When I first started my online business, I was the only one working on it. However, as time went by, my business began to grow and eventually got to a point where I realized that I could no longer do everything myself.
I had to get some help if everything was to continue running smoothly. But, instead of hiring a full-time PA, I opted for a more flexible tentative: virtual assistants.
Virtual assistants have helped me grow my business significantly over the past few years. You too can use them in your business to help you get more things done.
With a skilled VA, you’ll be able to drive business growth, decrease operational costs, focus on core operations, and enhance collaboration.
And the best part is that virtual assistants are a lot more affordable than most people think.
Read the rest of this article to discover the why you should hire a virtual assistant and how they can help you grow.
1. Cost Effective Alternative to PAs
Compared to hiring full-time PAs, virtual assistants can help you save money because you only pay for productive time. VAs are independent contractors, which means instead of paying a fixed salary, you only have to shell out the agreed-upon compensation – usually an hourly fee.
This option has been made popular by the increase in the number of people working remotely and offers a cost-effective solution for businesses who don’t want to employ full-time assistants or deal with taxes, pensions, health insurance, workplace consumables, and other employee benefits.
When you hire a VA, you typically pay a monthly package as opposed to an annual salary, giving you a reduced long-term commitment and, consequently, less risk.
Also, since you only pay for the number of hours used to undertake the required scope of work, it means you won’t be paying your assistant for idle time spent surfing the web or taking breaks. This is arguably the first reason why you should hire a virtual assistant.
2. Reduce Employee-Related Costs
As a business leader, you need to make financially sound investments. There is no doubt that building a team is expensive, and for most, it’s a cost that their small business is just not ready to bear.
However, hiring a virtual assistant means you not only save on salaries but also a ton of other employee-related expenses, such as providing office space, holidays and sickness, training, and onboarding.
Onboarding, in particular, can be a huge expense to a business. When you hire first-time employees, you usually have to invest a significant amount of resources and time into training them for the job you need them to do.
You don’t have to train your VA. When you hire skilled VA, they are already trained and experienced in everything from updating your blog and social media to planning and organizing your calendar, and much more.
Here’s an example of the average annual pay with positions a virtual assistant may be able to help with.
So, in essence, you get:
- Lower salaries
- Lower operating costs
- Lower training costs
- Lower maintenance costs
And, depending on your needs, you can hire your VA on a part- or full-time basis, giving you even more flexibility when outsourcing.
Whichever way you look at it, hiring a virtual assistant from a virtual assistant company offers you a better return on investment (ROI) on your hiring decision.
3. Maximize Productivity
What’s the most valuable asset that anyone has?
No, it’s not money – it’s time.
You can always make more money, but once your time is gone, you can never get it back. That’s why hiring a VA can be a good idea for you. You can delegate all your “busy” work to them, such as:
- Answering phone calls (Your phone should be used to make money in other ways)
- Checking emails
- Managing your website or blog
…and so on.
As your organization changes and you get a reliable VA to manage your everyday business tasks, you will free up your time to put it to more productive use. For instance, you might use your additional work hours to focus on more important things that can actually move the needle for your business.
With a VA, you won’t get bogged down doing mundane or repetitive tasks that do nothing to grow your business – which, incidentally, is one of the reasons why so many businesses fail. Business leaders can’t extricate themselves from jam-packed days of sundry tasks long enough to plan and create strategies to market their business.
But, with effective outsourcing, not only will your day-to-day tasks get performed by an experienced person to ensure a smooth running of your business, but your time will be spent on high-value, income-generating tasks that will actually improve your bottom line.
Can you imagine how much faster your business could be scaled if you spent just an hour or two a day devising brilliant strategies to grow? Hiring a VA makes that dream possible.
Pro Tip: If you want to maximize the hours you add to your day, consider hiring a VA from a different timezone.
4. Fewer Time Constraints
In addition to adding more hours to your day, another great reason to hire a VA is that they have no time constraints. Unlike full-time employees who will only be available during certain hours of the day, VAs can adjust their schedule to align with your hours.
