Hello, you're welcome to this full course on virtual executive assistance. This is your step-by-step guide to starting, growing, and thriving as a virtual executive assistance. So whether you are just starting out as a VA or you are already a virtual assistant, but you need to upskill, this is the right video for you to watch. In this video, I will share with you the skills you need, the tools you need, and how to go about some of the task that you will be saddled with as a virtual assistant and succeed in this career.

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Who is a virtual assistant? A virtual assistant is a remote professional who provides administrative, technical or creative assistance to clients in different parts of the world. This professional from where you are speaking to you. (If you want to be a virtual assistant), you can provide different form of assistance to different clients in different parts of the world. In so far, you have your computer, you have internet connection, you have the tools and the skills to offer these services.

So there is a category of virtual assistants known as executive assistant. This category of virtual assistants they work with C-Level executives; be the CEO, the CTO, the CoS, or other C-Level executives to excel as an executive assistant beyond just knowing administrative support. You must be able to understand the psyche of these business leaders. Be able to work in a fast-paced environment. Be ready to learn very fast and provide excellent results only. In this video, you will learn not just to be an administrative assistant. You will also learn the secret of being an exceptional executive assistant.

Before we go further, two questions we must answer. Who really hires an executive assistant? And what is the market for you when you go through this training? For the first question, entrepreneurs and business leaders, startups, NGOs, very busy professionals. I have listed four categories of persons that go for virtual assistants, administrative assistant, executive assistant. So business leaders generally would employ you for their businesses to handle tasks like email management so as to give them the head space to take care of more pressing activities or task. CEOs they need you to support them so they can delegate things like social media management to you while they go ahead to fix the thing they were employed to handle as chief executive officers. How about NGOs? Yes, they need you. They're organizing an event, a fundraiser. They need someone to help them to manage the entire event process. We also have professionals. For example, I can get a virtual assistant or an executive assistant so as to give me the freedom to delegate some tasks that are important but can be delegated while I focus on those things I must do.

Now the question of is there a market for you? The answer is yes. There is a market for you and that is not only the case. The market is growing. Why do I say so? There is a growing culture of remote work. So people are jumping into the idea of getting someone to assist them remotely. Why is that so? It saves cost for them. They don't have to think of a chair, a desk, an extra coffee mug for another administrative assistant that's coming to the office. They don't have to bother about some benefits and packages like health insurance, just name it, retirement benefits because they can contract someone from somewhere in the world to do this without any law requiring them to provide these packages for the employee. So the market is growing by the day. If you are able to distinguish yourself, there is always an opportunity waiting for you.

So that is why this video is important. There are some persons who started out some years ago as administrative assistants, but some are playful and stopped learning. The people they offer services for are already bored, tired of them. They are looking for a way to replace them with efficient executive assistants or virtual assistants. So by watching this video, what you are doing, you are owning your skills. You are learning what is in vogue right now. You are adapting yourself to change to become that person that is always sought after.

Now we are going to look at some skills that are required of virtual assistance and I'm going to make a case for why you need to both understand and excel in these areas because this is where the rubber touches the ground. This is what will separate you from others. If you're unable to learn and deliver on this excellently, every other thing you are doing may not really matter. Especially when your client employed you primarily to offer either virtual assistance or executive assistance. So let's talk about the must-have skills for virtual assistance.

The first one is calendar and schedule management. When we talk about calendar management, you must learn how to organize appointments, meetings, and events. Is there an appointment for your company or for the executive you are assisting? Is there a meeting? Is there an event? You must learn how to be able to schedule that in the person's or in the company's calendar. Beyond just scheduling, you must learn the art of sending reminders both to the person your client is meeting and to your client through whatever channel it could be through WhatsApp, through email, whatever channel you have agreed to send internal reminders. While for external reminders, you send reminders using your Gmail or your email so that they don't forget the important appointments, meetings, or events that have been scheduled. You also learn to send confirmation. When someone confirms or your client confirms a meeting, you must send that confirmation to the people you are meeting with.

As a virtual assistant, you must understand time differences so as to schedule appointments in a way that is convenient for the parties involved. How do you schedule an appointment for your boss who is in Australia and wants to meet with someone in the US and another person in London? What are the best time slots to suggest for these parties? These are the things you must understand when we talk about calendar management. And lastly, you must ensure that while you are managing the calendar of your clients, there are no conflicts whatsoever. You don't give a time that is already booked. And in cases where conflicts may occur, you must learn the art of managing this conflict in a way that your client does not show up for a meeting when there is another important meeting. Every conflict should be resolved latest 48 hours before the nearest meeting. This is a special skill you must learn to master.

The next skill is email management. In email management, what you are doing, you are managing the inboxes of your clients or the company you work for. And to do this effectively, you must learn how to prioritize messages. Learn how to filter them so that you call the attention of your client to only those messages that are very important. By so doing, you are saving this person some space to focus on some more important tasks. To excel as a virtual assistant in this area of email management, you must learn the basic email etiquette and the right tone of communication in this setting. You must also learn to master the art of drafting proper correspondence in a very personal, formal way. Whatever format your organization uses, you must learn how to draft in a formal way. In this age of AI where you can just ask ChatGPT to draft something for you, people are looking for correspondence with a human touch. They want to feel you. They want to feel that you are speaking to them as an individual, not a bot that has generated some words just to express something. So you must master these three critical areas.

The next skill to master as a virtual assistant is task management and prioritization. What are the tasks that came up from a meeting? How do you take note of these tasks? Prioritize them and communicate them to the respective people involved. This is your responsibility. That is what task management is about. You must know how to do your to-do list, how to manage these tasks, know what is done, what is not yet done, what is standing in the way, and communicate this properly. So task management is the other skill that you must master as a virtual assistant.

The fourth skill is online research. Some years ago I was working with a client in Costa Rica and she was in a meeting. I can't recall the country, either Australia or Dubai. She was in a meeting. While on that meeting, she needed a very crucial information. She just sent me a message. "Eric, could you research this for me and summarize it?" I got that immediately while she was still on that meeting. I jumped into that research and sent her a summary of what I found out. She was so excited. I proved to her that I am that standby virtual assistant. It's as if she had a genie somewhere. She needed something and she could not find that in her brain. Just to ask the genie, "Please, what's the answer to this?" and the genie turned up for her. That was before the AI revolution. I figure that these days she may just ask ChatGPT to give her a summary of that. That's to tell you that as a virtual assistant, you must begin to think of how you can use these AI tools to be more effective. But be it as it may, what I'm trying to tell you here is that online research falls within the purview of a virtual assistant. So it is something you must master. Your ability to go through data, to go through information, synthesize this information and summarize it in a way that it is easy for your clients to understand. You are simplifying this information with the objective of your clients in mind. So when you are given a task, your responsibility is not to make things more complex for your client. It's for you to distill the information that has been given to you. Do your research, come up with the findings, and when you are bringing the output of your research, it is a solution you are providing. This is what I found out.

