Want to become a Pinterest VA and find Pinterest virtual assistant jobs in India? Watch this interview with Kristin Larsen and Gina Horkey and learn how to find virtual assistant jobs from home.
Wondering what are the best virtual assistant services you can provide and whether you can get Pinterest virtual assistant jobs from home with no experience?
In this interview, Kristin Larsen and Gina Horkey, creators of the hugely popular Pinterest virtual assistant course, Become a Pinterest VA TODAY!, discuss how to find Pinterest virtual assistant jobs for beginners.
Through their Pinterest virtual assistant guide, they have taught their many, many successful students how to become a work-from-home virtual assistant who manages Pinterest accounts for clients.
You’ll learn what sort of Pinterest virtual assistant training you’ll get in their course so you can develop your Pinterest virtual assistant skills, learn how to do a number of Pinterest virtual assistant tasks and command a high Pinterest virtual assistant salary.
Whether you want to find freelance virtual assistant jobs or to learn how to start a virtual assistant business, this Pinterest virtual assist guide will show you how to find Pinterest virtual assistant jobs and work from home in 30 to 60 days.
Kristin and Gina have helped many women develop their Pinterest virtual assistant skill set and get paid to be virtual assistant. This interview will help you answer the question, “What do I need to become a virtual assistant?”
In this course, you’ll learn all about the Pinterest virtual assistant job description, Pinterest virtual assistant duties and virtual assistant work requirements. They will help you develop all the Pinterest virtual assistant skills required to become a virtual assistant and find part-time virtual assistant jobs.
If you want to know how to become a virtual assistant with no experience, learn about virtual assistant services rates and how much do virtual assistants charge so you can find Pinterest virtual assistant jobs online, watch their interview below.
Resources mentioned in the interview:
- Become a Pinterest VA TODAY! Pinterest virtual assistant course
- HorkeyHandbook.com
- 275+ services you can offer as a virtual assistant
- Jumpstart Your Virtual Assistant Business Mini-Course
- Tailwind – a Pinterest scheduling tool
- Canva – Online graphic design tool
How To Become A Pinterest VA With Kristin Larsen and Gina Horkey
Priya Florence Shah:
So, today I’m talking to Kristin and Gina. Gina Horkey is the go-to person for those that want to become or find a kick-ass virtual assistant. She’s the founder of HorkeyHandbook.com and the creator of the Fully Booked VA course.
Her best selling online courses have taught thousands of students how to start and grow freelance businesses from scratch. Gina built her own successful freelance writing and virtual assistant business in less than six months while working full time and being a mama to toddlers.
She was able to earn more than $4,000 in a single month just as a side hustle. Kristin Larsen is the go-to Pinterest person speaking at and conducting in-person workshops at conferences and groups across the United States.
She’s also a Tailwind ambassador and official Pinterest partner, founder of BelieveInaBudget.com and Create A Pinterest Presence & Side Hustle To Success. Her courses have helped thousands of entrepreneurs learn how to side hustle, launch a blog or business and master Pinterest.
In 2015, as a new freelancer, Kristin launched a successful Pinterest management company that is today helped over 100 bloggers, online business owners and brick and mortar shops experience explosive growth on Pinterest within her first six months.
In addition to her first full-time job, Kristen averaged $3,600 a month from her role as a Pinterest manager and blogger, just as a side hustle. So, Gina and Kristen, that’s really impressive. And it gives a lot of hope to people who are looking for a side hustle or looking for a new career right?
Gina Horkey:
Yeah, we that sure makes us sound good. And it’s not that long ago, but it feels a long time ago, right. But we were in the throes of building these service-based businesses not that long ago was five, six years. And it’s been really fun to teach people how to do the same thing and create some space in their lives, too.
Priya Florence Shah:
Yeah, so tell us, Kristen, what is a Pinterest virtual assistant and what do they do?
Kristin Larsen:
So a Pinterest virtual assistant is someone that works online or works remotely. It could be from your home while travelling anywhere in the world. And you get to help businesses grow their marketing on the Pinterest platform.
So you don’t actually work for Pinterest. But you get to work with all these bloggers or businesses that want to be on Pinterest and want to learn how to get traffic to their website from Pinterest.
Priya Florence Shah:
Right? Okay, that sounds really interesting. I love Pinterest, frankly, because I use it and it gets me a lot of traffic. But Kristin, how did you get your start as a Pinterest VA?
