The hospitality industry is utilizing technology to overcome many challenges, and the popularization of Airbnb virtual assistants is a product of this rapid transformation. In the dynamic hospitality industry landscape, there is an increasing demand for virtual assistants for short-term rentals. This has made Airbnb virtual assistantship a lucrative career prospect for many.
Before breaking down how to become an Airbnb virtual assistant, let’s analyze what an Airbnb virtual assistant is. Virtual assistants are usually independent contractors who work outside of the client’s office to provide administrative support.
Airbnb virtual assistants are tasked with administrative tasks to enhance the overall user experience, but also to take the load off property owners. These tasks may range anywhere from handling booking inquiries, to maintaining communication with current and potential clients.
This article will act as a step-by-step guide for those who wish to become a virtual assistant for Airbnb. We will discuss why you should consider the career, help you understand the role, and then break down the steps of how to become a virtual assistant.
Keep reading till the end to find out about which virtual assistant service provider you should look into!
Why Consider This Career?
Ever since the advent of COVID-19, remote jobs have slowly been taking over the job market. Most individuals prefer the flexibility that comes with remote work, along with the added time and money saved on transportation.
Keeping those considerations in mind, becoming a virtual Airbnb assistant is a 100% remote position that you can do from the comfort of your own home. Additionally, this specific role pays more than many onsite desk jobs, with pay ranging anywhere from $20-$50/hour, with the highest level assistants making more!
You’ll also be working from anywhere, at any time, on your terms. Being an Airbnb virtual assistant will also help you master communication skills, gain an in-depth knowledge of the hospitality industry, and catapult you into becoming an expert at Airbnb and other booking management tools.
Understanding the Role
In the hospitality landscape, ensuring customer satisfaction is the number one goal, and a virtual assistant aids property owners in achieving that goal.
Your key role as a virtual assistant will be to accomplish the utmost customer satisfaction. To understand how to excel at your job, you’ll need to dissect your key responsibilities and understand what skills are required.
We’ve broken down the major tasks you’ll be in charge of, as well as the expertise required for those tasks, below.
Key Responsibilities
- Managing Airbnb Listings
- Handling Guest Communication and Inquiries
- Coordinating Bookings and Reservations
- Overseeing Property Maintenance and Cleaning Schedules
Skills Required
- Knowledge of the Airbnb Platform and other booking platforms, since your listing won’t solely be on Airbnb.
- Strong Communication and Customer Service Skills to ensure the most efficient communication with clients
- Organizational and Time Management Skills for the highest efficacy.
- Familiarity With Property Management Tools and any other relevant software
We’ve made a comparison table below where you can view the skills and tools required for this job.
| Skills | Levels Of Importance |
|---|---|
| Effective time management and organizational skills for efficient workflow and maintaining a structure | Necessary |
| Constant strong communication skills, and excellent customer service skills to ensure everything is communicated to clients. | Necessary |
| Being tech-savvy and having a basic understanding of property management tools will give you a huge leg up. | Necessary |
| Understanding the ins and outs of booking, ensuring an attractive description, sorting out available properties, and providing a suitable rental name, are all essential skills. | Necessary |
| Having a good grasp on sales, and understanding the real estate market well will help you edge out others who are also trying to become virtual assistants; if you have a background in the hospitality industry, you already have an upper hand. | Highly Preferred |
| Strong photo editing skills are a bonus. | Optional |
| Having above-average accounting skills and knowledge is a huge advantage in this industry. | Optional but Preferred |
How to Become a Virtual Assistant for Airbnb: Step-by-Step Guide
We’ve broken down “How to Become a Virtual Assistant for Pinterest“, and now we’re going to talk about how to get started immediately on becoming a virtual assistant for Airbnb.
Assessing Your Skills and Interests
To master a Virtual Assistant Service, you must first evaluate your skills, areas of expertise, and interests. There are two main things you need to focus on: firstly, what are your existing skills, and secondly, where do you have room for improvement?
Firstly, do you have excellent customer service skills? Even if you have never worked in customer service, you should have an idea about your overall communication skills. Secondly, are you organized? Being a virtual assistant will require you to manage your time efficiently, and be extremely organized. You will have to keep track of multiple dates, appointments, bookings, etc.
You should also ask yourself some important questions about what interests you. Are you looking to work long-term or short-term? How are you going to price your services? What kind of companies do you want to work with large corporations, startups, or individual entrepreneurs?
Once you have understood your skills and interests, look into your weaknesses. Maybe your time management skills need some improvement. Maybe you can’t adapt quickly to situations. Knowing your shortcomings is the stepping stone to improving, and becoming a better candidate for the VA position.
Necessary Tools and Software
Technology is slowly integrating itself into every aspect of the hospitality industry. There are several tools and software you need to familiarize yourself with.
