The Truth About Virtual Assistant SCAMS & How To Avoid Them.

Back in the day.... 2005 to be exact, when I first decided I was going to start a business and become a virtual assistant, the internet was in its infancy....

We have no social media at all, with very few forums to network on and I winged it... My first client came from a business directory I had posted Virtual Miss Friday on for online personal assistant services.

Now, many years later, and having coached thousands of VA's... (yes, thousands have signed up for my training, so cool). I have a LinkedIn and Facebook group of my own with literally tens of thousands of members and growing by hundreds every single day.

This was unheard of before; growth never occurred this fast.

BUT...

The sadness I feel, that people are joining and posting what is known as "Virtual Assistant Scams" where VA's are being taken advantage of is super-disheartening. Even though we moderate out most of the spammers, some invariably get through.

I get messages like this from Virtual Assistants in my groups way too often:

And I decided it's time for me to take action, so anytime I get one of these messages, I can direct that VA to this blog post and hopefully save them from those terrible scams....

First of all... The primary goal of any virtual assistant should be to reach, connect with and then work with quality clients - BECAUSE, they see themselves as a quality VA.

✔️ So if some wild job offer sounds too good to be true, then it probably is, as quality clients don't go posting for VA's in mass posts with magpie offers (shiny objects, promises, etc...)

✔️ Quality clients will never expect you to pay ANYTHING, NOTHING, NADA to work with them.

✔️ Quality clients are looking for quality VA's (ones that they can really be sure will be able to contribute to their business and offer them value).

✔️ Stop looking for VA Jobs and start looking for Quality VA Clients, by becoming a QUALITY VA.

✔️ Stop using shady 'tactics' and templates to go out there and search for clients, or simply just responding to the mass request posts - because this in turn makes you a target for the scammers. You're better than that.

✔️ Start understanding how this situation came to be, and how to step away from that nonsense.

I share this in my free training, The Away VA:

https://www.virtualmissfriday.com/awayva

Get some decent advice and guidance from someone (any legitimate VA mentor / trainer / coach) who knows about this industry and has avoided those scams from unsavoury people. I don't mean organisations that promise to make you a VA in 8 weeks, like ALX (sorry Mastercard who sponsors this course, but you should of chosen a better organisation to make it). I literally get dozens of messages from their students all saying the exact same thing to the extent that it becomes totally annoying.... That's a terrible way to approach a client.

Start focussing on your Business, Lifestyle & Mindset and you won't ever need to reply to another scammer ever again, or use a cookie cutter template to send out or spam as many places as possible, leaving people with a very bad first impression of you.

The only way to avoid them is to value yourself more, choose a quality approach to getting business, and you won't feel the need to ever engage in any scam.

If you need me to help you value yourself, then please invest in that, or someone else who focusses not just on "VA Training" but VA Value.

The next step is here:

https://www.virtualmissfriday.com/levelup

You simply need to stop searching for jobs and rather start understanding your offer more, in the sense of how to be the best at what you offer, valuing yourself and going out there to work with the right, high quality clients (people who are looking for someone just like you). This success will then create something inside you that high quality clients will seek out - and you in turn, will then be able to easily recognise a low quality client and simply avoid them.