[0:00] I'm sure you've seen posts on Instagram of people living the quote laptop lifestyle and making it look super glamorous, like maybe they're in a cute cafe with their laptop, looks like they're in Italy or on the beach somewhere. [0:15] And you probably thought that seems way too good to be true. And or I definitely don't have the skills for that. Because to be able to make money online, you probably either need to have some advanced coding skills, create an app, or you need to be very charismatic or very attractive so you can be an influencer or something like that. But I'm here to tell you that there are actually so many different jobs you can do online. And a lot of them, while they might not be very exciting or like seem as sexy as being a social media influencer, or as maybe cool as being a coder, they can make you really good money. And today, I want to tell you about an especially interesting one that a lot of millennials have been picking up lately and using to make thousands of dollars a month. In fact, there are a lot of people out there who are making $10,000 a month or more with this side hustle and turning into their full-time job. [1:16] [intro bumper] We became entrepreneurs because more than anything, we want freedom. We want to be in control of our own schedule, income, and life. But unfortunately, that isn't always the reality of being a business owner. I'm Gillian Perkins, and I'm on a mission to take back entrepreneurship for what it's supposed to be. In every episode, I'll share with you how to get the most out of every hour you work so that you can work less and earn more. Let's get to it. [/intro bumper] [1:46] So the reason that millennials are really the perfect fit for this particular side hustle is because we are the generation who grew up learning how to use the electronics and teaching our parents. Like, raise your hand if you figured out how to set up the VCR and maybe you read the instructions or maybe you didn't even need to read the instructions. And for quite a while, you were the only person, maybe forever even, you were the only person who knew how the cables connected to the back of the TV. And if something broke, you had to fix it. [2:16] Because that was totally me. And I think that's the case for a lot of millennials. So what this side hustle is that, like I said, can be your full time job, even if you want it to be, is to be what's called a tech VA. [2:28] Now, before you click off the video, because you think I'm not very techie, I don't have any advanced skills, I don't know how to code. Well, that's the whole point of this video. Actually, You don't need any advanced skills to be what's called a tech VA, but you do need to specialize a little. Now, I'm sure you've heard the idea and understand the concept of how a general practitioner doctor tends to earn way less than a doctor who has a specific specialty. That's an example that's commonly given, but the same goes in pretty much any industry. If you are a jack of all trades or just do general work, then you will earn much lower rates than somebody who chooses to specialize, even though it's not necessarily any harder to specialize. In fact, it can be a lot easier because you don't have to learn all the different skills. You just have to learn one set of skills. So let's talk about what a tech VA is and what they do and how you could potentially become one. So tech VA basically means [3:21] tech virtual assistant. Maybe you've heard of virtual assistants before. A lot of people get into the virtual assistant game in a very general sort of way. Maybe they're either creating content or doing customer service. [3:33] Now, both of those things are great little side hustles, but they do tend to pay quite a bit lower. Normally, only around $25 per hour. And the content creation VAs are rapidly being replaced by AI. Tech VAs, on the other hand, because they're doing something a bit more specialized and something that so far we can't just click a few buttons and have AI do for us, earn quite a bit more. I'm talking $50 to $75 per hour, though a lot of tech VAs don't charge per hour. They charge a set rate per month per client. And those rates range anywhere between $300 up to about $2,000. [4:11] With I would say the $500 to $1,000 range being the most common. And what that means is that with just three clients or so, you could be earning a couple thousand dollars a month. And if you want to turn it into your full time thing, you could definitely easily do so with just five to 10 clients per month. Now, aside from earning more by specializing, there's another huge upside, [4:34] which is that there is a lot less competition. And there's less competition for two reasons. One is because most people don't choose to specialize. Most people just aren't that intentional or strategic about advancing their careers. And so they just stick to what's easy or kind of the default, which is to stay general. So immediately just by specializing, you're going to face less competition. But also because within any specific specialty, obviously there's going to be a lot fewer people who chose that specific specialty. And that's what tech VAs tend to do. They don't just specialize by being a tech VA, but they specialize even further than that by choosing just a few different pieces of software that they specialize in. So for example, you might choose to learn a few different email marketing platforms inside and out. Or. [5:25] Choose Squarespace or WordPress. Again, you definitely don't need to know how to code. And these skills are not hard to learn, especially in this AI day and age that we live in, where you can ask ChadGPT to teach you how to use pretty much any software, but you don't even exactly have to do that. What I like to do when I'm learning a new software is first, I just watch the tutorials from that software about the basics of how to use it. And then of course, I kind of know the basic ropes. [5:54] And from there, I just get in and start using it. And whenever I run into a challenge, that's when I go to ChatGPT because ChatGPT tends to know more than the support teams for most software. So I