This way, your VA will be on hand whenever you require help so you can focus on running your business without having to worry about resource availability. This is something that may not be as easy to achieve with a full-time employee.
5. Streamline Your Business Operations
“Admin” takes up a ton of most business leaders’ time. From raising invoices and filing expenses to logging inquiries, and more, your day can go by without you having had a minute to think about anything else in your business.
If you can focus on what you’re good at and delegate the rest, all the better. But, when it comes to delegating, most business owners end up with an even bigger expense due to having to hire different people to fill different roles.
Hiring a VA can save you the trouble of having to hire multiple assistants to take care of different administrative tasks.
For example, if your PA doesn’t have copywriting skills or social media management experience, it means you’ll need to hire a separate person to do those things while the first assistant focuses on other administrative tasks.
However, with a VA, you can find out if they have all the skills you require before hiring them so you choose one that can take care of all your administrative needs, such as:
- Calendar management
- Answering phones and emails
- Onboarding clients
- Managing your social media
- Updating your blog and website
- Data entry, updating database or spreadsheets
…and more.
Furthermore, you can find VAs to take care of technical tasks, as well. Regardless of your needs, you’ll find many VAs with the tools, skills, and training to cater to your needs.
But if you can’t find one VA to do all of it, an alternative is to join a platform like Wing Assistant where you’ll find well-trained, verified VAs and you can build a team for the same price.
You can access an enormous pool of talent giving you instant access to hiring people with the right skills to meet your needs.
This way, you’ll be able to scale your business to any level you want, but with much less risk.
6. Improve Products, Services, and Processes
When you hire a virtual assistant, you’ll be able to improve your products and services. Your assistant can be your eyes and ears to find out what’s going on in the market, and in your customer base.
When you know the needs of your customers and prospects, it will be a lot easier for you to provide them with the exact products and services that they want.
In addition to monitoring the market, your virtual assistant can also do the following:
- Watch your competitors to see what they’re doing and saying
- Collect feedback from current clients
- Stay abreast of industry news
- Listen for conversations about your brand on social media
- Set up and monitor KPIs
…and more.
7. Offer Improved Customer Service
Another reason why you should hire a virtual assistant is that it allows you to provide 24/7 business or customer service.
When you can be available to your customers at all times, it helps to further widen your market. This is a particularly important strategy for online stores that operate on a global scale.
With a team of virtual assistants, you can effectively provide support for customers in all the different time zones.
8. Boost Your Online Visibility
A virtual assistant can help you increase your presence online in a variety of ways. For example, they can be active on your blog, social media, and even online forums and communities where you would have to spend hours every day interacting with your customers.
This way, you can build your business’s online reputation without having to actually put in the hours it takes to do so effectively.
9. Lead Generation
Owning a business comes with many expenses. But, it’s a huge win when you can turn any of those expenses into a way to generate even more business. One way to do that is by hiring a virtual assistant to conduct your lead generation campaigns.
As you well know, lead generation can be a very time-consuming process. However, it’s also very valuable which is why you stand to benefit greatly from hiring a virtual assistant to handle this part of your business for you.
From inbound campaigns to your website and social media accounts to contact forms and email campaigns, your VA will be able to take care of all of it so you can generate a consistent flow of leads.
10. Calendar Management
Another reason why you should hire a virtual assistant is that outsourcing non-core tasks is a great way to increase efficiency in your organization. One of the task you can outsource is calendar management.
When you can get a VA to take care of all your calendar management needs, you’ll be able to focus on your core competencies while your assistant takes care of everything else.
They can arrange dates and venues, send invitations, create meeting agendas, create presentation decks, and more – all of which will serve to take the pressure off of you, thereby freeing up your cognitive bandwidth for more important business issues.
11. Email Management
A great virtual assistant can help you keep your email inbox in check. If you’re like most people, you receive dozens, if not hundreds, of emails every day, and sifting through them can be time-consuming.
The process is disruptive to your working day, not to mention how damaging it is to your overall productivity.
