The best tools for your Pinterest VA business
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In the winter of 2017, I bought the course Elite Blog Academy with the dreams and desires to build a profitable blog. Starting a Pinterest VA business wasn’t on my radar when I bought EBA, nor was what tools for a Pinterest VA business were needed.
My goal was to have a blog that was producing the income that I had hoped to earn. My husband and I had set a drop-dead date of April 1st for my blog to be earning an income. If the blog wasn’t earning at least $1000 a month then I was going to have to get a J.O.B.
I felt the pressure of that date and I was worried I wouldn’t make it. The truth of the mater, I wasn’t consistent enough with my blog to reach that goal. I did earn some money from my blog, but not the $1000 a month goal.
If I hadn’t purchased Elite Blog Academy, I wouldn’t have learned about blogging. I also wouldn’t have learned the skills or the tools used in the Pinterest VA business.
If you have ever thought about starting a blog, I highly recommend Elite Blog Academy. It is the most comprehensive course that will take you from starting a blog to scaling your business. You can join their waiting list by clicking here!
Pinterest VA Business is a real thing!
Since I had all these skills from blogging. Skills like, content creation, image design, leveraging Pinterest to drive traffic to my site, and understanding search engine optimization. I knew these skills were marketable and I could leverage them to earn an income until my blog was producing an income.
Additionally, I already had a virtual assistant client and after lots of thinking and discussions around expanding my virtual assistant work, I did research on being a Pinterest VA. I found Gina Horkey and Kristen Larsen’s course Become a Pinterest VA Today.
I wrote a review of the course and you can read that by clicking here.
This post isn’t about becoming a Pinterest VA, it’s about the tools I use to grow my business as a Pinterest Manager.
Related: An Honest Review of Become a Pinterest VA today
Related: Easy tips for work-life balance when you work from home
What does a Pinterest VA Do?
You may be asking yourself what exactly a Pinterest VA does? A Pinterest VA or Pinterest Manager helps their clients schedule their Pinterest Images so they keep growing their Pinterest traffic.
There are many different services a Pinterest VA can offer. Scheduling, Pin design, and Promoted Pin management are just a few services you can offer.
What tools for a Pinterest VA business do you need?
Computer
My computer is the number one tool I use to run my Pinterest VA business. I use Google Chrome and I create a profile for each of my clients so I can just toggle between them. It makes it easy to work from anywhere.
Courses
Even though I had all the skills from blogging, I still felt it was important for me to take the course Become a Pinterest VA Today. That course is what launched me into my Pinterest VA business. Within 60 days of purchasing the course, I had already landed my first Pinterest VA client!
Pinterest Education
Prior to starting my Pinterest VA business, I took three Pinterest courses that are amazing! Jennifer Maker’s Pinterest Launch Strategy, Carly Campbell’s Pinteresting Strategies, and Pinning Perfect.
These 3 courses have taught me everything I need to know about Pinterest. I frequently go back to the courses when I have a question about something. They all have something to offer and they all have impacted my thoughts on Pinterest.
My favorite of the three courses is Carly Campbell’s Pinteresting Strategies. If you haven’t taken it, I would take it because it’s all about manual pinning. It was my first Pinterest course and it taught me more about Pinterest and understanding Pinterest’s platform than any other course.
Tailwind
Tailwind is the number one tool I use to help my clients grow their Pinterest reach. Without Tailwind I wouldn’t be able to have more than 2 clients at a time. My clients pay for their Tailwind account and then they give me access to it.
I use Google’s GSuite for email and keeping all my business organized. I also use Google sheets with each of my clients. They share a file with me that has all their blog posts and pin images on it and that is how I schedule out their content.
Pinterest Image Templates
The easiest way to create images fast is to use Pinterest templates in Canva. There are templates I purchased from Kara Fidd’s templates of Simplifying DIY Design. The templates I purchased are both Mega Pin Creator Bundle and The Complete Blogger Template Toolkit. These have been a lifesaver for me. I am not the best graphic designer, but with these templates, I feel like I am!
Recently I have been using templates that Carly Campbell made and they are amazing too! You can check them out here. These templates are for Photoshop but they are awesome!
Related: An honest review of The Complete Blogger Template Toolkit
Related: The best Pinterest Strategy for Bloggers that REALLY Works
Canva for Work
For graphics and creating images for Pinterest, I use Canva for Work. Canva is easy to use and they have templates already created which makes it even easier to create pinnable images. It doesn’t cost much and I write it off on my taxes.
Lastpass
Lastpass is a password sharing app. They have a widget that you download to your computer and then you send it to your clients and they enter the passwords. Passwords I need from my clients are for sites like Pinterest and Tailwind. Sometimes clients will share their passwords to Google Analytics and their websites, but that doesn’t happen that often.
Calendar
I am using a physical calendar to keep me organized. For a digital calendar, I also use Google’s calendar when I’m on the fly. Google’s calendar and Google tasks to help me keep my week organized. My physical calendar, I print out. It is the same one you can get if you join my mailing list. You can do that below.
How do I get paid as a Pinterest VA?
I bill my clients monthly. I have my services in packages so that my clients know exactly what they are going to get from me.
PayPal
Billing my clients was something that was completely new to me. I quickly learned how to create an invoice in PayPal that allowed my clients to pay me through a link in an email. There is a fee that PayPal charges for using their service, but it is a fee I can write off on my taxes.
Some other tools I use are a contract and DocuSign. These tools I don’t use as often as I use the above, only when a contract needs to be renewed, which I put a reminder in my calendar, and when I get new clients.
The tools for a Pinterest VA business help run a smooth business from home. After the initial investment of the courses I mentioned, the monthly expenses aren’t that great. I try and run a business with very low overhead.
Also, all the tools mentioned above my clients either pay for and give me access to their accounts or I write off the totals at the end of the year on my taxes.
How to I keep track of what I pay for?
I created a spreadsheet to help me track my expenses for the year. Every month I sit down and track how much I made for the previous month and how much was spent. Running a Pinterest VA business isn’t very costly.
Do you have a Virtual Assistant business or a Pinterest VA business? What tools do you use for your business?
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Stephanie has been blogging at Sticky Note Mom for 4 years. Before starting her blog she worked in the finance industry working on the floor of the Chicago Board of Trade to working for major financial institutions with personal financial planning and the mortgage industry. Now she shares all she has learned about frugal living to help others learn how to stop spending and start saving more.
