Why hiring a Virtual Assistant is a great move for every entrepreneur
Hire a VA & Focus more on what matters to your business
When Niel started his lettings agency (property rental) business, he did it all: bookkeeping and preparing financial reports, arranged clients’ calls, social media promotion, scheduled meetings and appointments, and did the majority of paper works like tenancy agreements and other contracts.
While he was more than capable of handling all of these daily tasks, he soon realized that it was draining him personally.
His typical day included checking and responding to emails, meeting prospective tenants, and promoting his properties in different online platforms like social media, Spareroom, Craigslist, Gumtree, etc.
He was losing a significant amount of time for his family without even realizing it. His business was not going anywhere and he’s stuck in the middle.
There came a point when he was completely exhausted and knew that he needed to find a better way to handle all those tasks as an entrepreneur.
One of the best things that happened to him was finding Uniqueworkers.com. Today, he recalled that hiring a virtual assistant (VA) to help him with his businesses was his biggest and most successful investment.
A virtual assistant (VA) is a multi-skilled professional who works remotely to help you with a variety of business needs such as administrative tasks and technical and/or creative assistance, to name but a few.
He then began to realize that his VA can take calls and answer customer messages remotely as he was busy with other tasks that require his personal time like meeting people who want to view his properties.
He soon found that with a VA, he had the extra time and energy he needed to focus solely on doing what he does best: supporting and interacting with clients and building his business.
Hiring a Virtual Assistant: What's in it for me?
One might think that a VA is expensive if you have a start-up, or don’t need one if your company is already established, but VAs can be game-changers for almost any business.
After all, there is truth in the saying, “time is money.” If you spend more time supporting your business instead of building it, you are not maximizing your efforts.
Virtual assistants can help with almost any type of essential, but time-consuming job.
For example, photo or video editing for your marketing campaign, database management, business reports, internet research, personal correspondence, gift sending, meeting planning, email maintenance, editing, social media maintenance, newsletters, banking, and travel arrangements.
The list only gets longer. The longer you employ a VA, the more you realize how useful a VA is.
Hiring a VA has great business benefits. In fact, even if you are a working professional and don’t have a business, you can still use a VA.
Professionals like doctors, lawyers, engineers, designers, and others use the services of VA to free much of their time. Even restaurant owners hire VAs to fix their delivery schedules and prepare invoices. There are a lot of things a VA can do to your business.
The following are some of these major benefits.
Reduce Costs
One of the main reasons why most business owners, entrepreneurs, and professionals hire virtual assistants to reduce their overhead costs.
Instead of hiring a full-time employee to do a small job, you can hire a part-time virtual assistant to do it for you.
As they usually charge on an hourly or task basis, you only have to pay them for work that’s actually done.
Additionally, as they’re working remotely, you won’t have to pay for overheads like their internet connection, laptop or other office space related expenses.
Increase Efficiency By Outsourcing Non-Core Tasks
Another benefit of hiring virtual assistants is that it lets businesses focus on their core competencies. Companies and entrepreneurs deal with tons of non-core activities like:
- Sending emails and newsletters
- Handling customer queries
- Internet research
- Scheduling meetings
- Data entry
- Photo/video editing
While these are necessary tasks, they’re not core tasks that need to be done by an in-house employee.
Forcing your in-house employees to do these basic and time-consuming tasks takes away time they could be spending on things that need to be done in person.
By outsourcing your non-core activities to a virtual assistant with the right skill set, you don’t have to worry about managing these activities in-house.
This lets you invest your time and resources into tasks that need to be done by your in-office team.
Quickly Scale Your Business Operations
Virtual assistants can also help you scale up your business operations quickly.
They give you the ability to quickly hire talent on a project-by-project basis, you can easily cope with increasing work demands without worrying about rushing your recruitment process.
You can use virtual assistants to quickly deal with sudden scope increases and then slowly hire full-time employees once things have settled down.
Offer 24/7 Customer Service
Most businesses have customers spread across the globe and great customer service is what makes many businesses successful.
But when your business and staff are only located in one area, coping with global needs and international time zones can be difficult.
For example, if you’re based in New York, your operating hours will be midnight for your customers in Melbourne, Australia! The only way you can deal with this is if your New York office works 24 hours a day!
Luckily, as virtual assistants are based remotely in the Philippines, you can hire them across the globe to cater to different time zones.
This way, you and your staff can maintain a good work-life balance while still being able to attend to customers 24×7.
Your virtual assistants can operate on a shifting schedule allowing you to cover the whole 24 hours.
Achieve Work Life Balance
Perhaps the only unquantifiable value of hiring a Virtual Assistant is he or she can help you achieve balance in life simply by affording you the benefit of time.
With trusted virtual assistants in place, you can be like Tim Ferris and explore the world while your business continues to run.
When you are able to find time for the things that matter most in life, you become more productive.
After all, ask yourself this simple question: “Why do you work?” If you work only to pay the bills, then you are simply existing; not living. To live is to experience life.
Some of the popular YouTube travel Vloggers employ virtual assistants to edit their videos. The Internet is not always friendly when you are travelling so the help of a virtual assistant is really important.
Frees Up Time For Strategic Thinking
As virtual assistants can perform your non-core activities, you have more time to focus on growing your business.
Rather than wasting time and resources in doing day-to-day operations, you can invest it to think strategically about the business from a long term perspective.
This helps you to set goals that guide your company for better performance and long-term success.
Conclusion
If you want to grow your business, there is no reason why you should not hire a virtual assistant.
Unique Workers is here to help you find your first virtual assistant who is ready to make a big impact on your business!