Kristin Larsen:
Yeah, so it was actually back when I was starting my blog back in 2015, with, as Gina said, seems like forever ago but at the same time feels like yesterday. And I launched my blog and I was really clueless. I didn’t really know what I was doing.
I wasn’t on social media, I wasn’t on Facebook, I didn’t have a LinkedIn account. I could not figure out how to get traffic to my website. And then I went on Pinterest, and I’d already been using it anyway.
And I realized I could create these Pins that people would click on and go back to my website. And before I knew it, my traffic just exploded. I think I went from like 5000 monthly page views to 17,000 monthly page views.
And then by the end of the year, I’ve gone up to over 200,000 page views a month. So in terms of traffic, it did really well. But if I rewind a little bit, um, you know, I decided I wanted to share my story on my blog.
It has nothing to do my blog has nothing to do with Pinterest or that kind of stuff, but I was like, “You know what, I’m going to share my lesson and show people that you know what Pinterest can be a really powerful platform for your business, regardless of what business it is.”
And then within about a week of publishing that case study I wrote, I had a couple of bloggers reach out to me and say, “You know what, this is awesome. Can I hire you to help me with my Pinterest?”
And I was like, I didn’t think that was a thing. I didn’t know it existed. I didn’t know I couldn’t find anyone else doing it. And so I said, “Sure. I’m going to call myself a Pinterest virtual assistant. And I would love to work with you,” and I just kind of went for it. And from there my Pinterest VA career just kind of exploded.
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Gina Horkey:
Enough though that you got to leave your job behind, which is really cool, right?
Kristin Larsen:
Yeah. Oh, yeah, I totally forgot about that. So yeah, between launching my blog and then the blog was slow-rolling for me. You know, a blog can be a great thing long term, it takes time to build it up.
But being a Pinterest VA helped me make more income faster, to be able to afford to leave my day job. So between the blogging which was so rolling, Pinterest VA, which was really, really growing, I was able to walk away with my job within like nine or 10 months.
Priya Florence Shah:
Wow, that’s awesome. That’s fantastic. And that’s a real message of hope, especially today when people are so stressed out about whether they’re going to have their jobs or not, you know, at the end of these… in a short while, probably a lot of people are gonna lose their jobs.
So, I think that’s a message of hope because it tells them that they can probably, you know, still work from home or they can pick up a side hustle and make a living make a good living out of it. Right?
Kristin Larsen:
I was gonna say, I think Gina would agree with me that the virtual assistant field is just so powerful and how quickly you can grow, especially with Gina having so much experience as a virtual assistant on her side as well and helping thousands of students on her end. She’s just seeing results in all kinds of ways, but especially with Pinterest VAs.
Gina Horkey:
I was just gonna add, with this kind of challenging economic times, I think that there’s going to be a few different shifts that come out of it.
If people are choosing hope rather than fear, they can utilize this extra time that they have on their hands, whether they’re furloughed or temporarily laid off, or if they end up losing their job to learn new skills and invest in themselves, whether it’s Pinterest or something else.
And then I think a lot of business owners will rebuild their businesses differently going forward. And it might be that they end up taking on more part-time, kind of contractor-based help rather than hiring full-time employees in the house to do certain things like marketing, which is what Pinterest is all about what we’re teaching people to do.
So I think it’s a really key time for people to really think about what they want to be when they grow up or what they want to be next and figure out okay, what should I do to invest in myself and learn new skills to make me more marketable both in corporate America or whatever the equivalent is in India.
And then also, you know, for being a freelancer or a contractor or being self-employed. So not all companies are being challenged in the same way right now, either. I know in our business, this is actually a time of growth. And we’re not alone in that.
So there are companies that are actually scaling and growing and hiring. And there are other businesses that are just trying to survive right now. And you can really help both sides of that, because the businesses that are just trying to survive, they’re innovating, and they’re figuring out how else can we get our message out there? How can we get in front of our target market and ideal customers?
And Pinterest can be a way for them to do that if they haven’t been until now. So maybe they’ll be redirecting marketing budgets and the way that they do things. And then we’re all shopping online more than ever before in our whole lives. Like we thought we shopped online before that was nothing compared to what’s going on right now.
And Pinterest is this visual search engine where people go to actually shop and spend money. Not everybody knows that about it. So I just want to make sure we made those points.
