The profession of a personal assistant to the head: what is interesting and promising for this work?

Hello dear readers. Vasily Blinov is in touch.

Today I want to start talking about the Internet profession of a personal assistant and tell you more about this opportunity to work remotely. From this article, you will find out what kind of profession it is, whether it is worth starting to master it, and also determine whether it suits you or is it better to do it.

All the material I collected about working as an assistant manager did not fit into one article, so I divided it into 4 parts:

1. What is an assistant manager and what does he do? (Are you here).

There are a lot of disputes on the Internet and not entirely clear information about the salary and the number of hours of work of a personal assistant, so I took this issue into a separate consideration, where we will logically reason about what and how much entrepreneurs are willing to pay.

If you have read the book up to this point, 7 professions for quick money on the Internet”and watched the video from the link from it, then you should already be more or less clear what the essence of the profession of a personal assistant to an entrepreneur is.

Friends, if you have any questions after reading the article, you can ask me personally on social networks or write in the comments below so that other people can also get an answer to these questions.

Who is a personal business assistant?

I propose to recall the film "The Intern" in 2015 with Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway.

I'm not entirely familiar with this whole American system, but the gist of the film is that the young founder of an online fashion store had to take on an internship as a personal assistant to a 70-year-old retiree.

In my opinion, this film just does very well reveals the work of an assistant to an entrepreneur.

Personal assistant is a friend, business partner, colleague, whose task is to take on part of the work and save the manager’s time for more important matters and personal life.

A slight difference in the film is that the intern did not know modern technology at all, and his work took place in the office.

On the other hand, this is a great example for beginners with no experience, you can also get a job as a personal assistant and learn everything yourself in the process.

I know that many people now have doubts, but who will hire a newcomer who can’t do anything? Yes, many people! I took a personal assistant to me, whom I train from scratch.

Why did I hire an assistant with no experience?

• Firstly, I have many simple tasks that take a lot of time, and anyone can handle them.
• Secondly, sometimes it's easier to teach a person than to retrain as I need.
• Thirdly, while a person is studying, you can pay him a small amount.

In the next article, I will tell you in more detail what my personal assistant does, how much he earned at first, and how his salary has grown.

Who needs a remote personal assistant?

There are many areas of business on the Internet, which are mainly conducted remotely - these are various services, online stores, content sites, blogs, training centers, design agencies, etc. In each such business, there are people who manage or do everything themselves.

Let's look at a few examples of who you can get a personal assistant.

1. infobusinessmen are entrepreneurs who teach something through paid courses, online trainings, webinars, etc.
2. Owners of Internet services and shops. For example, I will take such a popular service for the sale, rent and purchase of various goods and services as Avito. Of course, this is too global an example; instead of personal assistants, there are leadership positions that are responsible for each of their areas. But if you take small services, of which there are already millions on the Internet, how many leaders are there who need assistants?
3. Bloggers, content creators is my personal example. To run a normal profitable project, blog, video blog, do you know how much you need to know and do? Even to run a simple video blog on YouTube, you need to be able to edit videos, engage in optimization, advertising, promotion on social networks, etc. At the initial stage, a personal assistant may not be required, but when the project grows, then you can’t do without it.
4. Professional freelancers and remote employees. When the customer base grows and you do not have time to fulfill orders, sooner or later you will also need a personal assistant. There may already be some specialized personal assistant, for example, a designer, programmer or advertising specialist.
5. Offline Entrepreneurs, whose business is located in some city, and advertising activities are carried out on the Internet. For example, social media accounts, advertising campaigns, websites, blogs, etc. He can also hire a personal assistant who will develop all this.

Even the personal assistants of some large Internet entrepreneurs can have a personal assistant.

Responsibilities and functions

I can divide the duties of an executive assistant into 3 categories:

1. Secretary - work with documentation, reports, mail, communication with clients, etc.
2. Project Manager - work with remote employees and freelancers.
3. Specialist - knowledge and experience in the business in which his employer is engaged.

