Teachers make great virtual assistants because of the skills they possess from running a classroom, and virtual assisting is a perfect side hustle for teachers because it provides flexibility and opportunities teachers need.
I’m going to get real with you.
Teaching doesn’t provide much growth potential. We don’t get raises or any kind of monetary incentives. I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had an admin walk into my room and offer to take me to lunch because I really *sold* that Pride and Prejudice lesson today.
Think about it. Almost every other job allows a person to be in charge of their own potential, whether it is by working toward raises, hitting goals to get bonuses, or even moving up the corporate ladder into management positions. Teacher’s don’t have those kinds of ‘growth’ to aspire to, and that makes it a hard profession to stay motivated in.
But teachers do it anyway.
Why?
Because there is something highly rewarding about influencing so many kids. Knowing you’re changing lives daily, and you have the ability to impact not just this generation but many generations to come.
It is a rewarding + challenging career, but sometimes you need a break.
But….then we feel guilty for wanting to pursue anything outside of teaching because we feel like giving pieces of ourselves to other jobs and interests means we aren’t giving our all to our students.
I’m here to tell you…THAT is just straight-up bologna.
In a recent post, I talked about 5 reasons a teacher needs a side hustle that have nothing to do with money. If you haven’t read it yet, check it out. I also wrote about my own reasons for starting a side hustle in this post. Being in charge of my own potential is on that list along with 11 other personal gems that may inspire you.
If you think that doing something other than teaching (even just in your free time) is like stabbing your career in the back, I have to say I get that.
I felt guilty
I felt guilty when I started making money outside of the school system. Which is ridiculous. R-I-D-I-C-U-L-O-U-S! I was willing to be paid less than minimum wage to coach the extracurricular programs I was a part of, but I felt guilty for making good money doing work for someone else on my own time, own computer, and using my own internet…that is just silly.
Why should I feel guilty about…
- providing for my family?
- paying for vacations in cash instead of on credit cards?
- paying off the student debt I had from when I became a teacher 10 years earlier?
- signing my kids up for gymnastics and soccer club?
- buying my teacher clothes from a mall instead of a consignment store?
It turns out that the more time I spent side hustling the less guilty I felt about it, and it added to who I was as a teacher rather than taking away from my teaching.
How my side hustle made me a better teacher.
When I decided to take on a side hustle, I actually found that I became a better teacher because my perspective changed.
I was learning new tools that I utilized in the classroom; I was more aware of how the skills I was teaching in the classroom could help students in the *real world;* and when I was able to alleviate some of the financial stress on my family, I was able to stress less and be more present with my students.
Now, I know what you may be thinking because I was thinking it too…
- When am I going to have time for a side hustle?
- What am I qualified to do other than teach?
Both great questions. The answers are the reason that I suggest that all teachers who are wanting to supplement their income should strongly consider virtual assisting and/or online freelancing.
Why is being a virtual assistant the best side hustle option for teachers?
Perk #1: Work anywhere at anytime
Online contractors and virtual assistants work on their own time. As a freelancer, you can dictate when you want to work and how much you want to work. This means that I can work early in the morning before I get my kids out of bed for school, or in that extra hour after school before I pick up my kids from daycare. I can do all my hours on Saturday, or I can finish all my hours for the week on Monday.
This is not true for many other typical side jobs.
While student teaching, I waitressed. I worked long hours that lasted late into the evening. My pay depended on how busy we were and the hours and money were irregular. The money was not consistent, and the time away from my home would not be appropriate for a parent with young children.
Another option is tutoring. But again, you work when your students are available. This is sometimes after their other activities and could be inconsistent based on different athletic seasons.
Some MLMs I considered didn’t have these time requirements, but forced me to always be marketing, and I didn’t want to always be on my phone or in my email or doing meet-ups or pitches in the evenings or on weekends.
I didn’t like these options. I am a mom with 3 young kids; my husband travels for work a couple times a month; and when I started virtual assisting, I was leading some extracurriculars through my school that I enjoyed.
Long story short…working around someone else’s schedule is not desirable at all at this point in my life.
Virtual assisting is completely different because my contracts only require me to get certain tasks by a specific date. The day-to-day schedule was completely up to me. Some of my contracts only needed monthly work. So if I finished the contract on the first day of the month, I was good-to-go for the next 28-31 days.
If you want a closer look into my contracts in those early days, sign up for the pdf download to the right.
