The Amazing World of Virtual Assistants

So, that business that was once just a dream is finally taking off. Your growing every day, and are now busier than you’ve ever been. You try to tackle all of your tasks day after day, but some things are falling through the cracks. You know that your ability to take on more business is limited simply by the fact that you are just one person. Instead of wishing for more hours in a day, consider the relief that an extra set of hands could bring. You stumble upon the concept of hiring a virtual assistant but have no idea where to start.

What Exactly is a Virtual Assistant?

A virtual assistant is a highly skilled professional who offers multiple business support services remotely. Your assistance can come in either a single individual or a team of virtual assistants who are working from their own location. Virtual assistants are basically independent contractors who specialize in an array of services including administrative, accounting, customer service, marketing, creative, technical, and many, many more.

The 4 Biggest Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Assistant

The benefits that hiring a virtual assistant can bring to your business are quite impressive. After the initial training and orientation period, you will essentially have a person (or team) at your disposal whenever you require assistance. Here are the top 4 benefits:

Valuable and Unique Skill Set – Virtual assistants are highly skilled independent contracts, which may include but are not limited to administrative assistants, customer service, website administrators, senior-level assistants, security, research, human resources, and the list goes on. Some virtual assistants work specifically in one niche while others may be multi-talented with skills in several different areas.
Cheaper Than a Full-Time Employee – One of the major attractions of hiring a virtual assistant for your business is the amount of money you will save. Hiring a full-time virtual assistant is by FAR cheaper than hiring a full-time employee. By paying an independent contractor for their services, you will avoid the hassle and high expense of paying out employee benefits, such as health insurance, employment-related benefits, and taxes. Virtual assistants take care of their own taxes. You will never have to spend a penny or an hour taking care of such hassles.
Virtual Office Space – When you hire someone who works remotely, this means they will never have to set foot in your home or office. You will avoid the added expense and headache of having to set up a spare room or cram an extra desk and computer into your office. Another added benefit of hiring someone who works remotely: you will never have to worry about ADA rules and restrictions. If someone has a disability, they simply work out of their own home.
Pay Only for Time Spent on Your Projects – You will never have to pay an hourly wage for Tim to watch videos on his work computer or for Jen to check your social media on her phone. By using a time and progress tracking software, you can make sure that your meter is only running when the software is monitoring the work. If you prefer to pay by project, you can agree on a fixed rate and know exactly what the project will run you regardless of your virtual assistant’s time spent on it.

Virtual Assistant Tasks and Jobs

The list of tasks that a virtual assistant can perform is literally as long as your task list. The services listed here are common tasks for the average business, but your personal needs may vary.

Administrative Services – Most business owners say that if they could have one wish granted, it would be for a reliable administrative assistant. A virtual assistant can handle any type of administrative service you can think of, which might include managing company email, scheduling and confirming appointments, verifying contact information, conducting business correspondence, entering data, verifying data, assisting with bookkeeping, and researching business prospects.
Marketing Assistant – A virtual assistant can be your greatest marketing tool yet. Marketing tasks generally include researching target markets, launching campaigns, tracking campaign progress, and providing you with updated reports. A top priority for successful business marketing is the art of email campaigns. Email campaigns require a touch of ingenuity to prevent them from just looking like another spam campaign. Another great use of a virtual marketing assistant is to promote your blogs and business across social media platforms.
Social Media Expert – As most business owners find out quickly, handling a social media campaign can be extremely time-consuming and downright confusing. Invest your limited resources on other revenue-generating tasks and hire a virtual social media assistant. This type of virtual assistant can help you come up with a social media marketing campaign that is both efficient and effective. This expert will know how to monitor social media efforts and report to you which tactics are working and which ones need improvement.
Customer Service Representative – While handling customer service is integral to every successful business, no entrepreneur wants to spend hours on the phone every day. Imagine how much time you could free up if you had a remote customer service representative on-call to handle customer queries and complaints. With the enhancement of modern technology, there are a variety of companies that can help you handle the call forwarding easily.

How to Hire a Virtual Assistant

Now that you have identified your need for a virtual assistant and have a feel of how much help one could bring to your business, you may be wondering how to find one.

Identify the top list of tasks that you would like to delegate and the skills that you would like in an assistant. Next, come up with a rough estimate of how much of your budget that you can allocate to this invaluable resource (which, by the way, is yet another task that a virtual assistant could do for you).
Determine if you want a single, multi-talented virtual assistant or a team of virtual assistants. It may be wise to consider hiring a senior assistant who could then oversee a team of junior assistants.
Do a thorough search of various online resources. There are several “job board” type sites on the web, such as Upwork or Fiverr. However, if you are like most entrepreneurs, you may prefer to work with a company or individual whose sole business is providing your business with virtual assistance.