A virtual assistant is an individual who uses digital tools to help business owners and individuals with their virtual needs. Virtual assistants largely work with busy business owners or entrepreneurs to ease their workload.
As a virtual assistant, your primary goal must be to make your clients or employers’ lives easier. Every client or employer is special with their unique needs. A virtual assistant has to master one or more tools to help render quality and outstanding service to their clients.
In this article, we will discuss the ten best tools for starting a virtual assistant business. Some of the tools are free to use, while others allow you to use them for a limited time.
1. Toggl (Time-Tracking)
Toggl is one of the best time-tracking software programs. This software doesn’t only make time tracking easy; it also offers other amazing features. When time tracking with Toggl, one of the cool features is reporting. In Toggl, the report feature allows you, as a virtual assistant, to send a report of what you are working on to your clients.
You can use the folder function to arrange your activities per client, keeping your work organised and helping you stay on track.
You can always go to the report page to view the analytics. The data shows you how well you are managing your time and where to improve.
As a virtual assistant, when you use Toggi and share your report with your clients, it helps to increase trust.
2. Dubsado (Invoicing)
Maybe you have not imagined that you would need invoicing software as a virtual assistant. Yes, you need invoicing software for issuing invoices to your clients. Invoicing makes you look professional and intentional and helps document.
An invoice is proof of the price agreement and payment. Without an invoice, troublesome clients can stress you by claiming ignorance of the agreed price, mostly after you have completed the task.
Dubsado handles invoicing very well, but that’s not all about the software. You can also prepare contracts and other important documents, and you can seamlessly get them signed by the involved parties.
Dubsado doesn’t have a free plan, but you can use it for free till you have more than three clients before you start paying.
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3. Canva (Graphic Design)
Canva is probably the most beginner-friendly graphic design software out there. This Australia-based startup is an all-encompassing graphic software. As a virtual assistant, you may be working as a social media manager and need to create graphical content for your clients.
With Canva, you do not have to be a professional graphic designer. Canva’s goal has always been to keep graphic design as simple as possible. With this software, you can achieve a lot with minimal effort. Therefore, with a basic graphic design skill, you can create astonishing designs that your clients would love.
One of the beautiful things about Canva is that the free plan is self-sufficient. You can achieve a lot with the free plan. So, start with the free plan and upgrade when you start making money.
4. Trello (Project Management)
Trello is used to manage projects. Teamwork is one situation where this software is useful. In Trello, you can assign tasks to project members, review their work, give feedback, etc. It is like virtually bringing all the project members to one location.
To the clients, the software eliminates the stress of either receiving and responding to their work individually through email.
With Trello, everyone is in a place. It is an awesome tool, and the cool thing is that members can only interact within the access the project manager allows them.
As a virtual assistant, you ought to be conversant with this tool. The good news is you can try it out for free, and most times, clients will bear the cost while you are invited to their project.
But take your time to register on the website and start practicing. The free account is enough for a start.
5. Slack (Text Communication)
Each organisation or company has its preferred communication channel, and many use Slack. Slack is one of the popular communication software programs used by clients and companies to stay in touch with their employees.
Slack allows you to either communicate privately or as a group. It is one of the coolest and easiest ways to stay in touch with everyone involved in a project without stress.
You can start using this tool for free. Register and play around with it to understand how it works.
6. Calendly (Appointment Scheduling)
One of your responsibilities as a virtual assistant is scheduling appointments and meetings for your clients. Calendly is a leading scheduling tool in the market.
With Calendly, you can schedule different types of appointments, customise them, and share appointment links. Also, you can embed it on your website or anywhere embedding is allowed.
If you are scheduling one type of scheduling, you can use Calendly for free. You are only prompted to pay when you want to schedule different types of appointments, like hourly-based calls, etc.
You will be doing a lot of scheduling as a virtual assistant, so learning how to use an appointment scheduling tool is not negotiable.
7. CapCut (Video Editing)
Does a virtual assistant need video editing software? Yes, but it most especially depends on your niche and target audience. Just as a virtual assistant needs graphic design skills, they need video editing skills too.
CapCut is a simple video editing software with a beginner-friendly interface. Unlike other video editing software like Premiere Pro, DaVinci Resolve, etc., that don’t accommodate beginners, CapCut does the opposite and is still powerful.
As a social media manager, you would be creating videos, especially if you are managing TikTok. CapCut is basically free to use but has some paid features.
8. Google Meet (Video Communication)
Not all clients would hire without a video meeting. Also, you can be working with a client or company where you have to join their meetings or have one periodically.
Google Meet is a video software from the tech giant, Google.
The sweet thing is that once you have a Google email account, which is Gmail, you already have access to Google Meet. It is free to use. You must be conversant and confident in using the software.
Google Meet is used for video communication. You can do many things with the software. For instance, you can share your screen while on a call, you can record the meeting, and you can invite other people to join.
Google Meet is user-friendly with a simple interface. Therefore you won’t find it challenging to understand how it works.
9. Google Drive (Cloud Storage)
Virtual assistants need a place they can store their documents, files, etc., outside their hard drive. Google Drive is the answer and one of the best cloud storage tools in existence.
You should learn how to store, share, and organise files using Google Drive. Also, you should know how to grant access to files. In Google Drive, you can grant different levels of access to a file.
Mastering this tool would demonstrate to your client that you are progressive in thinking; therefore, you evolve with technology. Also, in a situation where your client doesn’t have cloud storage software they are already using, you can recommend Google Drive. In one breath, you will help them keep their files safe and increase their trust in you.
10. Google Docs (Documentation)
Graphic designing and video creation can be optional for a virtual assistant because not all niches or work demand that, but not documentation.
You must be interacting with documents as a virtual assistant; therefore, it is a must to know how to use it. As with many Google tools, it is free to use and only requires a Gmail account.
You can do many things with Google Docs, such as writing, securing a document with a password, and sending or sharing file access with multiple users.
There are different types of access you can grant to a file on Google Docs, such as editor access. As an editor, the user can view and edit the document. A viewer can only read, but a commenter can read and leave a comment but can’t edit the document.
You can share the document through a link, and that makes Google Docs safe and easy to use.
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Conclusion
A virtual assistant business is one of the best digital businesses you can start today and with these tools above, you will stay profitable. It allows you to work from anywhere in the world. It also exposes you to other opportunities, such as meeting people from different walks of life.
Another beautiful thing about a virtual assistant business is that it is easy to start, requiring mostly your laptop and time. We have discussed the best tools you can use to start your virtual assistant business today. From our article here, you can see that Google has more tools that can help a virtual assistant start their business and make money without spending so much.
Ensure you maximise every opportunity to learn any tool because it will help you perform better as a virtual assistant.