Priya Florence Shah:
Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. And I think a lot of industries like travel, for instance. Travel is very hot on Pinterest, right? And that that’s one of the industries which is struggling right now.
So I think giving them a boost with Pinterest can really help right in the coming months, in the months ahead, when they’re gonna bounce back.
Kristin Larsen:
With travel, that’s a really interesting topic because we have seen from a Pinterest VA side of things, we have seen some businesses struggling with travel, they don’t know what to do.
They are used to either booking being like travel cleaners, or they’re used to working in that capacity and things are on hold. But then we’ve seen some other travel planners actually switch and they’re trying to help you plan for different things.
So they might be coming out with products they can sell that teach you how to pack your suitcase properly, like a checklist, like different little products that they can offer to sell you that you can use now or down the road versus just being a travel planner.
So they’re really trying to pivot and think, “Okay, what can I give my audience right now that they might benefit from in the future as well?” So it’s just again, is it a company that learn how to thrive through this?
Or are they just going to try to just survive, which is totally fine! Sometimes surviving is just where we need to be. But some of these companies are really learning how to pivot and figure out how to help their audience even more.
Gina Horkey:
And a big part of that is repositioning their products, right. So there’s somebody that we actually have in a mastermind group that we’re a part of that has a travel-like suitcase packer. It’s like a physical product.
And so when we were all together before all of this hit, she was knowing that it was coming and how it would impact your business. So we were brainstorming different ways that you can use that same product.
So in a diaper bag or in your car or in a stroller, all these different things, and I think the savvy people that might be tuning into this are going to see this again as an opportunity of “Okay, how do I come along these maybe struggling business owners and just start a conversation, a dialogue around what are your pain points right now and the fears that you have for your business?”
And maybe you’re creative enough to brainstorm some of these unique positioning ideas for products that they currently have that aren’t really working in the current marketplace. But you could put a spin on it and use it for a different purpose. Does that make sense?
Priya Florence Shah:
Yeah, absolutely. And you have to play the long game, right? It’s not a short term thing. Pinterest is a search engine. So you have to play the long game on Pinterest.
And if you think a few months ahead of you, planning your campaigns and stuff for that, right. So, tell me how did you two get together? I mean, I’m really interested to know about that.
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Kristin Larsen:
So when I was growing my Pinterest management company, I actually had been Reading Gina’s website for a while. I decided, you know, I checked her out. I was always following for when she was publishing the next article or post.
And I realized, you know, I saw her on Facebook. I saw her on Twitter, but I didn’t see a little Pinterest icon like on her website. And I, she might have had it, but I don’t know, she wasn’t really utilizing it. I can’t remember.
But I just pitched her really nicely and said, “Hey, I love what you’re doing on Facebook. I love what you’re doing on Twitter. Do you have any interest in seeing how you could do on Pinterest?”
And Gina actually came back, it was the end of the year, so it was kind of like off-season… I don’t know why I was pitching during the holidays… so weird.
But Gina came back to me and said, “Oh, I haven’t even thought about something like this. Let me sit on it. And will you follow up with me in like a month?” And I said, sure.
So I wrote it down in my planner, followed up with her in a month and said, “Hey, I just wanted to revisit this and see if you’re interested still,” and she was.
And we started working together and became best friends. We didn’t really have a real relationship and then became clients and became good friends, and then we launched PVA, like a year later after getting to know each other and seeing what was missing in the marketplace and a need for helping other people and that was it.
Gina Horkey:
So you missed the part about the fact that I was on Pinterest, but I wasn’t really on Pinterest, and then Kristen swooped in and she exploded traffic and growth on that platform for HorkeyHandbook which is amazing.
So that was in there, like you totally kicked ass on our behalf, don’t miss that. And then, based on you know, the interaction and the relationship that we were building, we came up with this idea and it’s so fun to think about December of 2015.
This random email comes into my inbox and I like how much that’s changed the directory of my business and of my life, and yours as a result.
Like I was just talking with a team member yesterday about how there are just those points in time where you can remember exactly where you are when you made a certain decision that felt small at that time.
And then you look back and you’re like, “Holy crap! if I wouldn’t have done that,” you know what I mean? So it’s fine because it’s almost four years ago that we launched the program.
We’ve known each other now for five years, we’ve met in person – we can’t do that right now – several times. And we just keep, you know, further making our place within this niche. And we have a lot of fun watching people succeed and kind of recreate what we did and transition their lives as a result.