Perk #2: You can work for lots of people around the world
For some reason, when we imagine the people we will be assisting online we think about major corporations. But here’s the thing…many online businesses looking for virtual assistants are not huge companies.
If you sign up for the pdf download on the right, you get to see the details of five of my virtual assisting contracts: What I did, how long it took me, what I was paid, etc. Also, in four out of those five contracts, I was their first VA ever.
We automatically assume that everyone is more qualified or knowledgeable than us. In reality, the online business world is full of people who are just as new to hiring you as you are to working in this business. You just have to find one or a couple of businesses and people you enjoy and do your best for them. You can learn together.
Another interesting fact about the contracts outlined in my pdf is the fact that only two of them even lived in my time zone.
I live in a small town in the midwest. If I didn’t turn to online work for income, my options would be incredibly small. The online world opens up opportunities not just across the US, but all over the world. It also opens up different expectations for pay.
In my small town, a job paying $20 an hour would be considered a really good job, but in big cities like NYC or Chicago, the cost of living is much higher. Although someone in town may think I’m crazy for asking $30+ per hour, someone from one of these other locations think I’m undervaluing my services and are willing to go higher.
Perk #3: Get paid immediately
As soon as I have a contract in hand for a new service, I send the invoice. It is paid before I begin any work for the client.
Unlike many other side hustles that may pay you at the end of the month or may be dependent on affiliates, commissions, or sales, as a VA, you can get paid within days of signing a contract.
Sometimes you can even take on one-off contracts for a little extra money. This is extremely popular in the TeacherspayTeachers market because teacher-sellers frequently need a single quick project completed as they work on new content.
What this means for you, is that as a virtual assistant you can ebb and flow with your life and needs. If your child has a special camp that you are going to need to pay for, you can take on a couple single-time projects to cover that extra expense, or if you want to pay for ticket upgrades for an upcoming vacation, you can take on a little extra work for a couple of months.
When I began as a virtual assistant, I literally put all the money I made back into courses, so I could increase my skillset. Once my skillset was established, I started offering those new, higher-paying services, and then I found a couple of people I love working with, and I developed a very consistent, fun batch of retainer clients who value me and my work.
I have not actively marketed my VA services for over 8 months, but I’ve continued to gain clients and have people reach out to me.
I’m just a teacher. I don’t have the skills to do anything else.
Bull…I’m just going to lay it out there…that mindset is total bull honkey. First things first, if you are thinking like this, I want you to read this blog post from former teacher turned VA. She discusses the 3 lies she had to stop telling herself when she decided to pursue her VA business.
Next. I want you focus on this next section very carefully because I’m going to be super blunt.
Teachers have applicable, EMPLOYABLE skills coming out of the wazoo.
Think about it. Who…
- checks and responds to your emails?
- creates the pdfs and assignments you hand out to students?.
- calls parents and sets up meetings with other stakeholders?
- participates in brainstorming sessions and comes up with new ideas while also differentiating for individual students?
- discusses best ROI (return on investment) with other teachers regarding best practices?
- edits students’ work and gives feedback?
- talks students into doing work for free?
- makes really boring stuff interesting?
- learns and implements new technology and programs yearly (if not monthly)?
- is a lifelong learner who has taken courses to learn new skills?
- has dealt with last-minute changes, pivoted to online learning, and sought out resources to make your life easier?
- utilizes data to make decisions?
- is a self-starter who looks for ways to improve efficiency and save time?
You do EVERYTHING for yourself to keep your classroom running. *PLUS* if you work at the middle school level (shout out to the middle school teachers out there), you do it while also dealing with the emotional wrecks and voice cracks that go along with spending too much time with pre-pubescent teens.
You have so many skills and being a virtual assistant just asks you to use them outside your classroom.
But how do those skills translate to being a virtual assistant?
I’ve got three blog posts you should read to get a pretty thorough look into this question.
- What kind of tasks do virtual assistants do?
- Virtual Assistant Skills: 11 skills teachers have that VA’s need (This is another guest post written by a teacher who is now a virtual assistant)
- VA Skills: How can a virtual assistant specialize? (Not all of the skills listed in this post are going to be things you already know how to do, but I provide some course suggestions and general information that may be helpful.)
And when you’re done with those posts, you need to back track and check out the other posts in this series that answers the question: What is a Virtual Assistant and why is it a great side hustle for teachers?
#1: What is a VA and who is hiring one?
#2: What tasks are virtual assistants often hired for?
#4: Why do teachers make great virtual assistants? (This is the post you’re on now)
