It’s not only your business that is spurring growth, but also your inflated costs. Now, your mind and wallet are feeling the stretch. How do you expect to manage your daily operation while the demands continue to rise?
As an entrepreneur with a sprouting venture, this is, without a doubt, your biggest challenge. After all, hiring new employees to alleviate your workload is slow, steep and risky. So, what’s your next option?
Virtual professionals can help you do the impossible in a competitive business landscape—save resources and maximize productivity.
If you’re thinking of bringing one on board, this guide explores what a VA does, how they operate, and more.
What Is a Virtual Assistant?
A virtual assistant is a contractual worker who provides remote services to entrepreneurs and business owners.
Yes, they’re like voice-powered assistants, but they’re real people. They have the emotional intelligence capable of handling more complex tasks than Siri or Alexa.
Examples of a Virtual Assistant
Your remote assistant offers numerous services to conquer your task list.
- Digital marketing
- Administrative
- Recruitment
- E-commerce site operator
- Software developer
- Video editor
- Accounting
- Web editor
- Research
- Content writing
- Customer service
- Data entry
- Social media management
- Project management
- Travel planning
How a Virtual Assistant Actually Works
You can think of your VA as any personal assistant you have in a traditional workplace—the only difference is that they’re not physically lounging outside your office. They log in to their computers and collaborate with you on screen using various online tools.
Let’s dig deeper into the uniqueness of working with a virtual assistant versus a 9-to-5 office navigator.
Remote Work
Human virtual assistants operate from anywhere—home offices, coffee shops, libraries or an island in the Philippines. Rather than working in a traditional workplace environment, VAs have the freedom to work wherever the wind blows—well, so long as the signal bars are strong.
Independent Contractors/Employees
Remote professionals have flexible contracts. They are self-employed contractors, which means they’re not your employees. They don’t enjoy the stability that comes from being your permanent, full-time staff. In fact, you don’t even have to pay for compensation benefits, such as health insurance or paid leave.
As their client, you can hire their service when needed and offload without consequence when demand is low. This level of scalability allows you flexibility in your budget.
Although some remote workers can be hired as remote employees, most of them are just treated as an extension of your business, helping out the core team.
Services Provided
There’s a long queue of tasks your virtual assistant can accomplish on your behalf, despite them not setting foot in your office. Even better, their services can be tailored to match your current business needs.
Administrative Tasks
VAs can take care of your daily busywork. These are menial tasks that a boss like you shouldn’t be doing in the first place. For example, managing calendars, scheduling appointments, filing paperwork and planning business travels.
Although these chores are necessary, they take up too much of your time when you should be focusing on higher-end responsibilities.
Customer Support
Apart from completing your admin adventures, a virtual assistant can help boost customer satisfaction. They can act as the first point of contact and address their needs promptly.
In fact, they can do better—they can learn your clients’ nuances and tip you off to which platform they want to do business on to deliver a personalized experience.
Remember, about 81% of your prospects want their buying journey to go beyond people. It’s more than just interactions, but learning buying history and preferences.
Technical Support
The thing is that you might be one of the 94% of business owners who continually struggle with applications and software. The truth is that when technology outgrows your capabilities, you fall into a work rut.
The presence of a tech virtual assistant provides you with the assistance you need to make the most of your modern tools. They can manage your website and troubleshoot issues, ensuring your system and network run smoothly and securely.
Creative Support
Yes, your virtual assistant can craft traffic magnet content for your website and social media accounts. They will make sure that you can consistently post entertaining visuals and written articles at peak engagement hours. They can also find the best tools to enhance content reach and audience interaction.
Tools and Communication
VAs leverage technology to seamlessly collaborate and communicate with you. This includes project management software, cloud-based services and other communication platforms like email.
Effective communication is key to successful collaboration. That said, here are popular tools that you can use to keep you and your remote sidekick on the same wavelength.
- Communication Platforms (Slack, Zoom, Email, Microsoft Teams)
- Project Management Software (Zoho Projects, Asana, Trello, Basecamp, Teamwork, Notion)
- Cloud-based Services (Microsoft Azure, Salesforce, Google Drive, Dropbox)
Business tools are meant to streamline communication and workflow. They are invaluable when managing people, especially scattered teams. As such, working remotely is not possible without embracing technology.
Client Relationship
Just like any other boss, you have very specific demands—and your virtual assistant is highly adaptable to almost all of them. They tailor their services based on your needs. And with your guidance, they can produce satisfactory output every time.
Here’s the catch, though: your VA is possibly working with other clients. As we mentioned, they’re contractors; their services are often offered for a few hours a week or by project. But if you want them to concentrate on your goals instead of juggling multiple clients, extend an exclusive contract.
In a nutshell, a virtual professional is just like any office assistant who just happens to work in their PJs straight from home. They have expansive skill sets, allowing them to manage the many tasks of your daily operations.
Read more: Why Singaporean Entrepreneurs Should Hire Virtual Assistants
Why Virtual Assistant Is Important
By 2028, it is said that about half of the entire American workforce will be remote. Well, we can see that happening considering the shift to remote working and strong demand for distributed teams.
This phenomenon has also put the spotlight on virtual assistants—your most cost-effective staffing solution today. This virtual support is incredibly versatile, handling a wide range of tasks, from marketing to administration.
Recruiting VAs to do the essential but time-consuming work is nonetheless a smart approach. They not only get the job done, but they also bring forth the following benefits.
Cost Savings
You and your remote assistant only meet in the digital space. This removes the horrors of the overheads—rent, utilities, equipment and even benefits. In total, you’re out for around 70% in operational cost savings.
Here’s how it works: Contract your VA to work for a specific project and pay them only for their hours worked.
Increased Productivity
Since your virtual assistant will take charge of the sluggish but unyielding activities in the office, you’ll have more time for the important stuff. This is true, not just for you, but for your entire core team.
Everyone within the company can focus their time and energy on their main tasks and accomplish more work without burning out.
Access to Diverse Skills
Without border restrictions, you are free to roam the planet and locate the best assistant for your needs. You can tap into expertise that you can’t find (or afford) in your local job market. Trust us, you will never run out of virtual assistants with specialized skills who are willing to work around your budget.
Flexibility
You don’t know total flexibility until you’ve collaborated with a virtual assistant. You see, these professionals provide services solely to cater to your needs. You can engage them to cover a busy period without committing to the long term. When operations are back to normal, you can decrease their involvement with no trouble.
Enhanced Work-Life Balance
In the past year, you’ve barely experienced real sunlight apart from the glow from your monitor. Yes, you’ve been so busy; you don’t have a life outside your business.
Delegating tasks to a VA means thriving in both areas of your life. You can lead your company to the promised land while enjoying time off with the family in Hawaii. And this applies not just to you but also to your staff.
By living a healthy work-life balance, everyone can be more productive at work.
How to Hire a Virtual Assistant with VAV
Here’s how we can simplify finding your rockstar virtual assistant in 3 easy steps:
- Project analysis: Understanding your needs and expectations.
- Interview: Finding the right candidate for you through careful screening and ensuring that your VA meets your project requirements and delivers measurable results.
- Training and Onboarding: Introducing and acclimating your remote assistant to the company so they become effective contributors right away.
Read more: Why hiring VAs is so much better with a VA recruitment agency
If you hire a remote assistant with VAV, you don’t have to deal with the tedious process of VA recruitment only to fail at the end. We take all the steps so you can skip to the important parts of your collaboration.
As a leading virtual assistant recruiting expert, we have helped hundreds of clients save resources and move their business forward. You could be one of them.
Don’t wait till you get buried under your avalanche of tasks—book a call now and get a free consultation!