Course overview
A practical, tools-first program for anyone who wants to run a business’s day-to-day operations remotely — from a founder’s inbox to their entire customer pipeline — and prove it with real, hands-on work inside an actual CRM.
- Format: Self-paced, module by module
- Structure: 6 VA modules + 1 CRM practicum
- Prerequisites: None — computer literacy only
- Practicum tool: CUSREM CRM
Overview
Virtual assistants are hired for judgment as much as speed — a client hands over their inbox, their calendar, their client list, and trusts someone else to keep all of it moving. This program builds that trust from the ground up: it starts with the core craft of virtual assistance — communication, organization, the tools of a modern remote office — and ends with something most VA courses skip entirely: real, guided practice running a company’s actual customer relationships inside a working CRM, not a slideshow of one.
By the final module, a graduate can do more than answer emails on someone’s behalf. They can open a business’s CRM on day one of a new engagement, find their footing inside an hour, and start moving leads, quotes, invoices, and support tickets without needing to be walked through it.
What you’ll be able to do
- Run a client’s inbox and calendar to a professional standard, unsupervised
- Set up and troubleshoot the day-to-day Google Workspace stack
- Produce clean, on-brand assets with common design and communication tools
- Manage a business’s social presence and respond to customers online
- Capture and qualify a lead, and move it through a sales pipeline to close
- Build a quotation, convert it to an invoice, and record a payment against it
- Log and resolve a support ticket, and keep renewal follow-ups from slipping
- Work correctly inside role-based permissions on a real multi-user system
Part A — Virtual Assistance Foundations
Six modules covering the discipline itself: how a virtual assistant thinks, communicates, and works across the tools a remote office actually runs on.
Module 1 — Introduction to Virtual Assistance
What the role covers, where VAs fit inside a client’s business, and the habits — reliability, discretion, self-management — that separate a VA a client keeps for years from one they let go after a month.
Module 2 — Communication and Client Management
Setting expectations, reporting progress, and handling the awkward conversations — scope creep, missed deadlines, unclear instructions — that come with working for someone who isn’t in the room with you.
Module 3 — Email and Email Management
Inbox-zero systems, folder and label structures, delegated access, and writing on someone else’s behalf convincingly enough that the recipient never notices the handoff.
Module 4 — Google Apps: Productivity Tools
Docs, Sheets, Calendar, Drive, and Forms configured the way a busy office actually uses them — shared drives that don’t turn into chaos, calendars that don’t double-book, spreadsheets built for someone else to read.
Module 5 — Communication & Design Tools
Producing decent-looking, on-brand material fast — slide decks, simple graphics, video calls that run smoothly — using the everyday tools a VA is actually handed, not a professional design suite.
Module 6 — Social Media and Online Support
Scheduling and posting across a business’s channels, keeping a consistent voice, and handling comments, DMs, and public complaints the way a brand — not a stranger — would.
Part B — The CRM Practicum
Every module so far builds the individual working habits of a VA. This last one puts them to work inside the single system most client businesses actually run their customers through. Rather than a general theory of “what a CRM is,” this module is a guided walkthrough of one real, working platform — CUSREM — module by module, screen by screen.
Module 7 — Customer Relationship Management with CUSREM
By the end of this module, you’re not describing what a CRM does — you’re the person a business hands their CUSREM login to and trusts to run it.
7.1 Finding your way around
Logging in, reading the dashboard’s pipeline and renewal figures at a glance, and knowing which sidebar section a task belongs to before you go looking for it.
7.2 Leads & the sales pipeline
Capturing a new lead, assigning a source, and moving it through pipeline stages from first contact to won or lost.
7.3 Customers & contacts
Converting a won lead into a customer record, attaching contacts, notes, and documents, and logging calls and interactions as they happen.
7.4 Quotations, invoices & payments
Building a quotation from the product and price-list catalog, converting it to an invoice, and recording a payment against it correctly.
7.5 Tasks, calendar & renewals
Working from the task list and shared calendar, and running the renewal follow-up queue so no customer lapses from neglect.
7.6 Support tickets & the knowledge base
Logging a customer issue, replying inside the ticket thread, and drafting knowledge-base articles that answer the same question next time.
7.7 Campaigns & segments
Grouping customers into segments and sending templated email, SMS, and WhatsApp campaigns to the right group.
7.8 Roles & what you can see
Understanding CUSREM’s role-based permissions from the inside — why a Sales Rep’s view differs from a Finance user’s, and working correctly within whichever seat you’re given.
Who this is for
Career switchers
No remote-work portfolio yet, but organized, reliable, and ready to build one from module one.
Working VAs
Already freelancing on inbox and calendar work, looking to add real CRM fluency clients will pay more for.
Small-business hires
Brought on to run the office for a growing company that just adopted a CRM and needs someone who already knows it.
What you’ll learn
- Introduction to Virtual Assistance
- Communication and Client Management
- Email and Email Management Understanding Free & Corporate Email management
- Google Apps: Productivity Tools
- Communication & Design Tools Zoom and Canva
- Social Media and Online Support
- Customer Relation Management – Concept & Practicum using CUSREM
- Final Assessment and Certification
