How to Get Clients as a Virtual Assistant: 7 Tips for Success

Many novice VAs get started on online freelance marketplaces, which are sites that connect workers with clients. Some of the biggest names in this space include:

• Fiverr
• Freelancer.com
• Upwork

These websites are all fairly similar to each other, and it’s worth creating an account on each one. Spend some time every day (at least 15–20 minutes) hunting for work on each.

How to create your initial profile

When you create your account on each site, indicate what kind of work you’re interested in taking on. “Virtual assistance” is a big, broad field, so be as specific as possible. Highlight any special skills you have, such as social media marketing, project management, or research.

Your profile will serve as both a resume and a portfolio, and it’s what potential clients will use to evaluate you. Make sure it looks professional, and consider getting a family member or friend to help you proofread it. Even a few small typos can mean the difference between getting hired or rejected when it’s all your clients have to judge you on.

How to apply for jobs on freelance platforms

Once your profile as a freelancer is up and running, it’s time to start applying for jobs. Use the platform’s search function to look for gigs with titles like “virtual assistant,” “remote personal assistant,” and “research assistant.”

When you find a suitable job, write up a pitch for the client and submit it, then wait for a response. Pitches should generally be fairly short—aim for 200 to 250 words at most—and should clearly explain why you’re the right person for the job.

Realize that you almost certainly won’t get hired by the first client you pitch, or even the tenth. Finding work on platforms like Upwork is essentially a numbers game. Try to apply to at least 5 gigs per day, and keep at it.

In effect, that’s actually all you have to do to land clients as a VA. If you’re persistent (and your profile is reasonably professional), you will eventually get a bite. There’s more you can do to speed the process along (and land better-paying clients), which we’ll cover in the rest of this article, but at its heart, that’s all it takes.

The stronger your web presence is, the more attractive you’ll be to potential clients. Create a personal website that advertises your VA services and link to it from your profiles on your freelancing marketplaces of choice.

Your website should include:

• Your areas of expertise
• What services you offer
• Your prices
• Testimonials from satisfied clients (once you have them)
• Your contact information

In addition to making you a more competitive candidate on sites like Upwork, creating a solid website is also a necessary step if you want to approach clients directly.

That’s something you’ll want to do sooner or later, since virtually all marketplaces will take a cut of your profits (often 10%–30%). Websites like Upwork and Fiverr are great for getting your start, but the sooner you can take your work off of them, the more you’ll make.

How to build a website cheaply and easily

You don’t need to be an expert developer—or break the bank—to establish a strong online presence as a freelance VA. There are several services, including Wix, WordPress, and Squarespace, that you can use to build a site cheaply or even for free, and they don’t require any design or coding knowledge.

To get ideas for your website, you can check out Oriented Outsourcing, the site for Stephanie Barnes, an experienced VA who’s collaborated with Side Hustles on several articles about virtual assistance.

Note that her site’s design is clean and relatively simple, and that it highlights her testimonials and pricing, as well as her contact form (at both the top and bottom of the homepage).

Those are some of the most important elements on your site, and they should be as prominent as possible.

Once you create your website, you’re almost done establishing your online presence, but there are still a few more small chores left to do. It’s well worth setting up a profile on LinkedIn, which is the most popular social media platform for professional networking.

Your LinkedIn can (and, in fact, should) retread largely the same ground that your website and freelancing profiles cover. Explain your past experience, the services you offer, and how to get in touch with you.

How does boosting your web presence make it easier to land clients as a VA?

Laying all of this groundwork might feel tedious and redundant, but it serves a valuable purpose when it comes to landing work. Remember that your potential clients don’t know you, and when they decide whether or not to hire you as a virtual assistant, they’re operating on limited information.

In addition to simply making you easier to find on search engines like Google (which itself increases your chances of being hired), establishing a solid presence across multiple websites communicates that you:

• Understand professional norms (at least enough to create a good-looking resume and portfolio)
• Take your virtual assistance side hustle seriously and are willing to put real work into it

Both will set you aside from the competition and make clients feel more confident about giving you a chance.

Again, many VAs land their first few jobs on websites like Upwork. However, that’s not the only path you can take. It’s also possible to get gigs by approaching clients directly—a strategy that’s known as “cold pitching” or “direct outreach.”

This can be intimidating, and it’s OK if you don’t try it on your very first day. You can spend a few weeks pitching in environments like Upwork (where it’s fully expected and completely acceptable) to get comfortable with the idea first. However, it’s a good idea to try direct outreach eventually.

Stephanie Barnes, our occasional VA collaborator, told us that she prefers finding work this way, as well as through networking, which we’ll talk more about below.

In addition to greatly expanding your field of potential clients (so that it includes essentially any business that you can find contact info for), getting comfortable with cold pitching also makes it possible to earn more money, since when clients hire you directly, you don’t have to pay a cut of your earnings to the platform you’re using.

