She Gets Paid £35/Hour For Simple Tasks

How does Louise Richman make money online?

Louise Richman is a virtual assistant and founder of Indigo Eleven, a virtual PA business based in the UK. She works with a sales director of a CRM business and a property owner.

I support the managing agents and oversee the properties by co-ordinating maintenance, finances, insurance, contract renewals, and by providing PA support to the director and landlord. ¹

According to her website, Louise offers the following VA services:

• Personal Assistant Support
• Email & Diary Management
• CRM & Database Management
• Internet Research Projects
• Data Entry & Document Formatting
• ​Advice & Support

Sara and Dawn, the other members of the Indigo Eleven team, provide clients with specialist services such as marketing, graphic and web design projects. ²

We take care  of the smaller, time consuming but important details that might get missed or forgotten. For example, sending out ‘thank you’ cards, arranging prospect meetings and follow-ups, or collecting business testimonials at the end of completed projects. ³

How much money does Louise make?

Louise has structured her VA services as packages. She offers four types of monthly packages that her clients can choose from: ⁴

• Taster Package
  Delegating one or two tasks so the client can see how outsourcing works. Up to 5 hours per month. Package price £150.
• 10 Hours
  Monthly dedicated support for time consuming tasks by a designated VA. Up to 10 hours per month. Package price: £300.
• 20 Hours
  Monthly dedicated support by a designated VA with a 30 min. catch-up call. Up to 20 hours per month. Package price: £600.
• Bespoke
  Admin, database & CRM management; Graphic design & email marketing service; social media management; Blogs, content creation & website maintenance. Unlimited hours. Package price: POA (Price on Application).

​Louise also offers VA services at an hourly rate of £35 per hour. ⁵

We’re able to charge a high hourly rate for our work because we can work independently, without clients having to micromanage us. 

How did Louise Richman get started?

According to this August 2021 interview, Louise was working as a project officer on a government-funded project but was made redundant before the project ended. At the time, she met her cousin who was self-employed as a freelance graphic designer. He asked Louise if she thought of becoming a virtual assistant.

I started on a part-time basis in 2011, working with a local virtual assistant around my full-time employment as a personal assistant. 

Louise did that for the next two years, along with doing research and building a website. She was planning to start working for herself full-time in the spring of 2013.

Even though she didn’t have any formal qualifications to be a virtual assistant she had a wealth of administrative experience. Her proactive attitude and self-development activities also helped.

I like to keep myself up to date with new technologies and other relevant training sessions in various areas of business. I spend a lot of time reading and watching Youtube videos to develop new skills.

How does Louise find clients?

In the early days, Louise didn’t have a lot of money for setting up the business. Her strategy was visiting free local networking events and business meetups. She admits that they were great for networking and meeting people, but not ideal for finding clients. ⁶

It generally takes 1-2 years to become established and begin getting more word-of-mouth referrals, which has driven our growth since then.

Louise has been working with long-term clients for some time. Even though she’s not relying on bringing new business anymore, she does continue to network. 

I have made some good contacts via LinkedIn and by being a virtual tenant at a workspace building. This has allowed me to meet people, and network, through the co-working space and events.

What does Louise Richman’s typical day look like?

As Louise stated in her August 2021 interview, she works for two or three clients each day. Her schedule is structured around the client’s daily, weekly and monthly project activities. 

Her typical day starts with checking emails and updating her task list. Usually, she’ll work on filing and updating CRM tasks from the previous day. Then she’ll move on to work for the property company. 

Since starting the business, Louise moved away from doing ad-hoc, pay-as-you-go tasks. Now she’s working with clients on an ongoing monthly basis. That means she has a more focused set of tasks to work through each day. 

I keep Monday to Thursday focused on client work and have Friday set as a day for my own business and meetings. Generally, I’m pretty good at keeping work between 9 a.m. and 5.30 p.m. and maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

One thing Louise emphasizes is setting out clients’ expectations from the start. She warns that if you reply to emails immediately and at all hours, clients will come to expect this as the norm.

There’s a great saying “Your lack of planning does not constitute my emergency”. Clients shouldn’t expect any business owner to be ready to jump on to any request straight away. 

What tools / resources does Louise use?

• Capsule CRM
  Customer relationship management (CRM) software-as-a-service web application.

I do think if you run a small business, you need a CRM – I use a free cloud based system called Capsule CRM to store contact information, set reminders, track business prospects and manage new clients on-boarding. And it helps to keep everything in one place. ⁷

• Wave Accounting
  Financial software for bookkeeping, accounting and invoicing in one place.
• Dropbox
  File hosting service that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, personal cloud, and client software.
• LastPass
  Password manager that stores encrypted passwords online.
• Trello
  Visual tool for project management and team collaboration.
• MailChimp
  Marketing automation platform and email marketing service.
• Related: Best Virtual Assistant Courses