If it's something that has to do with pricing, there are some tasks I've done as a virtual assistant that required me to do research on restaurants that offer certain meals or a space for an event. Such research would require you to come up with not just the venue for the event, but also what the price, when they open, when they close, distance between this venue to the hotel or the accommodation where your client is lodging. So don't just come and say, "Oh, I've seen five venues. Where are the venues? This is the name of the venue, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5." That is not online research as a virtual assistant. Online research is you saying, "I have seen five venues that fit the criteria. These five venues, they are between five miles away from where you are staying, where you are lodging, and these five venues have these unique features. None is a two-star, three-star venue. Every of these venues is four-star and above." You set some specific criteria to create the impression in your client that you did a thorough job. You were concerned about not just providing any information, but providing the best information that will help your clients to make informed decisions. So clients would ask you for online research in whatever form. It can be, "Research the best ticket for me. I'm traveling from here to Dubai. Research the best tickets for me or the best places to stay. I am going to New Zealand. I'm going to Singapore." You need to do a thorough research. Give your clients options and ensure that the options you are given, they are the best. So that if your client should just by any means double-check, your client will come to the conclusion that you did a thorough job and no one could have done it better. That is the task of a virtual assistant.

The fifth skill you need to have is data entry. Now this kind of looks like something that is becoming outdated. Data entry is not just entering some data into an Excel sheet. Even getting a scanned document and typing it is data entry. The truth is, in our world today with so many AI tools, data entry is now very simple. AI has not taken this task away from virtual assistants because some of the persons that you may be providing virtual assistance to or executive assistance to, they belong to the older generation. They may know that there are tools to do this, but they don't know the tools and they don't know how to use the tools to do this. Someone sends you a scanned document and says, "Please help me type this into Microsoft Word and send it back to me." If you are a smart virtual assistant, you don't need to split your screen and start typing word for word. Later, you now start going through it to see if what you did is correct. No, you don't need to do that. What you need to do, it is still data entry. You can take that online, use Google Lens that has this optical character recognition feature, go through the scanned document and make a copy. You copy and paste in your Microsoft Word or your Google Doc. Then all you have to do is to go through what you have copied to ensure that it is correct. Did you still do data entry? Yes, you did. You only did it in a smart way. So data entry is part of the skill you need to have as a virtual assistant.

So there are three more skills I know you need to have as a virtual assistant or an executive assistant. One is file preparation, document preparation and filing. The other one is social media management. And the third one is website management. So I'll go after these three one after the other.

Document preparation and filing. You were given a task. It's a data entry task. Take the scanned document. Change it to what document? What have you done? You have created a document. Now, after creating that document, how you save that document is very important. What name did you give to it? You must ask whenever you are working for a client or an organization, "What is the pattern of filing documents here?" In some places, you write the name of the document and you put the date, or you tag the document to the department. Whatever filing pattern that your client or organization uses, you must learn it and master it. In cases where this is strange to the person you are assisting, you are adding value. See, for ease of recollection or retrieval, it is better we file documents properly. That is why you have your folders where you keep your documents, and you have some other subfolders in that folder. So this is a task of a virtual executive assistant. You cannot say you are an effective assistant when you have a lot of documents scattered around the place. One of your responsibilities is to be able to organize and help your clients to be better organized. So you must learn how to both create these documents and file them properly. Later in this video, I'll share insight on how best to file documents in ways that makes retrieval easy, that helps in organization, and makes everything seamless.

The next one is social media management. You see, in this generation, your identity is not just your physical presence. Your presence online, your digital footprint matters a lot, and people take this seriously. So as an executive assistant working with busy executives who do not have time to manage their social media, they would need you in this area. A very important trait here is confidentiality and your ability to adapt your voice to your client's voice. So that when you are responding to messages, you are responding not with your voice, but with your client's voice. You must understand how your client responds to messages previously and adapt to it. You must also learn to respect confidentiality because your client is giving you access to something or a space of his life that is confidential, and you must treat it as such. You must also learn the basic social media etiquette so that whatever you post, whatever you react to, reflects the principles, the ideas your client stands for. So you don't do something that brings the reputation of your client or brand you are assisting in this case down. You must be very, very careful because things can just go so bad on social media within a twinkle of an eye. But this is an area that clients would need you for. For the past seven years, I've been assisting clients in this area. And you may not know clients I have worked with and managed their social media because I need to uphold confidentiality. And whenever I'm responding for clients, I don't respond with my voice. I respond with their voice. And most times, the people don't even know that it is a virtual assistant or an executive assistant that has just responded to them. They feel the warmth. They feel that personal touch. It is someone from Nigeria doing that. That is what separates the virtual assistants or the executive assistants that are up here from those that are down here. So you must master this skill.

So the last skill that you need to master as a virtual assistant is website management. I'm not talking about building a website, but you see, when your client or the organization you work for has a website, they would need you to manage their website. What it means is, there are times you would have to update content, check for performance, help to improve the search engine optimization, almost some things around in the website. They would need you in this area, and it is good you understand these basics.

So these skills are very, very important. These are not by any means exhaustive. But I tell you, if you are able to master these eight skills I've shared with you as a virtual assistant and you are doing so well, see, you know who you are. You are a top-rated virtual assistant. And when you work for anyone, the person can testify that you made their life simple. You made their lives organized. You made their business better, and they would want to keep you by their side always.

The next thing we'll be looking at are the tools and tech you need to excel in these areas. I'm going to share with you the basic tools you need. There are some I will not be able to do a drill-down on. You have to go and learn how to do that. But this will give you a great start to understanding these tools. There are some I'm going to explain in detail, others I'm just going to mention. I expect you to do a follow-up study on this and become exceptional. We've talked about who a virtual assistant is. We've talked about who an executive assistant is. I've also shared with you the skills you need to have to excel as a virtual assistant. Let's look at the tech. Some tools you need to understand and use effectively to add value to the life and the business of your client.

Before we go into these tools, if you have not subscribed to this channel, do hit the subscribe button and drop a like for this video as you continue watching.

The first tool you need to master is Google Workspace. Come on. If you are watching this video right now, you most likely have a Google account, but you need to understand what that Google Workspace offers. In terms of Google Workspace, I'm going to walk you through the basic tools you need to understand how to use in the Google Workspace. We are going to move to the practical session. But for now, I just want to walk you through some of these tools. Do a very brief summary of them, and we move to the practical session. When we talk about Google Workspace, what should come to your mind is Gmail for communication. Google Calendar for creating and managing appointments. You need your Google Docs for creating documents and for sharing information. You need your Google Drive for storage of files and documents. You need your Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, and Google Forms for creating documents for different uses.

Just as you need to understand Google Workspace, you also need to master Microsoft Suite or what we now call Copilot 365. You don't need the entire tool in that workspace. But you need to understand how to use Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and PowerPoint to create documents. You need to understand how to use Outlook also, which is like Gmail for communication. And you need to understand how to use OneDrive, which is also a cloud-based storage system like your Google Drive for storing information. So these two, they are very similar. Microsoft Suite or your Microsoft 365 and your Google Workspace. It is not either this or that. It is both this and that. If you know how to use Microsoft 365, you should know how to use your Google Workspace because most individuals and businesses that use Microsoft documents or Microsoft 365, they also use Google Workspace in one way or the other. So try to understand these tools.

The next tool we'll be looking at is Asana. Asana is a task management, task sharing, and project timeline visualization system. So with this, you can assign tasks to people within your team. You are able to visualize where people are in a task that has been assigned. You are also able to put deadlines to these tasks. So it is used basically for project management because as a virtual assistant, you need to understand the project that your business, the business you are supporting, or the individual you are supporting is into. You should be able to put this in a project management system like Asana and split it down to tasks, manage this, so that you are able to assist the organization to reach the goal within a set time. So you need to know how to use Asana.