can describe to it exactly what I want to do and ChatGPT can tell me how to do it or exactly the problem that I'm running into. And I've used this to literally learn how to code, but also learn how to do so many different things in so many different pieces of software. Now, you might be wondering what kind of the job prospects are for a tech VA or who's hiring tech VAs. How in demand is this role really? And the answer is high. With more and more businesses going online every single day, really, these businesses need tech support. They might need maintenance for their website. They certainly need help setting up new web pages. [6:45] Businesses that are fully online need help with their sales funnels. So they need help with things that are like email marketing and setting up sales pages and landing pages, setting up automations and integrations. And you can choose to either be a more kind of jack of all trades tech VA and help businesses with a whole bunch of these different things. And again, thanks to AI, that's actually possible these days. Or you can choose to specialize in just a couple of different specific software. And if you do that, you will find that it's a little bit harder to find clients. But when you do find them, they will be willing to pay an even higher hourly [7:21] rate because they also have trouble finding tech VAs who specialize in those specific softwares. Now, I'm not a tech VA myself, so you might wonder how I happen to know so much about this particular job. [7:33] The answer is that I run four different brands online and I work with several tech VAs who help us a whole lot with saving time and running those businesses. So they do exactly the sorts of things for me that I was just mentioning. They set up automations for us. And those can be both like sales funnel automations, but also automations with software like Make or N8N. They also create web pages for us and they do website maintenance and all sorts of things like that. And I tend to pay them anywhere between $50 and $100 an hour, again, depending on how specialized they are. And that's just with my four little online businesses. And there are so many businesses out there, and many of them are so much bigger than mine. Now, if you're wondering what you need to do to get started as a tech VA. [8:19] Well, first of all, the things you need are basically just a laptop and an internet connection. Assuming that you have those things, and you will need those things, your smartphone isn't going to cut it for this work. So you need actually a desktop computer or a laptop and then an internet connection and access to some sort of AI tool, probably chat GPT, because you will be constantly learning. Now, like I said, this is kind of a boring side hustle, but that's part of the beauty of it. Generally, more, quote, boring work is work where there is less competition because it's work that fewer people want to do. But if you like learning, you like researching, and you'd like, tech systems like this, if you're kind of nerdy, even if you're not techie per se, or you don't know how to use any of these systems yourself yet. [9:04] This could be a great opportunity for you. Now to get started as a tech VA, you are technically starting your own business, which I think is pretty cool, but can be a little bit scary if you've never done it before. So if you're feeling that way at all, or if you're just not sure how to go about starting your own business, then I want to share a free resource with you. It's a free online course that I created just for people who are wanting to start their own online businesses. It's called Small Business 101. It's an eight lesson video course that, like I said, is totally free. And it will walk you through all the steps of everything from deciding what business to start. You might have that covered in this case, but on through creating a business plan and then creating a website for your business, finding your first customers, and even things like the legal side of how do you legally start a business. And don't worry, it's a lot easier than you probably would assume. And also things like the basics of business bookkeeping, because as you start working with these clients, money is going to start coming into your business. And it's really important that you keep it organized. So check the description below to sign up for Small Business 101. [10:10] Again, it's totally free. And I know it'll really help you out as you are starting on this new journey, this new venture with whatever side hustle you do choose [10:19] to pursue. All right, well, that brings us to the end of this video. If you found it interesting and or helpful, please give it a like to let me know so I can know that I should make more videos on topics like these. And if you want to make sure you don't miss those upcoming videos, then make sure you're subscribed to my channel. I make new videos every single month all about online business and digital marketing and freelance opportunities like this one. And I would love to have you join me for the next one. Now, if you're looking for something else to watch right now, then check out the video I made a few months ago about how I've earned $2.6 million as a work-at-home mom with five kids with my online businesses. I think you'll find it really interesting and also helpful because there's some valuable lessons in there. [11:02] [outro bumper] Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Work Less, Earn More. Now, here's what I want you to do next. Take a screenshot of this episode you're listening to right now and share it out on your Instagram stories. And when you do, make sure you tag me at gillianzperkins so I can see you're listening. Sharing on stories is going to help more people find this podcast so they too can learn how to build their business in a way that allows them to work less and earn more and if you really love the show head over to apple podcasts right now and leave work less earn more a review to give it a boost and help even more people find it okay let's wrap this up i'm gillian perkins and until next week stay focused and take action. [/outro bumper]