This is yet another area where you can benefit from having a virtual assistant to take over this task so you can free up hours of your time.
Your VA will filter your emails and manage spam, which means that only important emails will be forwarded to you and you won’t have to spend time trying to keep up with the never-ending onslaught of messages.
The assistant will take care of all other everyday mailbox administrative tasks, as well, so you no longer have to chase inbox with zero but can now use that time productively to further your business objectives.
12. Blog Management
Not every business task requires your direct attention, and managing your blog is one of the many time-consuming tasks that (although important to your business) don’t have to be done by you.
Your VA can take on blog and website management tasks, including:
- Research
- Content Creation
- Replying to Comments
- Updating Content
- Adding seasonal pages and offers
- Creating and preparing visual media
…and so on.
13. Social Media Management
Most business owners spend hours each week on social media marketing. But, with a VA, that time will become yours again to use as you wish.
In addition to content creation and posting, your VA will spend time reaching out to your social media audience, engaging with them, promoting your business, following industry trends, checking competitors, and answering audience questions, giving you the chance to reclaim your day and focus on bigger concerns.
14. Event Planning
Alleviate the stress of planning events by hiring a VA to take care of it for you. An experienced virtual assistant will have all the necessary skills to plan successful events that bring your brand forward and showcase your offerings and capabilities effectively.
This way, you won’t reduce business productivity in the name of getting things done. Let the VA organize everything, including:
- The venue
- Guest lists
- Catering options
- Marketing presence
- Follow-up communication
… and more.
15. Accounting and Bookkeeping
A lot of business owners don’t know this, but you can hire VAs with specific skillsets, such as bookkeeping and accounting. Because they lack this knowledge, many small business owners end up paying way too much for the service.
Keep in mind, many accountants will handle clients as a side hustle to supplement their full-time job.
Hiring a skilled VA is a great solution to this problem. Simply find one with the necessary skills for keeping your books in order (expense reporting, invoice generation, and other light bookkeeping skills) and it will be one less thing for you to worry about in your business.
16. eCommerce
You can hire a dedicated virtual assistant for your eCommerce store. Own your niche and move the needle on your sales with an expert eCommerce VA who will take care of all your needs from start to finish, including:
- Fulfillment
- Product sourcing
- Customer support
- Managing online stores/marketplaces
…and much more.
17. Travel Planning
With a VA, you’ll be able to travel like a pro. We all know how time-consuming travel planning and booking can be, but if you hire a virtual assistant, they will be able to make all of your travel arrangements, including checking travel options, and costs, as well as arranging essential documents on your behalf while you take care of other things.
18. Take Time Off
Speaking of traveling, it’s important to give yourself time off as a business manager so you can avoid burnout.
A VA can help you take time off so you can keep from getting overwhelmed or losing focus.
Your assistant will take on many of your tasks, giving you the opportunity to step back for a while so you can regain perspective on everything that’s going on – business, and personal-wise.
Hopefully, when you come back to your business after taking some leisure time, it will be with a calm mind brimming with fresh new ideas.
19. Get Peace of Mind
Finally, hiring a VA will help you get some much-needed peace of mind. For most business owners, this is a priceless feeling that they hardly ever get to experience. When you have someone in your business on whom you can rely, it helps to keep you stay sane even when you find yourself in the most hectic or chaotic situation.
On a managed virtual assistant platform like Wing Assistant, you’ll find hundreds of experienced assistants for every use case. Simply conduct a search to find your ideal assistant and begin focusing on more important things right away.
Conclusion
Working with a VA can be one of the best business decisions you make. They quickly learn how you want things done, from answering emails to booking tickets and managing your social media. This leaves you with loads of time on your hands.
Furthermore, the VAs cost significantly less than hiring PAs, and there are fewer overhead expenses, which means you not only save time but money too. Hopefully, this article has helped you understand the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant.
Are you ready to hire a virtual assistant and free up your time so you can focus on tasks that are crucial for making your business grow? Let us know below!