Closely related to Asana is Trello, which is a Kanban-style task or project management system. With this, you can collaborate with members of your team in managing tasks and projects. You can also sync it with communication platforms or systems like Slack.

Now let's talk about Slack. Slack is used for communication and sharing files or documents within an organization. Slack is so well integrated globally that most small businesses and big companies use Slack for internal communication. You should be able to understand the Slack interface, know what channels are, be able to communicate with people either direct messages or in groups because once you get a contract to work with an organization or an individual as a virtual assistant or executive assistant, as the case may be, you most likely will be invited to a Slack environment. Come on. If you are asked during the interview, "Do you use Slack or do you know how to use Slack?" You should not say no at all. You should not say no. That is why you need to understand what Slack really is. In the practical session, I'll walk you through the interface of Slack so that you have a snippet of how Slack looks like and prepare your mind to be able to use Slack.

You can see that these tools I'm sharing with you are so related to the tasks you need to perform as a virtual assistant. Whether you are creating documents, you are filing documents, you are assisting in scheduling of meetings, appointments, or you are managing social media.

Talking about social media, you need to understand how to use simple tools like Canva. With Canva, you can create content for social media. You can also create presentations. And one exciting thing about Canva is that it has a ton of templates you can easily adapt to create amazing designs. So you need to understand how to use Canva. Most of the templates are free. So with your Gmail, you can create a Canva account. Look at the template. You can start creating something today. It can be a social media post. Just "Happy Birthday." Just think of something. It can be a quote social media post. Just think of it. You can start creating today to get an idea of how to use Canva. You can also collaborate in terms of designing because what you created, you can share it with members of your team. They can look through it, can make one or two inputs before your final draft is out. There is a lot you can do with Canva, from portfolios to presentations to recreating and other forms of social media content. Canva is well implemented, makes designing easy for everyone. So as a virtual assistant, you should know how to use Canva.

Another tool you need to know how to use because it is well implemented globally is Notion. Notion is a one-stop workspace for notes, for tasks, and for databases. Your company's SOPs and different other documents are stored in Notion. Different documents, just think of it, they are stored in Notion. Other strategies of the company, the goals, the vision, these things companies usually add them on Notion, either Notion or Confluence, so that new employees can go there for their onboarding session to understand the basic things they need to know about the company, just as they are diving in. So you need to understand how to use Notion, how to adapt templates to create documents for the purpose of your organization.

Beyond these tools I've listed, as a virtual assistant, you must also learn how to use some time management systems, either for your own productivity or to track the time you are investing per task. Your client will want to see what you are doing for the hours they are paying you for. If you get a job through Upwork, Upwork has made that easy through the Upwork timer. When you are working, in so far your Upwork timer is on, at intervals that you may not be able to predict, the timer takes a screenshot of your computer and logs it somewhere that your client can see. So your client sees that, "Come on, this person is working." If you are not doing meaningful work, they are able to tell because the thing also records the number of times you move your mouse, the number of mouse clicks, and the number of times you click on your keyboard. So they can predict that, "Come on, are you really working or you are just playing or fooling around?" There are other time management systems or time tracking systems like Toggl. We'll go into this later in a practical session. But suffice to say that you must learn how to manage time and know these time management systems for your own productivity. You should know how to use Pomodoro timers. Pomodoro work technique basically is working at intervals and resting at intervals so that you don't get tired. You can have 20 minutes work time, 5 minutes rest time, or 25 minutes work time, 5 minutes work time. So for every 1 hour, you have rested for 10 minutes. With that, you don't get tired. You are able to work throughout the day. I use that timer just to boost my productivity. You should know how to do this because what you do as a virtual assistant, especially as an executive assistant, is to save your client time so that they can invest the time you are saving them into some other business endeavor that will yield 5x, 10x the amount they are paying you. If you are not able to do that, what is your value? So for you to be able to save someone time, you must know how to redeem your own time. You must know how to manage your own time, and it is important you know how to use these time management tools or software.

Now that I've walked you through the periphery, the summary of these tools, we'll go into our computer right now. I'll walk you through the practical aspect of this with our Google Workspace. We are going to create documents. We are going to save documents in the cloud-based storage system. You will have an idea on how to go about this. We are still going to do that for our Microsoft 365 and move to Canva. Just go around some of these tools and get an idea of what they are about. What I'm trying to do here is to remove that fear you have, to break the ice. I expect you, beyond this short practical session, to do a deep dive. I'm just pouring water on your body so you know that the water will not kill you. But I want you to express that immersion. Do a deep dive. Zero in on each of these tools and spend hours to create documents. Use them so that you gain some level of proficiency to be able to add value to the life of the person who has employed you or to the business of that person.

So the first thing you need to understand when you want to use Google Workspace is that you need to have a Google account, a Gmail account. When you have a Gmail account, you can go to the Workspace just from your email or anywhere in your Google Chrome. So let me walk you through how to go about that and the tools within the Workspace that you really need to understand. They are the ones that are frequently used by so many persons, and it is important that you know how to use these tools as well.

So the first thing, this is my Google Chrome. I'm trying to log into my Gmail. So I'm going to add my password. Since I've added my password, it's going to log me in. And um, this is a Google Sheet, but this is not what I want to show you. So I'll come here. Since I'm already logged in, this is my Gmail. If I click on the Gmail, it will take me to Gmail. But that's you can click on this place. Look at what I'm clicking, this square at your top right-hand side. It will take you to the Google Workspace. You can click on a new tab here up here. Click on this new tab. Just wait for it to fully load. Here is Google Search. You can search for anything here. Doing your internet research here. When you come here, you see Gmail. If you click on this, it will take you to your Gmail, which you use for communication. You also see here Images. You can access your images you have saved in your Google Drive here. Then you see your Google Apps, which are the tools you need to be able to do several things that your clients may need you to do as a virtual assistant. So click on this. You are going to see a set of tools. The first thing you see is your Account. You can do some edits to your account here. Then you see Google Drive. I said Google Drive is a cloud-based storage system where you store files, information for use. The beautiful thing about this cloud-based storage system, it is easy to store. It is easy for you to move files or data around, and it is easy for you to share with people in different parts of the world. So it aids collaboration, and because it is cloud-based, it saves you a lot of space in your office, saves the trees because you don't need to use a lot of paper, and it's very cheap to maintain. If you have a Google account, a Gmail account, you have access to this without paying. But if you want to scale, you need to pay for their monthly subscription. That gives you more space for you to store information online on your Google Drive. So we are going to come back to Google Drive later. This is the Gmail also. You have YouTube. YouTube is owned by Google as well. This is Google Maps, which we use for navigation or looking for addresses. Then you have your Google Search here. Also, you have your Google Calendar. You have your Google Meet for video real-time communication or meetings. Then you have your Google Photos here as well. This is your Google Sheet. This is your Google Docs, and this is your Google Slides. We are just going to keep it there. Others like Google Play for downloading apps. You have Google Shopping, Google Finance, Classroom, Google Chat, just like WhatsApp chat, but it is not commonly used by so many persons, but I mean organizations that use that. Now I come down for you to see Google Forms. You also have Google Travels, you have Google Contacts, Google Books. You see your Chrome, you have your password manager, and all that. But for the sake of this course, what we'll be focusing on will be Google Docs. We'll focus on Google Docs. We'll focus on Google Sheets. We'll focus on Google Slides. Then we'll move from there to Google Forms. And later on, we are going to handle Calendar as well as Google Drive. These are the things we'll be focusing on because these are the things that will be required of you the most as a freelancer.

