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1. Learn how Sarah turns $36K/year with a virtual assistance
business
Being Interviewed
Sarah Banks,
Bank Business Solutions
Revenue
$3000
Founders
1
Country
UK
40
Hi, Tell us your name, what you do, and about your business. Please do
mention the monthly revenue for our readers as well.
I’m Sarah Banks, Online Business Consultant and owner of Banks’ Business Solutions. I help women in
business have more time to focus on their ‘core’ business by supporting them with their online customer
 Menu

2. service, technical systems, and administrative tasks.
Specializing in MailChimp and WordPress I provide 1-1 training and support so that my clients can utilize
these tools better for their businesses. I am passionate about simplifying technology to save my clients
time. My business currently turns over approximately £2,500 per month.
What’s your own background. Were you always proficient in this business, or
did it just strike your mind one fine day?
My business started back in 2014 when I returned to maternity leave after the birth of my second
daughter. The balance in our family wasn’t right and a chance conversation with a mum at school planted
the seed in my head that I could become a virtual assistant/online business consultant.
I had no idea what this would entail but spent time researching the industry and made the decision to
leave my employed role.
As my background is in project management and office administration I bring a lot of skills to my role as
Online Business Consultant. I started out offering a much wider range of services to my clients, however
over the last 5 years I have niched down to offer the skills that my clients most need – email marketing,
WordPress website, content marketing, GDPR, and 121 training.
What went into designing the initial product? Can you take us through the
actual process?
I don’t have products but offer a range of services to my clients. Before launching my business, I spent
time understanding the legalities of running a business:

3. Registering as self-employed with HMRC
Ensuring I had appropriate contracts to issue to my clients
Taking out business insurance
Things I didn’t do initially but would have done had I know about them are:
Registering as a data controller with the ICO
Setting up cookie and privacy policies on my website
Setting up terms of use to cover me for copyright and IP on my website
I then looked into getting a logo created by a graphic designer, purchased hosting and taught myself
WordPress to be able to build my first website for my business. I also create a Facebook page that I used
to promote my business alongside my personal Facebook profile.
My initial offering to clients as very generic and came from a list of possible tasks business owners could
outsource, I had no idea who my ideal clients were, or what they needed! However, once I started to
work with clients I had a much better idea of this
Talk us through the process of the launch of your business. What does a
typical virtual assistant cover letter look like?
I didn’t have a formal launch for my business – I started to raise awareness by sharing things on my
personal Facebook profile and connected with my first clients that way. After that, I starting to research
networking groups I could attend both on and offline so that I could build up more connections.
I would say my business had a slow launch but I was busy with clients very quickly and within 12 months
was fully booked for my services despite only really managing to do regular online networking.

4. There’s nothing like a fixed format of a virtual assistant cover letter. My clients find me both online as
well as offline. Usually it is the first interaction whcih is most useful to convert a client.
However a basic format for a cover letter would include a very short summary of who you are. This is
required to be short enough so that you can pick interest, rather than boring clients in the first
conversation itself.
After the client shows interest, you can then pitch your exact services
How is your repeat customer rate like? Can you take us through how you
attract and retain customers?
I don’t have a formal repeat customer rate! Many of my clients have been with me since my first year in
business and others come back regularly for short term projects.
90% of my clients find me via referrals or I have connected with via online networking. The easiest way I
have found to attract clients is to help them – when someone in my online networking groups needs help,
I help them – this maybe with a quick comment to answer their question or by arranging a short call.
Whilst this doesn’t immediately lead to work in all instances, many of these people come to for support
when they are in a position to pay for it as they know I am an expert in my field and will do my best to
support them.
What is the current situation? How do you see yourself in the next 12

5. months?
I am currently working with just over 20 clients – some of these are short term projects and others are
retained clients. Over the next 12 months, I am planning to increase the number of projects I am working
on whilst maintaining my work-life balance.
I started my business to ensure I had flexibility around my children and this is the most important thing to
me so I don’t want to take on too many more retained clients as the balance would shift in the wrong
direction.
I am also looking at ways of sharing my knowledge further by creating webinars or online courses so
watch this space!
As a woman founder, do you see this as only financially uplifting? Or
otherwise too? If yes, then how?
Financial gain isn’t my main motivator, flexibility to spend time with my children and travel is much more
important to me.
However, since starting my business I am able to provide more income for the family as a whole and
therefore feel this has been uplifting.
What tools or services did you use?
The key things I couldn’t live without are….
Teamwork – I use this to plan out all my client work and business tasks;

6. Microsoft Office – Outlook is my preferred email client and I still use office document regularly despite
also spending a lot of time in Google for clients;
Zoom – fantastic for video calls and I use this to record all my YouTube/Social Media videos as well;
MailChimp – although it has had some bad press recently it is a fantastic FREE tool for simple email
marketing;
WIFI – my business wouldn’t function if I didn’t have internet access to having a good broadband service
with great WIFI is critical!
What are your key challenges today? How are you planning to tackle those?
Time is always a challenge but it is about how you manage it – I can sometimes become distracted by
social media which sucks time so much from what I do! Being able to use tools that help me focus such as
working with the Pomodoro method is really useful to me.
Clients can also be a challenge as sometimes they have unrealistic expectations – I find that discussing
these with the client is the easiest way to ensure that we are both on the same page.
Which are some resources, books, articles or podcasts that have been useful
to you, and would share with your readers
I’m not a huge fan of ‘business’ books as such and much prefer motivational books:
Becoming by Michelle Obama is one of the best books I’ve ever read.
For anyone considering becoming a virtual assistant Virtually Painless by Kathy Soulsby is a
must-read as are all the blogs on the VIPVA website – they are also launching a podcast soon
which I can’t wait to listen to.
Brene Brown is also a fantastic motivation – listen to her TedTalk on Vulnerability
I also great things about Mary Portas’ podcast but have yet to listen to it!
Many times, women feel that businesses are for only for men. What’s your
take?

7. This is a very outdated view, women have so much to bring to the table in business – whatever sector
you are in you have every right to be there doing what is best for you.
I only work with women in business as I feel that we do have a different style to men but this isn’t a bad
thing it just means that we come to the business with a different viewpoint and there is room for both.
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L e a r n h o w S a r a h t u r n s $ 3 6 K / y e a r w i t h a v i r t u a l a
Hi, Tell us your name, what you do, and about your business. Please do mention the monthly revenue for
our readers as well. I’m Sarah Banks, Online Busines
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