How to cold pitch your VA services to clients

The most practical direct outreach method is to start with companies in your area. Look for local small businesses that seem like they’re expanding—in many cases, these are the ones that will be experiencing growing pains and need a solid VA to help them scale.

Check each company’s site to see if they have a Contact Us page. If they do, whip up an email that:

• Introduces you and the services you provide
• Explains how and why those services would benefit the company
• Links to your personal website (and, if you have one, a portfolio of your past work)

This email doesn’t have to be long or fancy. To the contrary, pitches are often best when they’re short and sweet; you can model them off the same messages you’ve been using to apply to jobs on freelance marketplaces.

Here again, you probably won’t meet with success the first time you try this, but keep at it. The difference between a VA who’s swimming in work and one who can’t find even one client is often more about their motivation and persistence than sheer ability.

Many established virtual assistants find most of their clients through word of mouth. That isn’t realistic in the beginning, but you can still set yourself up for it by making networking one of your priorities.

To form contacts in the industry, you can:

• Join Facebook groups like the Virtual Assistant Career Network
• Check out online discussion forums like Reddit (especially the subreddit r/VirtualAssistant)
• Attend networking events held by your local chamber of commerce

You may meet other VAs who can give you tips on finding work (or even refer clients that they’re too busy to handle). You also might run into people who are interested in hiring you directly.

Barnes emphasized the importance of networking to us, and pointed out that you may run into potential clients in unexpected places, such as hobby- or even faith-based groups (e.g., church clubs). However, she also stressed that this strategy won’t necessarily pay dividends immediately, which means that you have to take care to strike the right balance between networking and doing your actual work.

“Networking is definitely a long-game investment,” she said.

So far, we’ve mainly talked about finding clients as an independent VA, but there are companies that exist specifically to connect virtual assistants with clients. These are referred to as “agencies,” and they include:

• BELAY
• Boldly
• Wing
• Fancy Hands

If you’re familiar with recruiters or temping agencies, you already have a fairly good idea of the role these VA businesses play in their industry. They handle the legwork of acquiring clients, leaving you to focus solely on doing your actual job.

Pros and cons of landing clients through a VA agency

The catch with agencies (and, of course, there is a catch) is that, like freelance marketplaces, almost all of them will take a commission out of what you earn. This means that agency VAs generally have lower earning potentials than independent workers.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you shouldn’t work for an agency. Barnes told us that doesn’t like using them because she isn’t a fan of “sharing her income,” but that for people who are not interested in the slow and laborious process of networking and marketing themselves, “the agency model can be a wonderful option.”

Bear in mind that working as an agency VA or independent freelancer isn’t an either-or choice. It’s perfectly viable to get your first few jobs and build out your portfolio with agency work, then transition to independent freelancing (just the way many Upwork freelancers eventually try to take their clients off-platform).

Even after you go solo, it can still be worth maintaining a good relationship with your former agency. As Barnes told us, “Rounding out your income [with more than one source] is a very reasonable consideration, since VA workloads and earnings can ebb and flow.”

Put another way, these methods aren’t mutually exclusive. It’s a valid approach to land clients through some combination of direct outreach, agency referrals, and freelancing sites.

Acquiring clients as a virtual assistant isn’t your only consideration, or even the most important one. It’s even more crucial to keep them happy once they do give you a chance. To do this, always:

• Deliver your best work (and never phone it in)
• Stick to your deadlines, and turn in your work early when you can
• Communicate with your clients by asking questions when needed and being responsive to their messages

“People hire VAs they trust,” Barnes told us bluntly. Your reputation is everything as a freelance VA, and protecting it means doing everything you can to deliver a good experience for your clients.

Special considerations for keeping your clients happy

It probably goes without saying that you should keep your clients happy by doing good work. Less obviously, protecting your reputation also means:

• Knowing your limits: It’s important not to inadvertently accept too much work, which, although it sounds like a great problem to have, may lead to your standards slipping and to you making sloppy mistakes.

• Vetting your clients: You should evaluate your potential clients, just as they’re evaluating you. Prophylactically reject any with red flags, such as negative reviews from past workers suggesting that they make unreasonable demands or may otherwise do anything to sabotage your VA career instead of boosting it.

Landing and keeping clients isn’t just about being a competent virtual assistant. It helps to be a bit strategic about how you manage your side hustle, too.

How to ask for testimonials from satisfied clients

Once you have a bit of experience under your belt, you should ask your clients for testimonials, which you can place on your website and LinkedIn profile.

There’s no one right time to ask a client for a testimonial, but in general, you shouldn’t wait too long to do so. It’s reasonable to float the idea after completing one to two months of solid work, assuming you have an ongoing relationship with that client. (If it’s a one-off gig, ask after the job is done, before you part ways.)

If you can, make your request right after you complete a job you’re especially proud of. If your client is genuinely thrilled with your work when they write your testimonial, it will come through in their writing and make it more convincing.