So let's start with Google Docs. I told you if you have used Microsoft Word before, Google Docs is like Microsoft Word, but with this, anything you are editing, real-time, you are able to see that. This is not what I was supposed to click. So let me just go back. So when you open your Google Doc, you are going to see files you have created previously here, right? Why? When you look at this top part, just in case you've not created any file before, you see recent documents. You are going to see click here where you have this plus. This is a blank document for you to start creating. If you don't have an idea and you are thinking of templates to use. If you want to create a resume, this is a template for creating a resume. This is a template for resume. If you want to write a letter, this is a template for writing a letter. If you are if your intention is to do a proposal, this is a template for proposal. This is a template for brochure. When you click here up here, you are going to see many more templates. You click, you see, it takes you to different templates. You see them, resume, personal resume for chef, pet resume. I didn't know pets do have resumes. You have that also. Then for work things like brochure, onboarding notes, meeting notes, newsletter, you just have them here. Proposal, you have them under work. Newsletter again. And you even have some agreement templates for agreement. So what the templates, what these templates do for you is that if you are having writer's block, like you've been given a task, you don't really know how to go about it, you open the template, you look at what has been done previously, you can adapt that template and create something for yourself. So we have a lot of templates here, but for the sake of this course, I'll just click on a blank template.

Now, this is a blank template. The first thing you want to do is you come to the title of this Google Doc. I just highlighted that. I want to say this is "VEA Course Training Test Document." So I have this. You see here I can see click on templates just to pick anything I want to do here. Anything. I just pick on something like this, for example, insert, just to make this quick. We are trying to create a document. It will load. So all I have to do here, I created a document. Whatever the document, this is a document I've created. This document is created already. So what do I do? I can do a lot of tweaking to this document. If you come to this upper part, this is where you are able to edit. Let's say I select something here. I'm able to do a lot of editing here. If I want to cut it, if I made a mistake, I want to undo that. If I want to redo what I have undone, these are the places I go to. I can copy it. I can paste with this. I can paste without formatting. Which means that when I paste, the environment where I'm pasting this particular information, the information will take the format of that environment, does not take the format of the previous environment. For example, if I colored this thing yellow, let's say the ink is red. This is a format. If I come here, if I paste it here, it will still be red. The only way for me to paste it that it will not be red is what you saw here, "Paste without formatting." It takes the format of the new environment you have pasted it. So that is what you call paste without formatting. So you can do a lot of editing here. Why here is view, the different modes you want to use to see your document. Here is format. You can format the text. If you want it to be capitalized, this is capitalization. The size, you can tweak it here. If you are looking for superscript, if you are looking for subscript, this is where you do those tweaking in Google Docs. It's not so. There are some little changes between, there are some little differences rather, I mean to say, between Google Docs and Microsoft Word, but you can navigate that. Just come to this dashboard, you'll be able to move around here. You have tools you can use, like checking your grammar to see whether it's correct. Your dictionary is here. You also have e-signature for those who have premium. You can sign documents here. Now you have extensions. If you need help, you can also get help there.

Now, this place you have File. You can make a copy of this document. For example, someone gave you a Google Doc and you cannot edit the Google Doc because you do not have such right or privilege to the document. You can make a copy that your copy you made for yourself. You can edit it. So here you can share right from this place. When someone says, "Create a document," your boss says, "Create a document." For example, as a virtual assistant, you have created this document, and your boss is saying, "Share with me." You can come here and share here. You can email this file to someone. If you are just going to send it through email, you can download it. When you download it, you choose the format. Microsoft Word format, Open Document format, you can do Rich Format, Rich Text Format, PDF. Which is, I know the common ones are Microsoft and PDF. You can download this and share it with someone through other means, WhatsApp, whatever means you want to use to share. You can also rename the document. You can move. Now, this move, this document, you are moving it into your Google Drive. Now, as you have created this information and you want to move it in a way that you are able to put it in a file in your Google Drive. Now, I use the word file to give you a picture of an office and filing system. In this, in this scenario, you call that folder. So you create different folders in your Google Drive where you store these data. For example, we have created the "VEA Course Training Test Document." If I want to create a folder now, I will create a folder for VA. I'll create a folder for contract. So you know that anything related to VA will come into that particular folder. In that VA, I can still create other folders within that VA. There I will do training. I will do test. Just name it. So the Google Drive is for storing information. Excuse me. The main way to share, in case you are not using this part, is to come to this place and click Share. Now, when you click Share, we want to share this document. Now it's loading. You see, this is the owner, me, the one who owns the document. Then you see it is restricted. Only people with access can open this document. It means if you don't have access to this my email address, you cannot open the document. If I share it with you, if I share the link with you, you cannot access the document unless I give you access. How do I give access? I share it. So for example, I'm going to share it with my email address. So I click here. Since I've used this account to share and communicate to people before, it will just suggest different people communicated with. So I'll click here. Now, you can, through this place, give different levels of privileges to the person you are sharing it with. You can click Viewer. The person can only view the document, read it, but cannot comment. He cannot edit it. Commenter can view the document, highlight, and drop some comments. You will see the comment, but he's not able to alter the original document. But Editor can alter the original document in different ways. If the editor alters the document, there is still a way for you to get back to your old document. It is called versions. You are able to restore to previous versions. So I'm giving full privilege. I'm giving full privilege to my other email address. So I'll give editor privilege. You can add a short message here. "Hey Eric, this is the file you asked me to create. Let me know if you have any questions." So I'll just drop a short note. So it will come to the person as an email send. This is one way to share.

Now, when you have shared it this way, another way to share, you can copy. You see, Eric is now, you see the people I've shared it with under here. Eric is now an editor, but the owner is "Get Up and Get Rich." What I can do here, I can copy this link. If I copy this link and share it with Eric, if Eric is signed on, if Eric has signed in with this email address, Eric can access the document. But with any other email, Eric would have to request access. But a way to make the information general, this document accessible to all is to click this place and change it to "Anyone with link." Anyone with link is updating. It means that anyone with link can view this document, wherever this link is. So I just have to copy the link. Anywhere I paste that link, you can view the document. Let me show you from here. I've copied the link. I'll come to this place. I open my incognito window. I've opened the incognito window. I just paste this here and play. Enter. You see, I don't need to have access. I don't even need to sign into Gmail to be able to access the document we just created. But same thing I did just now. If I change this place now to, if I change this thing back to restricted, and this, I come back to my incognito window. I open an incognito window again and paste. Just see what will happen. It's requiring me, it's requiring me to sign in to be able to access this document. So that is just the difference between when you change the access to the document you have created. I change to "Anyone with a link."

