Hire to grow your business or keep growing your business to hire later. This is a common debate among business owners all over the globe. And an easy way to simplify tasks is through the help of virtual assistants!
For small businesses just starting out, choosing whether to invest money in growth or hiring is a constant dilemma. But the real question is – why not both? Why do you have to choose between two beneficial areas for your business? You can grow your business without cutting a significant slice out of your capital and still have money, and more importantly, time, to focus on growing your business.
How?
By hiring a virtual assistant to grow your business.
In this article, we’ll discuss the role of virtual assistants, the tasks you can delegate to a virtual assistant, and how you can go acquiring virtual assistant services.
Who are Virtual Assistants?
A virtual assistant, also known as a remote assistant, is an individual who works for the business owner of a company from a remote location. Virtual assistant services generally include administrative tasks.
A virtual assistant has the required technology, equipment, and infrastructure to work without having to show up at your office.
As a business owner, you can delegate tasks to them. And by giving them access to your emails and calendar, they can help you coordinate your day even remotely.
Virtual assistant business partners can be freelancers or work for an outsourcing company, which we will discuss later in this article.
Virtual Assistant Business Benefits
If you’re on the fence about hiring remote, here are some benefits of virtual assistants which will convince you that remote work is the future!
Cost-Effective
By hiring a virtual assistant, you, as a business owner, can save in so many ways.
As virtual assistants work hourly, you can choose the number of hours they work in a week. So this has a direct impact on business expenses.
They also have their own technology and equipment so that you can save money on infrastructure and office space.
Since remote assistants work on a contract basis, it’s easy to scale up and down depending on how busy work is.
Additionally, since virtual assistants are not permanent employees, you don’t have to pay for additional benefits like insurance, bonuses, and paid holidays from the business expenses budget.
Variety of Skills
At first, the virtual assistant business was primarily focused on administrative duties. They had prior work experience, specialized in handling reception, customer service, and administrative tasks, and worked primarily with executives.
However, as remote work gained more popularity in the recent past, there was more demand for virtual assistants, especially among small business owners. Currently, you can outsource virtual assistant business processes across various industries. They are often found in charge of project management areas like design, coding, social media marketing, accounting, and more. One important virtual assistant skill that is often overlooked, is the ability to type fast. By using a free speed typing test, you can find out if the applicant is a good fit for your business needs or not.
Even with a limited budget, you don’t have to compromise on talent or experience with remote assistants.
Work With Global Talent
One of the most significant drawbacks of hiring in-office talent is that you are limited to hiring only from your geographical location. Unfortunately, that might not have been the preferred situation for businesses with international clients.
With virtual assistant business outsourcing, you are not restricted to working in the same office space. Hence, business owners have an excellent opportunity to collaborate and work with global talent without spending a lot of money.
Flexibility
As we mentioned in the previous point, in-office employees work under pretty traditional norms – within the same office space and a standard 9-5 shift. However, times are changing. As more businesses work with international clients, they need to step out of the conventional.
This is why virtual assistant business services are an excellent fit for modern business owners. You can pick their work hours and the amount of time they work. That, in turn, results in more productivity from the virtual assistants, as they work during the hours they feel more productive.
Virtual Assistant Services
We’ve spoken abundantly about the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant. Now let’s take a look at some of the areas in which a VA can help your business.
Administration
As mentioned earlier, virtual assistant business services used to primarily revolve around administrative fields. They usually are individuals with previous office experience and are great at handling front and back-end office tasks such as:
- Reception
- Data entry
- Email management
- Calendar management
- Travel planning
- Scheduling appointments
- Filing documents, and more.
Accounting
Making sure that your finances and books are in order is tedious and time-consuming. Giving accounting your full attention might not leave room for any other important tasks you have in the day, which require your skill. Therefore, you can hire a virtual accountant to help you with tasks like:
- Balancing accounts
- Processing receipts and sales payments
- VAT returns
- Preparing and processing invoices
- Filing taxes
- Making Cash flow statements
- Handling financial paperwork
Social Media Management
If you want your business to survive and thrive in 2022, you can’t do it without a digital presence and digital marketing. E-commerce is at an all-time high, and social media accounts are a great way to find new customers and engage with clients organically. A skilled social media assistant or project management assistant can:
- Create social media profiles
- Schedule content for digital marketing campaigns
- Write blogs for the business website
- Research SEO keywords
- Manage community engagement
- Track analytics of digital marketing efforts
Event Management
Technology has come so far that a skilled virtual assistant business assistant can help you put together events even from halfway across the globe. While these virtual professionals can’t be there to welcome the guests physically, they can handle pretty much any other event-related tasks such as:
- Organizing decor
- Coordinating with vendors on behalf of small business owners
- Booking caterers and researching menus
- Planning event budget
- Handling publicity and marketing
- Arranging sponsorship
- Curating guestlists
Customer Service
If you’re in the e-commerce industry, the happiness of your customers should be your number one priority. It can be hard to keep up with customer service amid your busy schedule. But a virtual assistant business assistant can help a business owner out with tasks such as:
- Processing orders
- Answering queries
- Resolving issues
- Handling complaints
- Managing returns and exchanges
How to Hire Virtual Assistants
There are a few different ways to hire a virtual assistant for your company. The three major ones are:
- List job postings – you can post a job listing for virtual assistants online on sites like Craiglist and LinkedIn. Make sure to list down all your requirements in the job description to get the best possible candidate for the job.
- Gig websites – there are multiple freelance gig platforms like Fiverr and Upwork, where you can search for virtual assistants based on your requirements.
- Virtual Assistant Agencies – some agencies specifically outsource virtual assistants, such as Wishup. The advantage of hiring from an agency is that they already screen and vet their VAs before hiring, so you can rest assured you’re getting the best talent for your business.
You Don’t Have To Do Everything Yourself!
Knowing when to delegate responsibilities is a sign of growth for any entrepreneur. Virtual assistants are a great way to expand your company and focus on development without putting a dent in your wallet. We hope this article gave you some clarity on your hiring options, and you will consider hiring a virtual assistant to help grow your company.
Article by Swapna
Author bio:
Swapna is a content writer for Wishup based out of Chennai, India, with a background in Media and Mass Communication.