Priya Florence Shah:
Yeah, that sounds awesome. It’s fantastic when you meet like that, and you make a friend for life. It’s pretty awesome. Right?
Gina Horkey:
Well, totally. The other part that I would add to that too, though, is that there are a million other business owners that have received that email that Kristin sent me that aren’t on Pinterest.
And they’re not thinking even about that part and the potential for their business. So like, that’s an easy marketing strategy right there is just drop it into somebody’s inbox that you’re kind of following along with right and pitching them on a specific service.
Priya Florence Shah:
That’s awesome. So tell me a little bit about what kind of services a Pinterest VA can offer?
Kristin Larsen:
Yeah, so we offer nine different services inside the program. And some of the ones we talked about specifically would be like Pin design. The pin design is absolutely crucial if you’re going to be on Pinterest.
Every year Pinterest comes out with a list of their best practices that they really want bloggers and business owners to really just listen to and one of them was pin design.
So one of the things Pinterest VA can offer is learning how to create pins, that can be the graphic side of things and it can also be the SEO side of things like you said earlier that we totally agree with is that Pinterest is like an SEO visual search engine.
So there’s so much more that goes into creating just a pretty pin. It’s learning about, you know, which is like almost like another service, which is figuring out like, how to use SEO on Pinterest like, how do you do this research?
How do you find these magical keywords so people will find your pin? So those are like a couple of services. Other services we offer would be like, you know, consulting, auditing that might be more of an advanced skill, but it’s something you definitely need to learn so you can help clients out. What about you Gina?
Gina Horkey:
I was just thinking like everything from the basics of getting somebody set up on Pinterest, and then we use Tailwind as our preferred scheduling tool, which you mentioned in the bio, that Kristin is the Tailwind ambassador.
So that means we get to learn all the things first, which is awesome, and then we get to share that with our community. They also do special training and stuff with us which just helps keep us up to date.
Make sure that our students are armed with the most powerful, timely information possible. And then the other thing that I feel like you need to brag about more, Kristen, is that she’s got an interior design background.
And so she does all of like the Pin design training and stuff like that for the course. Because she knows innately what looks good, and what does well with the kind of general population, and you were able to break down that stuff really easily.
So people understand, you know, like one of the things that blew my mind and it seems like a small thing, but it’s not when you realize kind of the weight that it has is, you could use a stock photo or stock image just as it is.
But like Kristin teaches in one part of the program, just how to manipulate that photo so that you have the perfect piece of it to make sure a that it’s different than other things that people are seeing but super, super, like pretty and engaging to the human eye, but then also that it creates the right whitespace and just how you can add text to it if that’s what you’re choosing to do for your pin and stuff like that.
So yeah, I mean, that’s one of the reasons I think that you did so well as a Pinterest manager is that you were really great with pin design.
And then going back to how I was answering the question, you go from setting somebody up on Pinterest for the very first time to working with somebody that’s already on Pinterest, kind of like I was, that isn’t maximizing their presence and their efforts on the platform.
Or you can take over an account that’s already doing really well with a client, but the client doesn’t have the time or the bandwidth or the desire to do it themselves anymore.
So they need to focus on what it is that they do best, which is usually creating products or, you know, selling services, doing that part of their business and getting the word out is kind of more of your job.
Priya Florence Shah:
Yeah, that’s true. That’s very true. So tell us about your program, Become a Pinterest VA Today!, and how does it help students?
Kristin Larsen:
Yeah, um, well, one, we’re really excited because we’ve just finished a massive overhaul, but we take a lot of pride in making sure our materials always up to date for our students, because the more up to date they are, the more they can help their clients.
So that’s been a massive undertaking is to make sure we just are providing the best content possible for them to learn how to land their first two or three clients within 30 to 60 days.
So our goal is to really teach them you know, things like the tech training, how do they use each of these platforms in a really easy way that makes sense for them. So they’re not going to have any roadblocks, nothing’s going to be too challenging.
So that’s been really, really great that we’ve kind of condensed inside the program. We go over all nine different services you can offer and like really specific detail along with the pricing because that can be intimidating to when you’re just starting out, especially if you’re a beginner.
So we go over, you know different types of packages you can offer and why it’s important to customize each package for each client because no two clients are the same. And then on top of that, pitching templates.