Now, that is it for Google Docs. The next thing I want us to look at, having seen Google Docs, is to move to the next one I told you we want to do. This is Google Sheets. Now, Google Sheets is like Excel. Same principle. You will see the documents you have created previously. You are going to see them here. You are going to see templates also. And in your templates, they are templates for different things. Templates you can just adapt. Travel planner. You want to develop a travel plan for your boss as a virtual assistant. Wedding planner. Your boss is planning a wedding and needs assistance. You can use this template, adapt it, and create something. Team roster for your team. Invoice. There are a lot of things you can actually do. Weekly time sheet, expense report, purchase order, employee sheet schedule. Several things you can easily do. You'll be required to do. You can even use it for project management, like Gantt charts, creating a Gantt chart or project timeline, project tracking, event marketing timeline, and for education, like attendance. You understand? You see, you have attendance, you have grade book, you have assignment tracker. So you can use this for so many things. But as I did earlier, I'll do again. I am creating a fresh sheet. So I'll just come here. Um, I have my "Monthly Chat with Eric Session," where I train people or I share with people things they need to know to excel and make money online. So let's say I've asked my assistant or I am an assistant. I've been asked to create a kind of a record in a Google Sheet of people who registered for the session and people who attended, so that we can plan effectively for them. This actually a simple sheet. I'm just going to put "Month" here. I'll put "Attendance." No, I'm going to put "Registration." Registration. I'm going to put "Number of reminder emails." Right. If I click on double-click on this, it will adjust on this vertical line. It will adjust to fit the size. Then I'll put "Attendance." I can even put "Views people that view the video 24 hours."

First 24 hours. So this is a simple sheet I've created. So let's say just say January, um, February, March. So there are there are things you can do with these sheets. You see what I just did? Just by dragging it, it will just pick the other uh dates of the other month of the year rather. So I've done this to make this thing look different because this is the uh heading. I'll just come here, change the color to black while I'll change this text to white. So I can just put different numbers. The first month, let's say 1,200 people registered. Second month, 1,500 registered. Second month, 1,600. [Music] The second month, 1,600 registered. This other month, you just have 1,700.

So what I'm going to do now, same thing I did. So reminder image two, three, four. I'll just drag it. Once you drag it this way, it will since the first three numbers or the first two numbers, they follow a similar pattern, it will just follow, take that pattern downward. I drag it also. But you, you have to fill in your right information. So attendance, usually the attendance is often lesser than people who register in most cases. So, uh, let's say for 1,200, I had 1,000 people attend. 1,100. We have 1,200. So let's do that. Same way, drag it down. So for views, views will be more than those who register most times. So here we had 1,400, uh, 1,500, 1,600. So let's see. Let's say 1,600, 1,700.

So, same principle here. I'll drag it. You see this thing I just did. Now I've done a simple. Oh, let's drag this to so that it doesn't take the average of the three figures and give us what we just have. So this, you have clean figures now. So I've created a Google Sheets record of people who registered, the number of emails we sent to remind them, and the attendance, as well as views on the YouTube channel every 24 hours. You can do a lot of tweaking. You see these are featured formats you can use to make your sheet finer than it is right now. And you can pick anyone. For example, if I click here now, I will get, I can just right-click this place, convert to a table. You see this? This is final, right? I actually prefer this. So, uh, they added this not quite long, and I use this a lot. It makes your table finer, cleaner. You can delete the rows that you have not used. You can delete the, uh, columns you have not used.

So the horizontal lines, the horizontal part of these, uh, sheets, they are called rows. What I mean by horizontal, I mean lines like this. Let me highlight it. This is a row. This is a row. Horizontal, moving from your, uh, left to your right, horizontally. These are rows. Why moving from top to bottom or up to down? These are columns. So if I click on this, if I want to add a row, it will tell me insert row above or insert row below. But when I click on this, I want to click on this column. If I click on this, insert column left or insert column right. So by the, at the time you finish this, uh, sheet, you can choose when you finish this sheet, you can choose to delete what you have not, uh, used.

So what do you do? You just highlight everything. I prefer this because it makes it makes, um, the work look cleaner, but not everyone requires you of require it of you. Some persons don't mind, but personally, I want to be, I want to remain part of the top 1%. So I put in an extra effort to make my work look really, really fine when my client sees it. And that is what I'm training you to be also. So just, I'm highlighting down. So it's usually when you highlight from up down, it's usually 1,000, uh, 1,000 rows, while the column is from E to Z, 26, uh, columns. So I'll just highlight down and delete. Take note, you can add as many rows as you want to add. You can add as many columns you want to add, but I think it is unnecessary because you'll be causing a person to scroll, scroll, scroll, scroll. I don't know the information you cannot split in a way that it, it will be very understandable to anyone who is seeing it. So most times, I think it's not useful for many of the situations you need it for. I right-click. I'll delete rows from 14 to 1,000. So you see everything is clean.

In the same vein, in the same vein, you can edit here. You click on this file, you can import an Excel sheet here and work on it. Here you can share, email, download. When you are downloading, you download as Microsoft Excel, a PDF, web page. You can do all these here also. You can still move it to trash. You can move it to somewhere in your Google Drive from here. So you can open another document here. You can format here, the numbers you want to, if you want to make it money. You see when you are formatting, they are different. In date, you can do several types of formatting here. Data. You can sort the sheet. You can filter the sheet. Let's not go into those details. But you should learn how to sort, how to filter as in virtual assistant. It makes life easy for you. If I'm, if I want to look for information, let's say, uh, people that have a particular repeated, uh, occurrence, I can sort it out and I can tell you the number of months that was repeated. But in the end, you can share the document. Same principle with sharing a Google Doc. So you just come here, share with Eric, and you can send a note also, make him an editor. Voila, you have shared this document. So this is pretty easy. That is how to use, uh, a Google Sheets.

So very quickly, I will just take you through one more and, um, that will be all for now. Let's, so very quickly, I want to take you through Google Calendar. We'll come back to Google Slides very quickly. Let's look at, uh, Google Calendar. So Google Calendar is for managing appointments. You are able to schedule appointments for your clients. You have interacted. All you just have to do, you see the calendar here. You pick a date and, uh, create an event, an event. You can create a task also. Event, meeting, Eric can do, and Eric one. You can put the purpose, arrow contract, next steps. The guest you are inviting, you put the email address of the person here. Why, as you move it, join with Google Meet, you are going to add a, sorry, automatically there's a Google link here already that has been added for you. If it's a physical location, you will put the physical location. You can add description, add a Google. So you see by clicking save, I have saved this meeting. Eric will get a notification that this meeting has been scheduled. So that is what your, uh, Google Calendar does. You are able to create from here, you see create. You are able to create events, tasks, appointments, schedules, and you are able to manage appointments as well. You can move things around. For example, this thing is more possible, and you have chatted with this person that, um, your client was supposed to meet with. You have agreed to have this meeting at a different time. So what you need to do, you can just carry this and move it to that different time. That is one way of doing it. You can just move this thing around, or you come here. The other way is to click on it and, uh, you edit the time, the new time, and the person will get a notification. So this is the other way of doing it. You have agreed. You have agreed to have this, um, meeting at a different time. So you just change the date here. Edit it to any other date, any other time you want to have it. Um, you can add a note. You can change the time zone. This is West African time. Just in case you are working with a client in the US, you're working with a client in the UK or in Australia, watch this time zone. It's very important. Uh, preferably make it the time zone of the person you want to meet with to avoid confusion. Just make it the time zone of whoever you are having this meeting with. You make those edits, and the, uh, Google will give you a notification 30 minutes before the meeting, uh, through email and a notification. Here you can choose which one you prefer. You can change it to 10 minutes, you can change it to, uh, okay, this is still loading. You can change it to 10 minutes. You can change it to 1 hour and days before the event. When you are done, you click on save, and it will ask you if they should send an information to the persons you've scheduled it with before. So what you just have to do here, you can drop a short note just in case you have not had that back and forth with the person. Then you say send and click. Then it's, it has moved. It has moved. So what you use your calendar for is for appointment scheduling of event, task, and appointment management. You use it for planning also. Uh, so that is for the calendar.