- Airbnb Host Account and Features
- Communication Tools (Workspaces, email, messaging apps, etc)
- Property Management Software
- Scheduling Tools
| Tools |
|---|
| Google workspaces such as Google Docs, and spreadsheets. Software such as Microsoft Excel, and personal productivity apps such as Notion are also useful tools to have. |
| Alongside having a professional work email, you should also integrate automated messaging tools such as Smartbnb and Hostfully for effective communication. |
| You should be familiar with property management software such as Lodgify. |
| Familiarity with booking platforms, especially the Airbnb booking platform |
| Dynamic pricing tools such as AirDNA will help owners maximize their income, so you should be familiar with such tools too. |
| You will need channel managers since you won’t only be posting your listing on Airbnb alone; a centralized dashboard will help you keep track of all your listings and your progress. |
Gain Relevant Skills and Experience
There is no sugarcoating this; the job market is very competitive, and you will need to upgrade your roster of skills to stay ahead of your competition. We’ve broken down how you can do just that.
Educational Resources
The good news is there are plenty of educational resources available for you to access. The first step is to utilize free resources for educational purposes. Start with YouTube videos. There are a plethora of YouTube videos uploaded by virtual assistants who share their journeys, tips, and other important resources for free.
You can also look into Blogs and Webinars for more content. Websites like Medium have published several articles on how to be a virtual assistant for Airbnb, alongside how to improve your skills.
One thing you need to remember is that it’s not even just about knowing how to be a good VA, it’s also about becoming more tech-savvy. Don’t know how to use property management or dynamic pricing tools? There are plenty of free videos on YouTube that will walk you through it.
Struggling with Spreadsheets? There are entire YouTube channels dedicated to teaching people Excel and Spreadsheet formulas. You should start with free resources to get the most amount of knowledge without spending money, before eventually moving on to paid courses from experts.
The second tier will need some filtering from your side. While many experts can provide actual coaching and mentoring sessions for you, there may also be several scammers looking to cash in a quick buck at your expense. You should filter these coaches out wisely to pick the most authentic, and helpful courses for you.
The last but not least point to note is that you should take training and gain certificates from trusted platforms. There are professional certificates in Google Digital Marketing and Meta Social Media Marketing.
Practical Experience
At this stage, you should start thinking of yourself as the brand. You need to focus on building a brand identity. Once you have gotten your skills brushed up and learned the different software, tools, and platforms you will need to master for this job, you should look into getting some practical experience.
The problem with getting experience though… is that oftentimes you will need experience for experience. Do you know those job listings that require 2 years of experience for entry-level jobs? You will need to learn how to navigate past that.
So what do you do in situations like that? Firstly, you can volunteer your services. Look into local Airbnb hosts and reach out to them with a convincing cold pitch. When you don’t have experience or reviews under your belt, you should offer your services for free! Once you have volunteered and proven yourself, you can slowly increase your rates.
You should additionally provide services for your friends and family! Turn your most trusted individuals into your first paying clients. After that, create different social media platforms for yourself and start marketing yourself. Make sure you ask your friends and families to leave good reviews so that you can have something to show potential clients.
Social media marketing is a powerful tool at your disposal. You should market yourself across different platforms for the highest reach. LinkedIn is a popular choice for this purpose. You should also start documenting your journey and publishing articles or blog posts about yourself as a cross-marketing tactic. Medium is a great place for that.
If you have some disposal income, you should also look into building a website that highlights the work that you have done, along with the good reviews your past clients gave you.
Building a Portfolio
When working in this competitive industry, having a flawless portfolio is a non-negotiable! You must have an excellent portfolio because clients are unlikely to hire you without one. So what should your portfolio look like?
You can build a portfolio website, which showcases all your previous work. You can also add a section on your existing website- assuming you already have one- which showcases your work. Remember all those testimonials and case studies you collected from previous clients? You should display them in your portfolio.
Your portfolio should have all your work, positive reviews from your clients, and all your relevant skills and certificates that you have earned so far.
Setting Up Your Business
Now that you’ve got some experience under your belt and you have made an incredible portfolio, it’s time to structure your business.
Choosing a Business Structure
Should you operate your virtual assistant business as a sole proprietor or as an LLC? There are pros and cons to both, and you should pick wisely.
When it comes to business banking, LLC is the superior choice. It’s recommended to open a business checking account for your business, and many banks necessitate an LLC. Additionally, it gives you legal protection. Your personal assets are untouchable and completely separate from your business.
However, on the flip side, it’s also important to recognize that the cost of forming, maintaining, and renewing an LLC can be very high, and hence many opt for sole proprietorship of their business.
Creating a Service Offering
You need to define the services you’ll offer as a virtual assistant. As we’ve noted before, there are a myriad of services that VAs offer. You don’t necessarily have to offer all of them, you can opt for as many or few as you like.
Most virtual assistants prefer bundling their services into packages and offering those on their websites. You can pick specific services together and offer them as packages at different price points. The price points will differ based on the number of services being offered, the complexity of the services, your experience, and current market rates. Make sure you do plenty of research on market rates before setting prices!