Gina Horkey:
Yeah. So we’ve done a really great job recently as you said, we just had this revamp. And our goal is to make sure that it’s up-to-date that it’s easy to follow, and that you learn the hard skills that you need in order to offer these services to your clients.
But then we also work on how to start a freelance business… if you’ve never done this… if you’ve never worked for yourself and contracted out services, that’s totally in the course. And then how to land clients and work with them.
So we teach you how to market your Pinterest marketing skills and services, right? So it kind of covers everything within one program, which was our goal, but we’ve streamlined it to the place that we don’t want you to get hung up on any specific area.
So we used to teach like how to, you know, build a basic website that was just offering or services and we’ve actually removed that and we’ll probably add it back in as Like a bonus kind of as you get started building your business and you’re ready to scale and take things to the next level that will enter the equation again.
But it’s not necessary if you’re not working with any clients. And what we found with working with students over the last four or five years is that like, there are certain things that slow them down. And while they are valuable, they’re not necessary to landing those first few clients.
So let’s instead focus on some simpler alternatives. And we’ve created all of these templates within the Canva platform. And Canva is a free tool. It’s a nominal upgrade to their paid platform as well.
And you can use these templates as just turnkey for showcasing your services. We’ve got one for creating reports and creating proposals to give to a client or prospective client before they decide to hire you.
So we’ve totally made it like step-by-step and turnkey, exactly what you need to get started today, like literally if you wanted to, and then you know take all the guesswork out of. So it’s all just like step-by-step ready for you to get going.
Kristin Larsen:
On top of that, I have to keep going, Priya, cause I’m really excited. In addition to making all these updates, we’ve come out with this brand new PVA accelerator, which is like an eight-week companion course or a companion piece.
And how it works is once you enrol in the program, every single week, you’re gonna get tripped up material that’s going to really help you stay focused, understand the lessons before you kind of just jump in, get all over the place.
And we want to make sure everyone really understands what’s going on. So we’re going to have video training going over specific lessons. So it’s in more detail. We have an “office hours” that we’ll be doing.
So we don’t just have you enrol in the program and we disappear like we are so invested in our students. We want to make sure they succeed. We love having office hours and being attainable.
There’s nothing worse when you enrol in a program and then the person that you’ve been watching just kind of goes away. So we want to make sure we’re totally there for our students by offering this, the PVA accelerator.
Gina Horkey:
The idea behind it came from like, how do we keep people accountable to a timeline if that’s what they’re looking for. So this is a do-it-yourself self-paced course that you can go through when you enrol in the actual program, all of it, you know, this weekend if you wanted to.
You can stretch it out over several months or a year. And you can always revisit it in the future. So when we talk about making all these upgrades all of our current or previous students, they get it for free, which is great.
But we’re thinking like how do we keep people accountable to not only just enrolling but then breaking it down into like an eight week or like a 60-day timeframe from going from zero to landing those first two clients or three clients.
And so that’s where this companion piece comes along. It’s additional conversations between Kristin and me about the very important things for that week, and then we’ll assign you like some homework so you can put it into practice because your goal is to build those hard skills and land the clients by the time that you’re done. So we’re super excited about it for sure.
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Priya Florence Shah:
So you teach them how to actually land clients. Right? And so tell us a little bit more about that. And, and how much can someone actually earn as a Pinterest VA?
Kristin Larsen:
Yeah, I’ll tackle like the first part. So when it comes to landing clients, we go over really specific strategies about where to find clients.
So right now, especially this time, you know, we’re probably going to focus more on finding clients that are online versus someone that might be local. Since, you know, things are a little different right now.
But looking for an online business that is successful is really helpful. You know, one of our red flags is we love working with businesses that might be new, but they might not have any money to pay you as a Pinterest VA and that’s so hard, but we really want to focus on business.
Those that are really set up online, you can tell they’re selling products, whether it’s digital products or physical products, that’s such a great place to start.
You might not want to start with some top big company you see on billboards, but you might want to trinkle it down and go a little bit lower and look for shops that look like they are on Facebook, or they are on Twitter, but then see how are they on Pinterest. And start trying to research and look for these business owners, right?
Gina Horkey:
I mean, Instagram is huge, too, right? A lot of people that go on Instagram will do really well on Pinterest, but it’s funny how people choose Instagram, but then they don’t add on the Pinterest component for one reason or another.