Click on this place again where you have your Google Workspace. We have seen, uh, your calendar. We have seen our sheet here. We have seen our sheets. We have seen Docs. Let's look at Slides. So for Slides, I'm going to use a template for it to be quick. But you can create a slide from the scratch also. So you see I've not created any slide before. So, all I just have to do here is to look at what I want to do. Uh, perhaps my boss has told me, Eric, we want to work on, uh, a yearbook, uh, for our new trade, our 2024 course. So, create something with Google Slides. This is a yearbook. I'll click on this place. So, it's going to open a template. What I need to do with the template is to adapt the template to fit my, uh, particular situation. So it is loading. When it's fully loaded, you will see the layer, the theme, everything. You can change the theme. Uh, you see this is actually very fine. You can change the theme here. You can, these are other, uh, themes that you can use. But I think I like this theme. Why the theme of the, uh, H document you are creating itself is, you can change that theme here. If I don't like this color, uh, I need something different, I can come here and change the theme. The background also, I can change the background here. It will give me different, uh, backgrounds that I can just pick from here. If I don't like any of these colors, I can change that by clicking here. I'll just move things around until I get the color I'm looking for. Uh, let's say I like this color. I click this automatically. I'll click on done. You see the color has changed. So you can change background, picture, anything. And I'll just put here, um, yearbook 2025 cohort yearbook. Once I've done, I'll change this place, the title of the document, 2025 cohort yearbook. I've changed that. You add document, assuming that these are the pictures, you will add your company logo, pictures of people. You see the way it is, just capture very beautiful moments. You've created this already. Same thing, you can, if, if you are presenting this, you can click slideshow so that you have, you want to show your team what you have done, just click here. That's why it is Google Slides. It will open like this. Uh, this is what I've done, you understand? They are able to enjoy everything you have created. All you did here was to use a template, at best, you use a template, you change pictures, move things around, you are done with it. Same principle, you can edit it to view it in different formats. Then you can share it. When you have created a document, you share within your comm, your company, or whoever has asked you to share it to create it, or wherever you have been asked to share it with. So we have this already. This document is created. So we are done with Google Slides.

The one we would consider again is Google Forms. I'll click here. Let's see Google Forms. For Google Forms, you're going to come down a bit. Um, yes, by the way, you can move it up if you so choose. So, you are creating, you have an event, you want people to register for the event, you have to create a form so you can get the details of the people. So, you can create from the scratch. If it's a party you are inviting them for, you just party invite. I'm using a template now. I don't want to create from the scratch, but you can create from the scratch. So, just do that. Here you are going to write a description of your party. You get it? You are going to write, what's your name? Can you attend? The person says yes. So you know people who are attending the company. How many of you are attending? Are you coming with your spouse? Are you coming with your kids? You are able to have, so you plan properly. What are you bringing? So let us know what we are, we don't need to get you coming with salad, dessert, drinks, sides, or appetizer. Let us know. Do you have any allergy or dietary restrictions? Very important for people that have allergies. You must add this when you are planning an event, especially for in places where allergies are very common. What's your email address? You can ask for location. Any information you know is important. You can change this picture to the picture of the people. You can work on all this. All you have to do if you want to change this picture, for example, you click on customize theme. You see you can do a lot of customization. This is where the, you change picture. You can select picture from, you upload straight, or you can pick picture from any part. This is party. I'll pick this picture and insert it. What would happen? This picture would change immediately. So when you are done creating this, you send a link to people. They will be able to fill in this form. With this, you have a Google Sheet where you analyze and plan effectively for your event. So if you are a virtual assistant and you are needed for event planning, you need to know how to use, uh, uh, Google Forms a lot. But before you are able to share, you need to publish it first. Publish. When you publish, it means it will be liked. So I'm publishing. Anyone with the link can respond. Nobody will be notified when publishing this form. Yes, it means after publishing, anyone with a link would be notified. So for this, you may share to people in your company and give them access. Let's share with Eric also. What do you want Eric to be a responder? No, Eric doesn't need this to be a responder. Just make him an editor because just by sharing the link with anyone, that person can respond. You can shorten the URL here. Shorten the URL to make it short. Yeah, you, you have the link. Paste it anywhere. Anyone clicks on that link, it can be, you can send it through an email, through social media. Anyone clicks on it will come to this form and be able to respond to the form. You have the information you are looking for.

So lastly, let's harmonize all we have been talking since we have gone through it all. We'll do that here with the Google Drive. I told you Google Drive is a cloud-based storage system. Now you see why I started with these other things. I left this for the last. We came to Google Drive. You see all the files. You see the files we've been creating, they are here. But they are scattered. Just imagine we've created, let's say, 10,000 files, documents, and you were asked to go and search for one. You don't know the title. You don't, you just be confused. To make things easy, what we are going to do, we are going to create folders first. So the first thing when you create here, you see you can create a new file, you can create a folder, but we are creating folders. You can upload folders by the way. So first, you put company events. We created one order. Let's create another one. Create under, uh, Virtual Assistant Training Course. We've created another one. We also have, um, yearbooks for different years. Then we can now move things around. For this file, where will it go to? It will go to yearbook. It has gone to yearbook. So, uh, we have event registration. So this will go to, uh, company event. So you can just start moving things around. Uh, registration party invite can go to company event. You can move it that way. The other way to move it is click on these three dots. You see organize, move. When you're moving, it will now ask you where are you moving this thing to in your folder? We are moving this to event. And once you click move here, it has moved. So when you ask someone, we are looking for this, the person knows where to go to. For this course, you can create another folder for this course and add, uh, live sessions. [Music]

Let's come back to this place. So for this one I created earlier, this Google Sheet, I want to move it to live session. What I have to do is to come here. However, I want to move it. I have organize, move first. I move to visual. Okay. To live session. Move. So when you come to, when you come to this place, for example, you are able to see live sessions. You click on this, you are able to see the document. So there are different ways you can harmonize or, uh, record, organize, I mean to say, organize your files in your Google Drive. The rule of thumb here is, organize in a way that it is easy to retrieve. It is easy for people to understand where you have kept what is not confusing to you is not confusing to others. So that is that for, uh, Google Drive. I've been able to walk you through, uh, some of the common tools in your Google Workspace, and I hope you find this useful. If you have a problem with any of the tools, perhaps I did not mention it here, and you have a problem, let me know. Also, I want you to tell me in the comment section which of these tools is your favorite, the one you use the most. Let me know in the comment section. So far, I've shared with you how to navigate the Google Workspace, use some of the commonly used tools, and be able to create documents with them, move things around, store, and share with others for effective collaboration as a virtual assistant.

In this segment, I'll be showing you how to use the Microsoft 365, the common tools in Microsoft 365 package, formerly known as Office 365. Why talking about Google Workspace? I use Microsoft as a reference point because the assumption here is that you most likely have interfaced or used a document created with, uh, Microsoft Word or Excel before. So I would be very quick with this, just take you and walk you around for the sake of those who have not really used these tools to that level where they are not comfortable. I'll be able to do a summary, trusting that you will do a deep dive so that you would become an exceptional virtual assistant beyond Microsoft 365. I will also walk you through Canva, Asana, Slack, Notion, and perhaps Trello. So, let's get back to work.