Building a Brand
Once you’ve decided to walk this career path, there’s no going back: you are your own brand! This is extremely empowering, but it also comes with a lot of responsibilities because you are solely in charge of yourself. What specific steps can you take towards building your brand?
- Developing a professional website is crucial so that clients start taking you seriously from the get-go. Investing in a professional website will be the best decision you make for your business.
- Creating a marketing strategy is a non-negotiable for a person running their own business. You are going to have to represent yourself on every possible social media website you have under your business. Nobody is going to do your marketing for you!
- Networking with potential clients is a great way to land long-term clients. You should spend a lot of time in Facebook groups or communities filled with Airbnb hosts.
For more accurate information about prices, look into the best virtual assistant service providers such as Green Feather Technologies which provides expert virtual assistants for all kinds of businesses, we recommend getting in touch for more information!
Finding Clients
Once you have landed your first few clients, you have to keep that momentum going. How do you keep finding clients?
Marketing Yourself
As we have covered before, there is no alternative to aggressive marketing. You need to utilize all your social media platforms to market yourself. Constantly post blogs and articles on your website and any other digital platform such as Medium or WordPress about your services.
Actively engage with enthusiastic professionals on LinkedIn, and keep updating your profile when you finish projects you are proud of. You should also leverage freelance platforms to your advantage.
UpWork, Fiverr, and Freelancer are three of the world’s biggest freelance platforms, where professionals from all around the world market themselves to clients. Thousands of clients peruse these websites daily, looking to employ their next virtual assistant.
So, if you haven’t already opened an account on one of these platforms, this is your sign to do so!
Pitching Your Services
It’s not enough to aggressively market yourself, you also have to learn how to aggressively pitch yourself. When you see a job posting, or you come across a client you want to work for, you have to take the initiative to craft the perfect cold pitch. Get in touch with them, explain why you want to work with them, and why they should hire you.
Constantly keep looking for property managers and Airbnb hosts across all different platforms.
Remember to always have a client-centric approach. They are always on the hunt for someone capable who will make their work easier for them; your pitch must state what you can do for them, as opposed to being completely self-centered.
Below we have summarized the different channels for finding potential clients.
| Channel | Pros | Cons |
|---|---|---|
| Freelance Platforms (Upwork, Fiverr, etc.) | Numerous potential clients, daily job listings | Not entirely free; you have to spend money to upgrade to Fiverr Premium, and you need to spend money to get in touch with potential clients on Upwork |
| Social Media (Facebook Groups, Instagram, LinkedIn) | Completely free (premium options are available in certain cases but not necessary) | Low visibility can occur due to high levels of competition |
| Develop your website and invest in boosting and SEO | Increases visibility toward potential clients | Requires some capital |
| Friends and family | Completely free, matches you with the best and most trustworthy clients | Limited reach |
Managing Your Business
Now that you’ve learned how to set up your business, develop your skills, and find clients, let’s talk about what you should do to manage your business.
- Client communication is the most important thing for this job. You need to constantly keep in touch with your client, and communicate with utmost clarity.
- Project management is an important skill to learn for a successful virtual assistant. Clients expect professional levels of organization from you!
- There is no alternative to continued learning and improvement. Keep learning the industry’s best practices, keep learning new skills, and keep adding to your resume.
Challenges and Solutions
We’re almost at the end of our article, and we’d like to take a look at the other side of the coin here. A virtual assistantship is not easy. There are many challenges you may have to face and subsequently overcome.
Common Challenges
There are many challenges that Airbnb virtual assistants face. Airbnb is an evolving platform, and it may be difficult to continuously keep up with its evolving policies. On top of that, it’s a daunting task to have to manage multiple clients, projects, and listings at the same time when you’re working by yourself.
Navigating an efficient way to keep track of all your current commitments, booking dates, meeting times, etc., even within a single dashboard, can be very challenging. Many virtual assistants have also faced recurring issues with communications, maintaining time zones, and cultural differences.
Solutions and Tips
Despite the challenges being a shared common experience, they are not the end of the world. You’ll just have to work around these challenges to develop proper systems and workflows that work for you and help keep you organized. You should integrate technology to streamline and optimize your workflow.
Additionally, you should never underestimate the power of a support system. When you have a strong network and a strong community of professionals who are there for you, you can overcome any challenge. Focus on building a community that acts as a positive, encouraging force for your business.
Conclusion
Hospitality is a rapidly growing industry that is evolving fast by integrating technology, and being an Airbnb virtual assistant is a byproduct of this phenomenon. This career has a lot of perks; the pay is good, there is a lot of flexibility, and you can work on your terms from the comfort of your own home.
You need to have a good grasp of some key skills to excel at this job, and the rest is just a combination of hard work, perseverance, and a strong community to support you.
Make sure you use the plethora of free resources available to help develop your skills to stand out among the competition, and network continuously! Building up a strong connection with professionals is the most important trade secret that you need to know.
If you want more information about being (or hiring) a virtual assistant, hop onto our website right now, to see how top BPO consulting firms operate.