Probably could be time. It could be like not wanting to learn another platform to master, there’s a lot of reasons for that. An easy kind of hint for you guys too, as far as like how much money they can make, it’s going to depend based on your own level of experience and expertise.
So if you’re already a virtual assistant, and you’re killing it at different services, so maybe you’re doing content creation, and you’re already optimizing that content for SEO, you probably are a little further along, and you could add a lot more value to a client right away.
Or you also have to take into account what the client’s needs are. So are they kind of just getting started? Or do they have this established business that has multiple products and product lines, and so they need a lot of effort on their Pinterest behalf and in working with their account.
So anywhere from a few hundred dollars a month on up to over $1,000 for those larger clients. And if you’re doing monthly services, either with growth or trying to maintain their account, that’s going to be a reoccurring month after month service.
There are different ways that you can get started working with somebody which I think a lot of business owners would be more open to right now is sometimes we might be a little worried about taking on another like recurring bill or expense in our company.
So there are great ways for you to do like, an audit to get started as we talked about before, where it’s more of like a project-based fee or maybe you’re doing pin design and bulks or you’re creating 50 new pins for them.
And we cover the specific pricing within the course but there’s no reason that you shouldn’t be able to earn you know, $1000 to $2,000 a month working with a handful of clients long term, right?
Priya Florence Shah:
So that’s a pretty decent income, especially for someone in my neck of the woods. A lot of women would love to make that kind of income. And Pinterest…women love Pinterest. So I think for them, it’s like playing on Pinterest, right?
Gina Horkey:
If you don’t like it, you probably shouldn’t do it for a living right? Like we’re both big proponents of why not get paid to do stuff you like doing for people that you enjoy.
And you’re going to be the most successful Pinterest virtual assistant if you find companies that you already believe in that you want to help market their businesses on this platform. It’s like a no brainer.
Kristin Larsen:
It’s also important to say that you can work with clients from anywhere. So we have a ton of students that are from all across the world and they have clients all across the world.
So you could be based in India, but you might have a client in Australia, the United States or vice versa. So there really is no limitation on who you can work with.
Priya Florence Shah:
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the internet makes it all possible. So tell us what are the requirements for a good Pinterest VA, in the sense, is there anything required in terms of temperament, besides the skills required?
Gina Horkey:
I think all those skills are learned. There’s something for everyone when it comes to like the creatives or the analytic types. So analytics might geek out over like SEO, and more of like the scheduling aspects, whereas the creatives will definitely be drawn to like the pin design.
We recommend that everybody try everything because you might be surprised at what you find that you actually enjoy and get really good at. So my sister has taken over our Pinterest account for HorkeyHandbook because Kristin doesn’t do it anymore. She’s too big.
No, but neither one of us is offering services anymore. It doesn’t make sense in our current businesses. But she gets so excited, she will randomly send me like a Google Hangout message or a text message or whatever.
And she’s like, I just posted this pin and look at how many clickthroughs we have. And then I posted this in and it hasn’t done anything. Like this big experimentation phase. And she really gets into kind of the fact of what naturally does well on the Pinterest platform.
And that’s also something that we cover in the course is we talk about organic Pinterest efforts. And then we talk about paid advertising, which is now an option within the promoted pins that people can do too, and we give our preview to that because that’s obviously more of an advanced skill set.
So we talk about what it looks like and help people to kind of get started experimenting with that with their clients as well. There was a question that I think I just totally walked away.
Kristin Larsen:
Say, um, yeah, like, proactive you like solving problems. So it’s always great to be able to dive into someone’s account and think, how can you help them and find joy with that.
Because you also kind of get to pick your clients. You know, maybe at the beginning, you work with a few clients to figure out who are you really interested in working with, what do you like doing.
So I think that’s really important. I think you’ve got to be good at communication. The great thing about being a Pinterest VA that differs from other virtual assistant work is that it’s not really time-sensitive.
So you do have the flexibility to work at a time that’s convenient for you because it’s not really live like Twitter could be, or responding to Facebook comments. So, time management, I guess that would be another one.
So just saying, dedicate dedicated X amount of hours per week to work on your client’s accounts is helpful. So I guess the organization would fall into that as well. So, I think those are some really good ones that young people don’t kind of know right away if you have those traits, or you might not have them yet.
Gina Horkey:
You can get better at them with practice.