All right. What I did here is to open my Microsoft 365 Copilot, as it is called. Now, this is already in my system. So I just went to, uh, where my apps are, clicked, and I was able to open it. So now that it is opened, I would walk you through, uh, some of the components of this, uh, system. So this is the homepage. So what you're going to see, just like your Google Workspace, this is to create documents. This is, uh, to create presentation slides. This is workbook, Excel. This is form. You can do quiz here, list, and create video with, uh, Clipchamp. There are others you can, uh, make use of here. This is Outlook for email communication. We started by talking about Gmail for email communication. You could do that as well. So, uh, you send quick emails with Outlook. For Google Workspace, I did not give an example, uh, sending email because the assumption there is that you know, uh, to send email already. But you sign in, you are able to, uh, send email with Outlook, just as you do with, uh, your Gmail. This will require you to, to, to sign in. This is like your Gmail. So, you can create a new email. You can check. These are the emails I've not checked in my inbox. You can create a new one by clicking on new email and just send something to, for example, let's see, I can send something to my other email address now. The, the, now I can't tell in the, now the etiquette of proper email management is something you should learn, but this is not covered in this course. You should be able to know the etiquette of proper email management. There must be someone you are sending the email to, an email address. You can copy someone, carbon copy. The person will get the same thing you are sending. There's a blind carbon copy, which is BCC. The other person does not know that you've sent it to someone. So it's a blind carbon copy. Why? There must be a subject. This subject should be short and summarize the reason for the email. The CEO has requested a meeting with you this week to discuss contract and get it started. So this is a short email with CEO. You have the person you are sending it to. This is the sender. You have the, uh, subject, and you have the email. The body starting with a salutation and the main point, which is the body of your email. Then ending with, uh, your greeting and your signature. The person sending, "Dear Eric, my CEO has requested a meeting with you this week to discuss the contract and get things started. Please send some possible time slots that work for you. Warm regards." No long talk. So you click on send. There are a lot of things you can check. Send. You can move it to draft. You can schedule an email. You can do this either with your Gmail. You can do this with your Outlook. This is just what I want to establish talking about, uh, Microsoft 365.

What I'm doing is to take you back to the Microsoft 365, uh, homepage. So you see documents here, and you can see some of the documents I have created here already. Some of the, uh, this is a slide document I've created. You see everything down here. You are able to move things around in your OneDrive, which is your cloud-based storage system. So let's just look at, uh, documents. Let's click on documents. This would open up for us. So when it opens up, same thing, you have templates which you see. You have templates which you see. You can actually write with anything here. Same. You can edit it here. You can draw on it with your stylus. You can add design, layout. Whatever it is, at the end of the day, always remember to put a name to your document. You will save your document before you, you come here. You put a title. Test. That is after you have typed and you have created this document, you can share here also, just as I showed you sharing for, uh, the case of Google Docs. You can share here, and others will get the document. So that is that for document. This automatically saves because I have linked everything here to my OneDrive. And since I'm connected to the internet, everything I'm typing here saves automatically, just as your Google, uh, Doc does. So that is, this is Microsoft Word. Same thing applies. I can get out of this place now and come back to this place. Presentation, same thing applies here. My PowerPoint is opening. Just click here. Your first slide will appear. Same principle, you can get templates, and this will just help you in what you want to do rather than create new. What I did now is to create. If I wanted to create templates, I would have just done so from the very beginning. So you can create slides like we saw then. That is one way of doing it. You can come here also. This is, uh, Excel. See, if you can master, if you can master Excel as a virtual assistant, there is a place for you. So Excel is broad. You can use Excel to do a lot, even data analysis. It's massive. So this is Excel. You can do a lot with it, just as we did with our Google Sheet. Then you can do even more with Excel. You can do even more with Excel. I can't, I can't possibly just tell you the things you can do. When you click here, you see different. You see, see these tools here. You have them here. Your forms, everything, just by clicking on this square. For Google, it is on your top right hand. For Microsoft, it is on your top left hand side. So you can create those things here. You can click on more. It is massive. There's a lot you can, you can do with this. So basically, what I'm trying to show you here is, you create this, eventually you can move things around in your OneDrive. Click on these apps, it will take you to the different apps you have here. These are the apps in the Microsoft 365 Copilot. Uh, Teams for communication is like Slack also, or team communication. Then you see OneDrive. OneDrive is a place where you can now create folders. Like I told you, imagine office files, and you are able to move these documents you have created. You see pictures here. These are pictures there. You are able to move them. This is the one we created earlier. This is the Excel we created. This is the slide we created. This is the Google Word document we created. I have many others here. You are able to move things around. You have files here. If you want to do more, just come here, create a folder, uh, training documents. So I told you, just like, uh, Google Drive, is OneDrive is a cloud-based storage system. So we just created, uh, a folder. In that folder, we can move the things that we have created to the one folder, and it will be easy for us to organize and share with people as we work in an organization. So that basically is, uh, Microsoft, uh, 365, what you can use it to do. It's, it's an amazing, uh, tool you can use for your career as in virtual assistant.

So, uh, basically, I'll just walk you through some of the common tools you need. Your Microsoft Word, your Microsoft Excel, your Microsoft PowerPoint, your OneDrive, your Outlook, and Teams. You can use Clipchamp to do short videos of about 30 minutes and share with your team. Just for example, you are explaining something for a colleague who is standing in for you because something happened, you took ill, you can use Clipchamp to do that.

Earlier, I shared with you that Asana is a project and task management system. You can use this to manage tasks for yourself, as well as people within a company you work with. You can use it also to manage projects. So this is an Asana dashboard. This is my homepage. Today is Monday, May 19th. Good morning, Eric. Here I can see zero tasks completed. Um, I see my upcoming tasks for today. If I click here, I'll be able to see overdue. I don't have any overdue tasks. I click, click here. I have completed the one I completed on Friday. So you are able to add tasks. You have different, uh, projects also. You have general tasks, you have creating system, you have different projects, you also have different teams. This way you can collaborate with different teams within the organization. You are able to have that. Now you have insight, goals have been created, portfolios, reporting. You can spend some time, watch videos. Asana creates videos on how to navigate. They even have certifications. Use their platform. But just know that this is a task project management system. You can also store information about your company goals that will guide people so that they, within the platform, they are able to, uh, collaborate, share, uh, information, share files. Like a Google Doc you have created, you can share the link here. A sheet you have created, you can share it here. So that as team members work, they have the information they need to carry on the task and complete the project that they need to complete. One thing here is assuming that one of these tasks I have completed it by clicking this, it just goes, mark as completed automatically. What you see here, one task is completed. If I click on this, I can see more details about that task here. I can add more details to it. Description of the task, date you need to be completed, and all that. I can add those information here. I can click here and attach a file. I can choose a file from Dropbox, Google Drive, OneDrive. I can drag it here. I can upload a file also from my computer and share here. I can like this. I can just do a lot. Copy this link and share it with someone I'm working with. Full screen here. More here. There is a lot I can do. So I can create subtasks. I can create follow-up tasks. I can convert this task also to a project. I can duplicate it. I can print it. I can add it to project. I can add it as dependency. That means this project, another project is depending on it. So I can link it together. So that you have to fulfill that one for this one to go on. I can do it the other way around also. So this is Asana, a very wonderful tool, well implemented. You, if you are learning how to use Asana and you just want to learn, understand the interface as a virtual assistant, I recommend that you use their trial period to navigate the platform because right now, you pay to use Asana. There is no more free version. You pay monthly to use it. But there is a trial period. There's a free period. Use it to learn it because it's a tool you need to know how to use as a virtual assistant. So that is that for Asana.

