We’ve narrowed it down to the three best virtual assistant trainings to help set you on the path to freedom.
If you’ve been wondering how to become a virtual assistant, surely you’ve googled for advice and been bombarded with results and ads for VA training courses. While there are tons of virtual assistant training courses on the market to choose from, how can anybody know which ones will actually be beneficial to their specific VA business needs? We’ve taken a deep dive to look inside some of the most popular courses (and a few underdogs, too) to really break down what they have to offer and which VAs might benefit most from them.
The Virtual Savvy
This course offered by The Virtual Savvy was created by the wildly successful VA Abbey Ashley and teaches her well-designed Savvy System. More than 1500 VAs have taken this course to learn how to successfully run their own virtual assistant businesses.
The course itself is video-based and broken down into three sections. The entire course is self-paced, so you can easily make time to complete it even if you work full-time and have little time to dedicate each week.
The first section, titled “Launch,” focuses on setting up the foundations of your VA business. Everything from planning your service offerings (based on what you already know!) and pricing to the ins and outs of setting up your business legally, this course offers a solid foundation for transitioning from an employee to becoming self-employed.
The second section, “Grow,” will help you learn how to reach potential clients. As many of us have learned the hard way, setting up a business is one thing, but how do you attract clients? Not only that but more specifically how do you attract the right clients? This section is well crafted to help you think outside of the box and directly connect with folks who actually need your virtual assistant services. This training is invaluable.
“Scale,” the third section in the course, teaches VAs how to expand from a one-person show to an empire. Once you’ve gained some reputation and a solid client base it can be easy to outsource other VAs under the scope of your business and scale quite quickly. This section provides a basic blueprint for making that happen. While it may seem out of reach as you are just building your business, the reality is that by thoughtfully building your business this can be achieved in less time than you might think. The blueprint is here; all you need is motivation and tenacity.
In addition to the courses, your investment in VirtualSavvy includes a number of perks like monthly coaching calls and job opportunity listings. It also includes access to a VA toolbox with contract and document templates similar to those that you can find in our own Virtualcopia Business Collective Toolbox.
What we love about this course:
Abbey Ashley’s motivation in creating this course aligns well with our own. She genuinely wants to help people start successful VA businesses so that they can enjoy the freedom to set their own schedules and pick and choose tasks that they actually feel good about.
The course itself lays out an easily followable blueprint to establishing your business and quickly scaling it from a one-person show to…the sky’s the limit, all delivered with wit and relatable charm.
Savvy Vault
Savvy Vault is offered by The Virtual Savvy and Abbey Ashley. Why do we review it as a separate VA course, you may ask? Well… because it is an entirely different entity. While The Virtual Savvy teaches you The Savvy System and the ins and outs of starting and growing a VA business, the Savvy Vault is more of an academy with different classes teaching software and skill sets that are in high demand.
Whether you are starting your career as a VA and want to brush up on skills or you want to expand your service offerings in your established business, Savvy Vault offers more than 50 courses teaching everything from Mailchimp, LastPass, and Honeybook to skills necessary to be a Real Estate VA or Facebook Ads specialist.
What we love about this course:
In addition to the wide variety of courses teaching technical skills that are currently in high demand, we love the flexibility of Savvy Vault. Like some of the other course offerings we review here, Savvy Vault is membership-based. Your membership gives you access to ALL of the virtual assistant courses, allowing you to drop into a course and see if it resonates with you before you commit. You have unlimited access to the courses with your membership, which can be charged annually for $497 or monthly for $47 per month. We love the flexibility this plan offers. You can binge on courses for a month or two and learn all kinds of virtual assistant skills, or you can take your time and slowly add to your bag of tricks.
10K VA
The 10K VA course is one of the most widely recognized and lauded courses out there. Created by Kayla Sloan, it’s a rags-to-riches story that she wants to impart to other people in similar situations. She projects a can-do attitude that is positive and infectious, and her many testimonials speak to her success rate.
It’s ranked high on many reviewers’ lists and it’s easy to see why. Like The Virtual Savvy, she guides you from the ground up to VA superstar. If you just want a little bit of additional income to your current job, no problem–she can get you there. If you’re looking to make a complete career shift, the tools are all here for you to build your own VA agency. It’s truly set up for you to go as big or small as you choose.
Her course is broken into seven distinct modules, and like The Virtual Savvy, there is no timeline. You can pick it up or put it down as needed and work around your own schedule. It’s the perfect course for a busy lifestyle. 10K VA is truly a ground-up training course. The first module is literally called “What is a Virtual Assistant?”. But don’t let the simplicity of that first module fool you. The content within and all the successive modules that build on it are smart, focused, and very, very thorough.