Priya Florence Shah:
Does good design sense, aesthetic sense matter a lot. Or can you learn that?
Kristin Larsen:
You can learn you can learn it.
Gina Horkey:
Yeah. And part of that also is like, you might think that something is gonna do really good. But that’s where like putting it out there and seeing how the Pinterest users actually interact with it.
I was just talking about with my sister and what she thinks will do good and does it just because she might do a really great design doesn’t mean it’s going to always do well on Pinterest.
So we do a lot of what it’s called split testing so that you can figure that out. And that’s going to maybe be different for each client that you have as well, which I think makes fun is because it’s you know, it’s a constant challenge and it’s constantly changing.
So being okay with change is probably a good thing and being like eager to learn new things is also really helpful. And just so that I make sure to cover it, one of the great things about breaking into this type of work is that you’re going to learn these hard skills that you can start your business around.
It can be an entry point for you into working from home into an online business. So it’s not necessarily where you’re going to end your journey.
So Chris and I both got started offering services. Hers were around Pinterest management and marketing. And mine just started out with freelance writing, and then customer service and things like that.
Those were both like doors into the next phase of our businesses. And again, like we can look back at those points in time where we made certain decisions to invest in ourselves and learn new skills, and it’s just awesome because we never stop learning.
We never stopped saying yes to new opportunities and things like that, too. So when you’re thinking about whether or not this is right for you, think about do I love Pinterest?
Am I willing to put in the effort to learn these hard skills and give myself the opportunity to learn about these clients and to help them grow their businesses and getting paid in return?
And then, do I have more of a growth mindset and a long term vision of seeing where this could potentially take me? So not only can you get started with these Pinterest services, as soon as you land clients, if you are proactive, if you’re a problem solver, you can find other ways to help their businesses grow.
And they will oftentimes teach you new skills based on the fact that you’re already working with them. And it’s so much easier for them to give you additional work and responsibilities than it is to go and find somebody else to hire. They already know like and trust you so it’s awesome.
Priya Florence Shah:
It’s a no-brainer to teach the same person new skills because you’ve got a relationship going with them already. Right? That matters a lot.
So tell me, what do you think with all the stuff going on in the world today and you know, people talking about recession are people still hiring Pinterest virtual assistants and hiring online? Are they still looking to do that?
Gina Horkey:
Yeah, so one of the things that we haven’t talked about is that after that kind of initial eight weeks, we’ll invite you guys to join if you’re a student of ours to our Pinterest post community, and that’s on Facebook, which offers live office hours, on a regular basis.
So you can ask us questions, you can post in the community to kind of troubleshoot as you’re working with clients or anything else that you encounter when it comes to growing your business. And then we actually share client leads in there.
So we’re marketing on our students’ behalf, which is kind of cool. You won’t find many course creators that do that, that not only teach you like the hard skills of what to offer and the services, how to launch your business and how to grow it from there but then we actually mark it on our clients or our students’ behalf so that we can help them to get hired by people that are actively looking for help.
And we’ve had leads continue to come in during this time and I think it just goes back to the conversation we had a little bit earlier that some businesses are struggling to survive this period of time, but others are thriving.
And you just have to figure out which businesses those are. Others are maybe in the middle, and they’re looking to make some changes based on the fact that they need to maybe cut back in this area, but they see that they can spend still some money over here marketing on this platform. So I have an abundance mindset. I know that Kristen does, too. I think it’s very possible to still succeed during these times.
If you look back in history, there’s the Spanish flu, there’s a great depression, there’s the Great Recession, there’s the oil crisis of the 70s, there’s a ton of really big businesses that started in those exact time periods.
And so I think we need to just look at history a little bit to say, “Hey, this is possible. This is the time again, to learn new skills and to start a business.” I fully believe that why not you, why not now kind of thing right?
Priya Florence Shah:
Yeah, right. Absolutely and I believe that things are going to get better. And you have to be positioned for growth, right? So you have to have an abundance mindset and position yourself for growth.
So tell us what sort of investment is required when you want to become a Pinterest VA because I think a lot of people might think there’s a lot of stuff that you need.
Kristin Larsen:
Yeah, so when you enrol inside the program, we make it very clear what tools you need and what tools you don’t actually before you enrol.
So the only other things you would need to invest in would be Canva, which is a free platform. And once you start you can you have the option to upgrade to called Canva Pro.