The other tool I'll just share with you is, uh, Canva. So after Canva, I'll share Slack, then we are done with this practical section. You need Canva for your social media design, designing portfolios, designing resumes. Just think of any design you want to do. You can use Canva to do a lot. Designing thumbnails for YouTube. I use Canva most times. So design my YouTube thumbnail. You can, some of them on that. So you can use Canva to do a lot of designs. So, uh, this is the homepage. When you sign in, you click here. You are going to see your previous designs. Uh, it will open up. You are able to pick perhaps you want to tweak one of these designs for, uh, certain purpose. You will see that there. You click on these other templates. You are going to see, uh, several templates that you can select from for your design. Uh, you can also use Canva AI as well to, you just give a prompt and the AI is able to give you what you want. But here is where you create. You click on create. Yeah. When you click on create, you are able to, if it's a thumbnail you are looking for, you can adapt one of these thumbnails and create what you want to create. If it is logo, this for YouTube thumbnail, you create new. This logo, you create, let's say you want to create a logo for a brand. All you have to do is to click on this. It takes you to a new, uh, page for you to create the logo. The beautiful thing about Canva here is that while you are creating, you can click on design, and you have ideas of designs you want to adapt to your particular situation and just do a few tweaks. You have created a design that you can share with your organization. You can post on social media, as the case may be. Look at what I'm saying. Want to create a logo. You see different ideas are coming up already. Uh, you see these are different ideas of logos that you can pick from. I can just click on this. For example, this is a brand. You just create something from here. Bridget SWAT, just create, adapt this to your situation, your export. You can just change the color there. There are a lot you can just pick from and edit. So if you are into, uh, social media content creation, or you are working for an organization that's into social media content creation, as a virtual assistant, please, please go and learn how to use Canva. It is going to save you a lot. There are several things you can create with Canva, but at some other point, I'll do a video on how to use Canva to create portfolios. We'll be able to do a deep dive. But for today, this is what I want to show you.

So I want to walk you through Notion. I told you that Notion workspace, you can store information, you can manage projects, you can manage tasks, you can add your SOPs. It's like a go-to place for your company. It's a one-stop for information, resources, knowledge base that company creates. The most companies use either Notion or Confluence to do this, but I'm just showing you Notion. You can check out Confluence as an exceptional virtual assistant. You should be able to know, uh, some of these tools. So you see here, this is like the team space. Under the team space, you see the company own. So this is great for onboarding. You are bringing new people in. So people can come here, click on vacation policy, getting started. Usually, when you recruit someone, you, the person needs to go through your Notion page, understand what is going on. Morale event, benefit policy, expense policy, corporate travel, mission, vision, values, global offices, minutes of meeting. You have all these things here. You now see the company goals. You see the, uh, product foundation. You have everything here. All these are pictures of the global offices. This is company own. Now you come to creative project. Under the team space, you have, uh, this part. You can add several creative projects here. You move here to, uh, under page for goals, projects, and, uh, strategies. You have this also. Go project strategies. You have this. Anyone you click on, you have a lot of information. People working on this already. You see that now. You see video production tracker. You also have, but under this, you see people working on this, dates given, and all that. Then we move to, uh, podcast also. You have information, those working on different parts. You have standard operating process, SOP for the organization. You have SOP for different things. Email communication, email management, posting a video on Instagram, posting a video on TikTok, social media management. You store this so that people within your organization, when they are confused as to how do I go about this, the place to run to is Notion. You, as a special assistant, should know how to use Notion. So I highly recommend you learn about Notion. Know how to go, uh, know how to use the various, uh, tools and templates in Notion, how to collaborate with Notion. It would help you as a virtual assistant. What I've just done here is to show you the interface and just move you around using this as an example. When you come on, you can create more templates. You have templates here. Uh, you have so, so much, uh, here to learn. If it's for podcast, you are working with a podcast organization, this a template for podcast content calendar. Uh, you have, uh, many other templates you can use, even for wedding planning. You have these here. Some are paid, many are free. So you can use this and create for your organization.

You should know your way around Slack. Usually, when you are employed in a company, you will be given access to the company's Slack. The things you need to learn is this is Slack, for example. So this is the homepage of this Slack that I'm in. This is for direct messages to people within the organization. So if I want to DM, uh, someone, I'll just come here and, uh, uh, send a direct message to someone. So I can just send messages to anybody in this place. Just click on the name of the person and just shoot the person a message. This will pop up. So I can type a message here and send to this person. Now, beyond direct message, you come to activity. You'll see you all caught up. If there is a conversation going on in the community in your company and people are liking, commenting, you've not seen this, you come to activity, you'll be able to, uh, see them. Now you click on more. You also have templates. You have automations. But basically, what you should know about Slack here is this is for communication. You have channels as well. They create different channels. Just kind of look at channels like departments. So there are different channels. You see in a content manager, you have three members. You have art marketers connect, you have three members. Fiverr, you have two members. You have digital marketers connect, you have four members. Just see it as a period department. So anything that is posted here, it is only those persons within that channel that will see it. So it's help to kind of enable people within the Slack to be focused, not meddling into issues that do not necessarily concern them. So Slack is well implemented globally. As a virtual assistant, you should know how to use Slack. The essence of this video in this virtual assistant course that I'm taking you through free of charge is when you are being interviewed by a prospective client, and he said, have you heard of Slack before? You will not say no anymore because you've heard of Slack. I've shown the interface. All you just need is when you are employed, they will invite you to the community or to the, uh, company's Slack. You, with what I've shown you, you can find your way around and master, uh, this tool as an exceptional virtual assistant.

Congratulations to you if you have watched to this part of the video. You have seen from this video who a virtual assistant is. You have also learned the distinction between an executive assistant and an administrative assistant. You have learned the tools you need as a virtual assistant. You know what your role as a virtual assistant is, and I have walked you through a practical session of how to use some of the common tools and tech you need to succeed as a virtual assistant. I believe you did the practice along the video. If you did not, this video is a reference material for you. I want to appeal to you. Please don't complete this course until you try this on your own. Watch the video and practice it with a computer. So you know how to use these tools. You expose yourself to the interface. You understand how this system works, and you move from being a novice to someone who is proficient in these tools and tech for virtual assistants. But this is not the entirety of the video. If I teach you this and I do not tell you some other techniques like how to use AI to become very exceptional, and I do not show you how to get a job from different freelance platforms as a virtual assistant, I do not teach you how to manage yourself, the skills you have to excel. My job is not done. So in part two, I'll be walking you through what it takes to be a proficient, a top-rated virtual assistant, and how you can use these skills you are learning to earn good money for yourself and create a path to getting rich. If you have watched to this end, I believe you've been able to get off. When you watch part two, you will learn how to get rich. That is the essence of our community. Get up and get rich. If you have any question from all you have watched, if you have a part that is not clear, drop it in the comment section. We will attend to you. Also, remember you can click the link in the description to join the Get Up and Get Rich WhatsApp community where we mentor you daily to becoming very proficient in what you are doing. Too much talk already. Let's go to part two. Click this link and begin part two.

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