$497 will get you all of the modules, plus a few nifty bonus features, such as a private Facebook group where you can share ideas and experiences with people just like yourself, and access to worksheets and templates for your own VA business use. Another bonus is a series of interviews with successful VAs who started from scratch and worked their way up using Kayla’s program.
While she covers marketing and how to track down leads in the modules, one of the greatest things about the 10K VA virtual assistant training is that if you upgrade to the Pro package, you get access to her network of leads. As one of the most highly-rated and prominent VA programs out there, she has the trust and credibility to generate quality leads that she passes off to her stable of students. It’s a good way to lock in some clients and gain some income while you’re getting your own virtual assistant business built up without having to become a marketing maven in the process.
What we love about this course:
We love how thorough the virtual assistant trainings are, and how you need no experience whatsoever to begin. The course guides you through the entire process from start to finish, and the finish is wherever you say it is— from a modest side hustle to a full-blown VA agency. We’re also big fans of having access to leads, as many VAs find that marketing and securing clients is one of the most difficult aspects of the business, and it’s great to have someone to do that heavy lifting for you.
The Fully Booked VA/Horkey Handbook
The Fully Booked VA’s website just about punches you in the face with its positivity. It’s a veritable stream of you-can-do-its and you-owe-it-to-yourselfs. But don’t be fooled by the lengthy homepage jam-packed with emojis and casual jargon— Gina Horkey’s virtual assistant trainings are one of the gold standards in the industry and have transformed the lives of thousands of people who needed a life change but were unable or unwilling to take that plunge.
The program revolves around the Horkey Handbook, which is really referring to the course content and certification, though it is essentially a virtual assistant training course like the others.
However, there’s one key difference in that at the end of the training she really tries to guide you towards a more specific virtual assistant niche, rather than speaking to the whole gamut of options. This can help those who are easily overwhelmed by the myriad options available to virtual assistants.
Right out of the gate, Gina answers a lot of questions someone might have about whether or not they even want to be a virtual assistant without having to give their email address, sign up, or download anything. We found this refreshing, as so many sites just tease you until you give away your email. It’s a great and informative homepage for beginners or just someone seeking more info about possibly making the move to virtual assistant.
The Fully Booked VA training is basically broken into three major steps.
Step one is really the nuts and bolts of how one becomes a virtual assistant from scratch. It’s what you would normally think of as a virtual assistant training. Everything you need to know to get up and running is there; how to match your skills to needed services, how to price those services, how to get paid, how to manage clients, and some long-term strategy for your fledgling business.
It also includes some templates to help you along, such as proposal and contract templates, and even some scripts to help you handle interviews or client objections.
Step two is the highly touted Horkey Handbook exam and certification process. Here you’ll take everything you’ve learned in step one and ingrain it through some repetition. You can’t really fail the test, and it costs you nothing to take it over and over. It’s a good barometer to see if you’ve absorbed the information in the training and are ready to take the next step. Which of course takes us to…
The third step. Think of this as career counseling. What specific area or areas do you want to work in? There are four unique paths to choose from to help you narrow down your virtual assistant field of choices:
- Social Media and Community Management
- Customer Service and Administrative Services
- Content Marketing
- Technology and Automation
Within each option, there is further in-depth training and fine-tuning to help you really focus on what virtual assistant jobs you think will work best for you. Choose one path or take them all— once you’re a member they’re all available to you for life. If you decide to try another niche, simply take another path.
While the $997 per year membership price seems steep, you get access to leads just like the 10K VA Pro package, plus the coaching and training deep dives. After the first year, it’s $497 to keep those options, though access to the course materials and certificate are still yours for life.
They also offer Jump Start: 5 Quick Steps to your VA Business, which is a mini-course designed to help you decide if being a VA is right for you and to show you how to start earning income quickly.
What we love about this course:
The positivity and can-do attitude of the site is fantastic. It does a great job of allaying fears and answering a lot of questions someone new to the field might have. Ditto the support. With access to an exclusive Facebook group and live coaching from the Fully Booked VA, you’re never far from help. We also really love the final step of the training and how it really helps you narrow down your niche and match your skills to services.
Accept no substitutions
There are literally hundreds of virtual assistant training courses out there, many free or cut-rate. However, the adage you get what you pay for really applies here. These three virtual assistant trainings are tried and true, and have changed the lives of thousands of people seeking to better themselves and their lives. If you’re thinking of making a change for the better, these three are a great way to start.
Matthew Ogden is a Minneapolis-based copywriter and content writer and editor. He’s written for national retailers and lobster roll companies alike. When not writing he can be found nose deep in a book, writing and performing music, or nerding out about guitar tone.