What is a virtual assistant?
A virtual assistant (VA) is a highly capable multi-skilled professional who provides a number of services to businesses or entrepreneurs while working remotely.
You know you need one when . . .
- You and your team are struggling with your current workload and the paperwork.
- You need be more productive to see some growth happening for your business.
- You can’t afford another full-time addition to the company.
- You need someone with the right skill set to tackle the tasks that no one in your company can or has the time for.
What is the scope of a virtual assistant’s job?
Depending on your business and your industry, you may need a virtual assistant who can cover any number, but probably not all, of these tasks:
- Office administration
- Secretarial work
- Transcription/translation
- Reports
- Appointment bookings
- Event management
- Accounting/payroll
- Data entry/spreadsheets
- Database management
- IT services
- Blogging / content writing
- Proofreading/editing
- Photo editing
- Graphic design
- SEO services
- Website design/management
- Social media marketing
What are the benefits of having a virtual assistant?
Here are 7 ways a virtual assistant can help you steer your business toward steady growth:
1. Savings on labor costs
As a freelancer, a virtual assistant does not need you to shoulder the following:
- Taxes
- Worker’s compensation
- Holiday leave
- Sick days
- Medical/dental benefits
All they need is for you to pay them their rate—although you can always give bonuses and/or a raise if they’ve been particularly brilliant lifesavers.
2. Boost in productivity
A virtual assistant will give your individual teams/departments (HR, accounting, sales, etc.) some much-needed relief from having to tackle one or two more tasks too many. The breathing space enables them to work faster and get so much more done.
3. Sharper focus on quality
You could do without having to answer routine inquiry emails and chat messages, making phone calls, engaging commenters on your social media channels, etc. Instead, you and your managers and team leaders should focus on quality control, heading off oversights, errors, and the like at the pass to avoid embarrassment or a serious reputation damage. With a virtual assistant, you can.
4. Reduced distraction for employees in leadership roles
For sure none of your managers and team leaders get particularly excited about writing reports. They would rather attend a seminar/webinar on the psychology of social media marketing than whip up a daily report. Nor would they feel very productive tracking down an alternative software vendor for an upcoming project.
A virtual assistant can take all the routine and vaguely clerical tasks from your key employees’ plates and allow them to focus on research, experiments, relationship building, team performance improvement, branding, whatever their core responsibility entails. In other words, be a true driving force for your business’s growth.
5. Increase in flexibility
The flexibility of hours in freelancing applies to VAs too, which means they can easily work both around and on your schedule, especially if they’re in a different time zone, without you having to obsess over overtime hours.
6. Access to skills that are crucial to your day-to-day operations
As multitaskers, virtual assistants come with a variety of skills—and you especially benefit if these skills play off of each other (e.g., a web designer by training who can edit videos, write magnetic and exciting social media posts, and write codes). And if they come to you with ample years of VA experience, then they are sure to have picked up a few more skills from previous jobs that they can put to good use while working with you.
7. Reduced likelihood of costly unplanned hires
Hiring a VA in response to a sudden surge in business (due to a highly effective marketing perhaps) means you don’t possibly end up with an employee who will eventually have a lot of free time on their hands once things have normalized. You can keep the virtual assistant, maybe with new responsibilities or for reduced hours.
Conclusion
Small to medium businesses, especially those still working to put themselves on the map, need to have impeccable control over their finances. That includes keeping a close watch on the number of people they hire. The good news is, the days are over when being absolutely run ragged means you have no choice but to hire one more employee. VAs are indeed a gift to startups and SMBs, and you too deserve one.
One more good news: You don’t actually have to do the hiring and training nitty-gritty. Just talk to the right agency, and they will “send” a VA your way.
Purple Cow is as good a place to start as any, if not better.
Contact us today to learn more about our VA and other easy-to-scale solutions.
