@Amanda Martinotti You had me at "AC."

@Hannah Kloe You're so right - and I'm sending you all the good vibes. Hope you can take the weekend to do something nourishing and joyful!

@Mike Malone no - sorry. I do all my client work on my Mac!

@Gwen Daniels I don't yet but I essentially tell claude what I want an end product to be and then I say "give me the html code." I'll think on how I can put something together that's helpful!

Hi Brandon! While I'm sorry to hear about your layoff after a decade (!!) I'm thrilled that you're joining us in the freelance world. I'd love to know what your focus was at your previous job, it could prove to be a very lucrative freelance niche for you. Also, I want to say that you bring an immense (emphasis on immense) amount of expertise to the table, don't discount your talent and incredible resume! P.S. Thank you for the kind words, I try to keep it real!

@Brandon B Brandon okay wait. Read what you just wrote back to yourself. Five years of technical support handling high-pressure troubleshooting calls. Five years of routing and dispatching 20 to 40 technicians simultaneously. You can use a ton of different software, communicate with anyone in any situation, manage inboxes, and coordinate calendars. That is not "basic." That is an operations and coordination skillset that small business owners are actively paying for right now. The reason it feels ordinary to you is because you did it every day for ten years. That's exactly how expertise works. It stops feeling impressive to the person who has it. You don't need a certification to say "I have ten years of experience in technical support and operations coordination." That IS the differentiator. The VA who has actually done this at scale for a decade is not the same as someone who learned it from a course. Start there and don't undersell it!

@Gwen Daniels Notion is overwhelming initially, it's a basically a blank canvas. Once you get the hang of it...watch out world, you'll be unstoppable!

Ha, two kids heading to college at the same time, life is definitely lifing! Hang in there. Amanda's list is really solid. Here's my short version of the non-negotiables to start with: -Google Workspace (Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Drive, Calendar) is the foundation. Almost every client you work with will use at least one of these, so being comfortable across all of them is the baseline. -Canva for anything visual. Free version is plenty to start. -ChatGPT or Claude for drafting, researching, and brainstorming. I'm biased toward Claude but either works. -Zoom for client calls. -Loom for sending quick screen-recorded video updates to clients instead of long emails. Clients love it. -Trello or Asana for keeping track of tasks. Trello is simpler if you're just starting out. That's genuinely all you need to land a first client. Don't worry about learning every tool upfront. Most clients will have their own systems and they'll show you what they use. The tools you learn on the job will end up being more useful than anything you try to master in advance!

Reiyn great question! A few things that will help here: The resume is less useful than you think for VA outreach. Most solo entrepreneurs aren't looking at resumes the way a corporate HR team would. What they actually respond to is someone who clearly understands their specific problem and explains how they'd solve it. For cold outreach, your instinct is right. Research the person first, then make the message about them, not about you. Something like: "I noticed you're managing X, I work with solo founders on inbox and calendar management and I'd love to show you how I can free up a few hours a week for you." Short, specific, about their life. On the PDF idea, a one-page capability doc or portfolio can work really well as a leave-behind after the first conversation, not as the opener. Use it to show sample work, a quick overview of your services, and maybe one or two results or testimonials if you have them. The biggest thing that reduces client apprehension is proof of work. Even if it's from previous clients, a mock project, or a testimonial from someone you helped informally, that specificity does more than any resume line. I actually have a video on this that walks through the pitch structure step by step: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=neuzSjYny8Q&t=2s worth watching before your next outreach!