding the online environment and those you serve.

Another skill important for virtual assistants is people skills. You must like and care about people.

I don’t believe you can be taught to like and care for others, however you can increase the level of like and care you have. If you’re not fond of people it tells a lot about how you feel about yourself, but it also means that being a virtual assistant or anything else related to people is out of the question.

In fact, it’s not possible to do anything online without interacting with people. Even the programmer in the basement with the one light over his desk, must interact with clients who are….people.

People skills means you have the ability to see things from the other person’s point of view. You see them as the person behind the email, voice mail, or posts online. You treat others the way you’d like to be treated and it may require a self check to make sure it takes place. Do what it takes to ensure you are caring for people in a loving manner. See them how God sees them.

The third skill a virtual assistant must have is current and relevant skills that clients are looking for such as WordPress, Email Marketing, and Social Media.

WordPress Skills: You should be knowledgeable of widgets and plugins and how to add blog posts and pages to a website. In addition, you’d want to learn how to add media to a page or post as well such as audio, video, a downloadable file (i.e. PDF), and an image.

Email Marketing Skills: You should understand the importance of email marketing to your clients and why their email list is of the utmost importance. Additionally, you should be knowledgeable about the tools that allow clients to send emails and newsletters to their community such as AWeber.

Social Media Skills: You must understand the power and importance of social media. This platform allows our clients to extend themselves beyond their website and email marketing. It’s a way for them to build relationships and community like never before.

All in all the skills important to learn as a virtual assistant are centered around communication, people, and learned skill that clients are looking for. It doesn’t matter about your degrees or GPA. What matters to a client when it comes to their virtual assistant is whether or not you will fit in their community based on what you do, how well you treat people and what you know.

Training people to be the best VA they can be is one of my passions here at ARC!

Tiffany Parson