All of them are interconnected, and as I said earlier, there are no specific job responsibilities that can be written out. Each entrepreneur has a number of tasks that he can hang on an assistant.

Key skills of an executive assistant

In fact, a personal assistant must have all the standard skills that any remote employee (freelancer) has, these are:

• Work with information and office programs.
• Competent Russian.
• Time management (managing your time and the time of the employer).
• Work in social networks.
• Administration of sites on popular platforms (WordPress, etc.).
• Copywriting and sales skills.
• Search and interaction with freelancers.

Also, a remote personal assistant may need knowledge and understanding, at least the basics, of additional Internet business tools:

• Formation and configuration of newsletters.
• Ability to edit simple videos.
• Editing photos, pictures, creating banners.
• Ability to make landings.
• Work in webinar rooms.
• Work with traffic and advertising services.
• Website analytics.

If you do not have some skills, then it's okay, learning them will not be difficult.

Is it necessary to have an education?

Getting a job as a personal assistant to an entrepreneur or manager in your city in some large organization, you would probably be asked about education and asked to provide documents.

On the Internet, things are a little different.

For a modern Internet entrepreneur, it doesn’t matter how many courses you have taken, how many years you have studied in educational institutions, what matters here is the experience and the result of your work. The more unique your real skills, the more valuable you become as an employee, and your income will depend on this.

What qualities should one have?

Looking at the profession of a personal assistant to an employer, I can list several important personal qualities that a person applying for this position should have.

In the film "The Intern", which was discussed earlier, I really liked how the attitude of a person to work is shown. Human qualities always follow from the attitude to one's work and it is easy to determine them in a few weeks of joint work.

1. Interest in what the entrepreneur for whom you are getting a job as a personal assistant does.
2. Structured.
3. Self-discipline is one of the most important qualities when working remotely, when you have a free schedule.
4. Purposefulness.
5. Flexibility is the ability to change.
6. Sociability.
7. A responsibility.

Who is more likely to be hired for this job?

Again, based on the observations of my environment, among entrepreneurs who have their own team and personal assistants, in 90% of cases I see girls and women in these positions.

1. Moms on maternity leave.
2. Office workers.
3. Freelancers.

The exclusive factor here is that the male half fumbles more in technical matters and they are more taken as assistants, as specialists in some technical field.

In general, I would recommend to anyone who is just starting to work remotely and study some kind of Internet profession to get a job as a personal assistant to an entrepreneur or a professional freelancer working in this profession. Working with a person who already understands everything will give you the fastest possible result in mastering the necessary knowledge and skills.

Pros and cons of the profession

Summing up this part about the profession of a personal assistant to the head, I would like to consider what advantages and disadvantages it has. I'll start with the benefits:

1. Continuous development. Working directly with an entrepreneur and adopting his knowledge and experience is, in my opinion, the fattest plus of this profession.

2. Freedom of movement. By working remotely, you will have more time, you will not need to spend time on the road to the office, etc. You will be able to work while traveling, in different places of the world.

3. Comfortable and flexible work schedule. You yourself plan the working day in accordance with your desires and needs.

4. Good salary or extra income. Depends on employment and complexity of tasks.

Among the shortcomings, I can single out the fact that working as a personal assistant remotely, especially when full-time and multitasking, requires you to be constantly in touch with the employer, sometimes adjusting to his work schedule.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I will say that the demand for and prospects for the profession are quite high. When hiring an assistant, an entrepreneur buys, first of all, his personal time - our only limited resource. And he understands that without delegating a part of some tasks, his result will grow much more slowly. Therefore, in the remote work market, this profession is becoming more and more popular.

That's all I have today.

See you in the next articles about this interesting profession!

P.S. If you are thinking of working as a personal assistant to the manager, then write your opinion about this article in the comments, with what you agree and with what you do not.