​30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success – Review of Gina’s VA Course

Would you like to help out small business entrepreneurs remotely? How about being in a position to save their time, make their work more enjoyable, alleviate stress, and help them take their businesses to the next level? Can you do this? Do you have administrative, social media, or content creation skills? Or any other skills that would reduce the workload for someone else? If so, you might be interested in this 30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success review of Gina Horkey's virtual assistant online course.

UPDATE: This course is now called VA Foundations (where you learn how to become an in-demand VA the best clients want to hire).

Name: 30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success
Website: http://horkeyhandbook.com/
Course Creator: Gina Horkey

Introduction to 30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success:

Though Gina Horkey had a steady job, she now works from home after building her own successful freelance writing and virtual assistant business from scratch (and in less than six months). She is all for sharing what she has learned along the way to make it easier for those who have similar dreams.

Gina’s freelancing career started with writing. Virtual assistant work followed soon as it seemed to be a natural complement. 30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success was the second course she created, which she launched in November 2015 via email. It was well received and so she transitioned version 2 of the VA course to courseware.

During that process, she completely rewrote it, doubling the content and adding videos, quizzes, and more based on what she learned from the first version. This resulted in the present online, self-paced, interactive VA course.

Each year, they go through the entire course adding in new content and streamlining existing content to teach students exactly what they need to know to take action and succeed as quickly as possible.

30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success in a Nutshell

Pros

• It is a self-paced, online course
• You can do the course anywhere and anytime
• No prior virtual assistant (VA) experience is needed
• The course teaches both VA skills and the marketing skills needed to make use of those VA skills
• It has tons of information arranged in a logical way
• The explanations of the tools used and the industry standards of the role are specific and in-depth
• Much of the course material is followed by tasks (actionable items) so that you are actually building the foundation of your VA business while doing the course
• The course provides you with a solid career that allows you to work around the needs of your family
• It allows you to start a small business and develop it as your time permits
• It gives you the option to work full-time or part-time
• As a VA, the options of services you can provide are many – they are only limited by your own limitations
• It doesn’t require much financial investment to get started
• You can start earning soon after successful completion of the course (though it obviously takes time to acquire enough clients to achieve a full-time income) – you may or may not have overnight results, but you will be given the tools and tips to help you market your services effectively
• Access to the VA Leads Community which is great for getting gigs; when you purchase the course, the first 30 days are complimentary
• 30 days of FREE Flywheel hosting are included with enrollment

Cons

• If you are the type of person who likes to read instead of watch, the videos do not have transcribed notes that go with them; however, a lot of the course is text-based so that may not be a big deal
• The course really emphasizes using Google tools, making it necessary for the few people who don't really like working online with these particular tools, to find other options.

30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success Overview

30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success is an online, self-paced course that develops both the skills and the marketing techniques needed to succeed as a virtual assistant. The goal of the course is to help students start a new VA biz from scratch using skills they already have or by learning new ones.

The core material is presented through clearly written text organized into 9 modules. There are also videos to supplement some of the concepts or take the conversation a bit deeper. Gina provides checklists and quizzes for each module, as well as a final exam, to help you monitor your progress and there are additional tutorials and resource templates.

Who is 30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success For?

This course is ideal for brand new VAs, be they stay-at-home moms or dads, retired people, travelers, physically challenged people, individuals ready for a career change, or anyone who wants to work from anywhere and be in charge of their own schedule. It is also helpful for VAs who aren't achieving the results they want.

It is for people who want a career helping small business owners virtually and are ready to work hard to get a new web-based virtual assistant business rolling within a month or two.

Attention moms and dads: This is a flexible career choice for moms and dads who want to work from home because VA work is typically done on your own schedule. You decide how many hours you are able to work, what type of work you are interested in, and whether or not you can meet the needs of a particular client.

If a client needs a quick turnaround time or frequent phone calls, they may not be a good fit for you, but that's the great thing about running your own business: you get to decide who to work with.

30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success Training & Resources

As mentioned before the core of the course is divided into 9 modules containing 90+ lessons. Incorporated into the text modules are also short videos, podcasts, and links to additional articles and tutorials. Gina uses downloadable checklists and quizzes to help you gauge how much you are absorbing. The checklists are generally actionable items that lay the foundation for launching your VA business. She also provides enhanced templates and worksheets including 8 customizable pitch templates.

The course is focused on helping someone start a VA biz from scratch, including selecting services to offer, finding/landing clients, and working effectively with them. It also covers things like invoicing, contracts, and business entities.

There is an entire module that houses Q&A interviews with various industry experts to showcase the need for VAs and what the service offerings look like.

Gina also shows how to make the best use of many free resources and puts a lot of emphasis on the basics of Google tools as they are free and easy to use.

Support at 30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success

Email support is available for students who have questions about the course material. If a student is wanting more personalized support, the VA Leads Community is a private Facebook group that course members and graduates have access to join for an additional fee.

Group members get access to client leads, biweekly office hours, monthly expert Q & A’s, dedicated tech support, and like-minded peers. Not only do they teach you how to start a VA business from scratch, but they also help you to get hired through the unique, high-quality client leads that are shared with community members.

The first 30 days are complementary, then there is the fee after that.

Educational Qualifications and Skills Needed

No particular educational qualifications are needed, but you will be better off if you are:

• Organized
• Can communicate well
• Are curious and enjoy learning new skills
• Have a positive mind frame
• Are not afraid to take charge of things
• Obviously, you need to know how to use the internet.

Additional requirements:

• Computer with internet access (preferably high-speed internet)
• Telephone or access to Google Voice and Hangouts

Price for 30 Days or Less to Virtual Assistant Success

The course is now called VA Foundations (where you learn how to become an in-demand VA the best clients want to hire).

You can join for a one time payment of $497 or choose the three time payment plan of $197 each.

This program includes access to hot leads looking for VAs with your skills (first three months free).

My Final Opinion

I found the material to be well-organized and clearly presented. Gina uses her own experiences to show what to do and what not to do, and she makes the material relatable, so you feel like you're learning from a friend, not just taking a boring class.

It's important to remember that no single course can teach you everything. Each client will use different software for instance, so there'll always be some learning on the job. The course does a great job of providing basics and pointing to different reputable resources to dive into areas in more detail.

Based on feedback from some course graduates, the best parts of the course are:

• actionable steps that cover a multitude of strategies
• so much rich instruction – you can learn it today and go to work tomorrow
• learning how to pitch for VA work and actually land gigs

If you would like more details about how this career opportunity can work for stay-at-home moms, read Gina's interview about being a VA. Or if you want a better idea of what VAs do you can check out Gina's article on becoming a virtual assistant

Verdict: It is a legitimate anywhere anytime career option.

Wondering if you've got skills worth $30 or more an hour? You can ask us here in the comments or by email.