It’s a small fee per month, but that’s something that your client pays for. And we talked about how and why inside the program. So that paid fee isn’t something you would be having to really stress about.
Another platform you’ll be using is Tailwind, but also we have a 60-day free trial that we want all of our students to get familiar with. And then when they start working with a client, that’s also a platform their clients paying for. So really, there’s not a lot of extra tools and gadgets that you need to get started as a Pinterest VA. And of course, Pinterest is free.
So there’s just a lot of benefits to having a really low business starting cost. I mean, if you think about how much it costs to launch a brick and mortar store, or how much it costs to buy even certain online businesses that need inventory being able to be a virtual assistant in the Pinterest space is great, because fees are so low.
Priya Florence Shah:
Yeah, I agree. I use both of those tools, and I love them. Canva is my favourite graphic design tool. And I have the Pro version because it’s got amazing images and all this stuff is really awesome.
And Tailwind, just can’t do without it. I can’t manage my Pinterest account without Tailwind. So I completely agree those are absolutely essential investments that you have to make in your business, right?
Gina Horkey:
Yeah, I mean, as long as you have decent internet access and access to a computer, because nobody can be working from like the library, which used to be an option in-person.
And then Tailwind, your clients are gonna pay for, you might decide to keep a minimal kind of fee account for yourself after that 60 days, but there’s no reason that you need to if you’re not like trying to actively grow another type of blog or business or something like that.
And then the Canva thing is like $10 a month, and then you build that into the fees that you’re charging your clients as Kristin said, so there’s really not a lot going on.
You can use like an invoicing tool, like honestly, PayPal, which is free, right? Or there are other options out there. I think Wave is free. There’s a whole bunch of tools and software nowadays. So yeah, it’s pretty easy to get started.
It’s more of like that commitment when it comes to if you want to enrol in our course that initial investment, as well as like the commitment that I’m going to take the time to learn these skills to practice and to get as good as I can be.
Because that’s how you not only land clients in the first place, but that’s how you get to the point of charging kind of the highest rates possible.
And if you’re in this for the money, then you’ll want to get super good at what you do. So you can charge really great rates. And on the flip side of that, you’re helping your clients to make more money. So it’s kind of a good deal.
Kristin Larsen:
Yeah, I’m not sure how it works in India, but I know here in the United States, even as a solopreneur you’re able to write off your expenses when you’re investing like in your business.
So for a lot of the students here, you know, this is a business expense, you know, investing in Canva, so as long as you’re keeping track of your income and expenses, it all works out.
Gina Horkey:
And again, it depends on where you live in the world. But one of the things I’ve been working on with my bookkeeper this week is like a little printable. We’re all at home right now, so if you can make a home office, you can write off a portion of your home, which is kind of cool.
And so I’m going to put together just like a little how-to, and I think we’ll probably end up adding that as a bonus to the platform to our program if Kristen’s okay with it. But how cool would that be to make your own little office right, which is kind of fun, if you like decorating and all that kind of stuff?
Anyways, that’s your startup where you’re going to do your work, which from a mindset perspective is really great. Like I’m going into the spare bedroom of my house to work. And then if it’s only used for business purposes, then you can write it off.
So let’s say you invest in our course, and then make yourself a home office. Like it’s almost like a net investing at that point, as long as you earn income from actually working with clients.
Priya Florence Shah:
Yeah, that’s brilliant. I think we can do that in India but I’ve got to ask my accountant about that. Anyway, it’s been wonderful talking to you and I’m gonna put this up on replay because I think a lot of people don’t have the bandwidth right now to attend live.
I think everyone’s a bit scattered because I can see that a lot of people are stressed out especially in India right now, you know, with all this COVID stuff.
Okay. Thank you so much, ladies. It’s been wonderful talking to you. Actually, I’ve been really looking forward to meeting you at some point because I’ve been affiliated with y’all for quite a few years.
So I’m really happy that we got to meet that we got to catch up despite the circumstances and everything. And I’m gonna let you know as soon as this is up.
— End of transcript —
Did you enjoy this interview with Kristin Larsen and Gina Horkey, creators of the Become a Pinterest VA Today! course? Now is the perfect time to become a Pinterest VA, so sign up for their Pinterest VA course and start your new work-from-home business as a Pinterest VA.
About the author:
Priya Florence Shah is the Group Editor at SHEROES and author of Devi2Diva, an emotional self-care book for women.
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