In January, I set out to start a successful Virtual Assistant business that is both enjoyable and inspirational. My goal is to bring all the hope, encouragement, and leadership from my experiences as an educator into my career as a Virtual Assistant. So off I went to turn my passion into a profession, excited to be on my way.

With four and a half years under my belt as a ghostwriter, I was ready to start my journey as a business owner. My confidence was high, but I was absolutely clueless about how to run a business or how to position myself as a Virtual Assistant. I knew I needed help to get off the ground.

When it came to becoming a Virtual Assistant, there was one obvious friend to turn to for advice: Michelle Mangen. Why Michelle? She’s written great a blog post or two, with great tips to help Virtual Assistants start and grow their business.

Michelle has inspired me to turn my passion into a career, and I appreciate her guiding me through the beginning stages of starting a business. Within three years of quitting her brick and mortar job to become a Virtual Assistant, Michelle’s company Your Virtual Assistant was grossing over $100,000. More than that though, Michelle is a smart savvy business owner, a wonderful person, and an insightful leader.

Michelle’s Trifecta of Tips

1. Embrace Twitter - participate in conversations regularly.
2. Buy your domain from bluehost.com to host your WordPress website.
3. Read Become a Virtual Assistant from virtualassistantforums.com.

1. Flitter on Twitter

I have always avoided Twitter, but I knew Michelle was the 'Twitter Queen'. She was always going to meet-ups with her tweeps. Well, low and behold, Michelle and a few associates wrote a book about embracing Twitter for your business. Leveraging Your Business Through Twitter is a great ebook to read. Some of the info is outdated, but it is still full of great tips for someone who’s never used or is new to Twitter. It was enough to get me interested; I wanted to learn where to find the other half of the one-sided conversations.

A few minutes after tweeting a recent blog post, someone on twitter favorited and retweeted it. Instant visibility! I keep hearing how people will blog forever before being picked up by readers. The leveraging power behind Twitter sure speeds up visibility. And it makes me so darn happy to know I'm not just writing for myself. I like to think I’m actually helping others by giving them hope, encouragement, and leadership.

Michelle Mangen even made a product: 239 Tweets to Help Market Your VA Business. It's a list of tweets for Virtual Assistants with hashtags! What more can you ask for than a fully optimized list to make beginner Virtual Assistant tweeting easier?

2. WordPressive

Who knew that something so complicated could be so easy to accomplish with the right handful of tools! I don’t understand code, and html is still a foreign language to me. It turned out to be a lot simpler than I imagined, with the help of Bluehost.com video tutorials.

2 days + 5 how-to videos = 1 WordPress website. BAM!

I was absolutely thrilled with what I was able to create in such a short amount of time. Thanks to Bluehost.com, I built a basic website in a weekend. I thought I’d have to pay big bucks for someone to design my website. Was I wrong!

3. VAF for Success

Michelle also suggested I check out virtualassistantforums.com, and to read forum founder Tess Strand's book, Become a Virtual Assistant. VAF is a group that knows what they're doing! It’s a forum filled with amazingly supportive professionals; I am proud to be a part of the VAF community.

When I went to the VAF Store for the book Michelle suggested, what did I find? A class taught by Michelle Mangen! The class came with the book Become a Virtual Assistant (Awesome!) , 35 documents and forms to get you started (Bonus!) , and 6 weeks of lessons guided by Michelle (Clincher!). After exclaiming my ABC’s, I signed up and started reading.

The virtualassistantforums.com class is *absolutely worth the investment*. It helped me build a strong foundation for business ownership. Michelle makes class fun and exciting, while still effectively imparting new skills and knowledge. She’s a great teacher with tons real-life experience, and has a talent for making concepts understandable. The time and effort dedicated was pretty extraordinary on Michelle’s part. She gave us a wide range of tools and helped us to implement them successfully.

I feel so lucky to have been a part of such great a group of amazing women (yes all 10 classmates were female). We still work to support each other, thanks to a Facebook group started during the Virtual Assistant Business Jumpstart course. Even after wrapping up the course, we continue to have a safe place to try new things and ask questions.

Do you want a chance to start your Virtual Assistant business on the path to success? Michelle is teaching another Jumpstart class starting this June.

Stay strong and keep inspiring others Michelle Mangen and Virtual Assistant Forums!

Care to comment below or contact me? Want to flitter on Twitter? Are you a Facebook fan? I'm ready and waiting for your reactions!