One of the clear signs that you’ve somehow made it big is having a personal assistant. Now, you have a right-hand person who can shadow you around and help you navigate your jampacked schedule. Or someone to throw at your least favourite tasks of the day.

But there’s a problem—personal assistants are kind of a luxury meant for those corporate bigwigs with seemingly endless resources. PAs are expensive.

Enter virtual personal assistant. They’re the typical executive assistant, you know, but operate remotely and are way cheaper.

Trust us, hiring remote professionals is not an unnecessary step. They can turn things around so your to-do list that always seems unfinished gets checked off.

Look into what personal assistants do while working straight from home and how to get started.

Who is a Personal Assistant?

A personal assistant is someone who supports your daily business operations, providing all kinds of services from administrative tasks to personal errands.

With the rise of modern tools, this support system can finally assist clients remotely. Virtual personal assistants are online-based professionals who can operate the same way as your traditional PA without being physically there. They can conduct market research, pay bills and plan events, helping you streamline time-draining activities.

What Are the Duties of a Personal Assistant?

What is a personal assistant used for while operating from far, far away?

Take a look.

Administrative Tasks

Remote personal assistants can handle the usual office management tasks. They can be your virtual extension, dealing with your time sucks so you can free up more time.

Scheduling and Calendar Management

The calendar of a busy boss is going to be messy without proper attention. Avoid double-bookings and missed appointments with a virtual personal assistant. They can plan out your calendar so you can efficiently use your time and be prepared to take on the day.

Communication Management

It’s important that you stay in touch with your clients on all different channels so you’re always on their minds. Delegate to a VPA and let them take the calls and respond to emails, keeping your communication lines available at all times.

Travel Arrangements

Part of running a business is travelling to places to meet people and network. To make the most of your business trip, leave the deadly travel details to a virtual personal assistant. They can handle the logistics, book a flight and keep you informed with travel changes. This way, you can travel comfortably and focus on closing the deal.

Document Organisation

All the paperwork that’s forming a mountain on your desk can be reduced to a soft peak with a VPA in tow. They can manage the databases and maintain a filing system, so they’re stored in a safe place, readily available.

Note-Taking

With modern tools, a remote personal assistant can organise your thoughts while the meeting is in progress. They can even provide summaries, recordings and actionable items.

Personal Tasks

Your personal assistant’s help goes beyond the four walls of your office. They can handle your personal matters too, so they can excel in both areas of your life.

Household Management

Your remote personal assistants can be your partners in maintaining an orderly home.

If you have a particular fetish for eating healthy, you can ask a virtual personal assistant to plan your meals for you. They can do the grocery shopping online and even schedule the interviews for your housekeepers.

With their level of attention, you can ensure everything runs like a well-oiled machine at home.

By the way, payroll management for household staff is also within the scope of work.

Event Planning

Finding the right venue. Getting people to attend an event. Event planning is a stressful job, especially for an entrepreneur like you.

However, VPAs can take the stress out of this task. Whatever type of event you’re planning—birthdays or corporate meetings—your remote assistant can organise it.

Personal Finances

Some PAs can also assist you with managing your personal finances. They can track your spending and send alerts when the bills are due. In effect, you don’t overspend or miss payments and pay penalties.

Virtual personal assistants are your dependable companions, supporting your office and home life. Their outstanding ability to support your needs is invaluable. It gives you the peace of mind and balance to be the boss of your life. This turns everything more manageable and pleasant.

Are you looking to scale efficiently? Learn here.

Essential Features of a Virtual Personal Assistant

Here are some strong skills that should be present in your virtual assistant:

• Organisational skills: A remote assistant with extraordinary organisational skills can help you use your time most efficiently.
• Communication skills: Your next virtual PA should be an effective communicator, both written and verbal. They should be able to communicate with team members and clients clearly and avoid all unnecessary misunderstandings.
• Problem-Solving: PAs should be quick on their feet when thinking of workable solutions to emerging issues. So, no matter what unexpected situation arises, they always keep their composure and confidence.
• Discretion and Confidentiality: Working online increases the risks of cyber threats. That’s why you need a remote PA who knows how to handle sensitive data.

Topic you might be interested in: How a Virtual Assistant in Singapore can Accelerate Growth

What Is Expected From a PA?

If you’re daydreaming about what life would be with a virtual personal assistant, it’s not that hard to picture.

Here’s how a virtual assistant can bring order back to your hectic business and personal life.

Get Rid of Distractions

Say, you don’t have the time to do your personal chores, like planning your kid’s birthday party. You can get on with your business without sacrificing eventful moments with the support of a VPA.

Greater Productivity for You

If your attention is always divided by personal tasks, you will never reach peak productivity. That is evidently true, considering all the essential tasks in your day that need to be managed, like data entry. This task can consume your time, and before you know it, it has eaten up 2 hours of your workday.

Don’t let your focus stray to the less impactful activities; team up with a VPA and improve how your life runs.

Be the Boss

What personal assistants do is allow you to be the entrepreneur you want to be. You can be the boss and have a remote assistant—your go-to person when there’s an issue that needs to be addressed.

They can fill in the gaps of your daily processes—for half the price of what it would cost you to hire an onsite PA.

What Personal Assistants Do vs. Virtual Assistants

Virtual personal assistants are tasked with responsibilities that are more focused on your needs. As such, they offer a more tailored support to your professional and personal affairs. You can think of them as your right-hand person, someone who understands the way you operate. When you’re away, they can provide significant help.

Meanwhile, virtual assistants have more expansive services to offer, like customer support or database management. They’re your go-to choice when you need to complete short-term projects or other wide-ranging professional tasks.

Hiring a Virtual Personal Assistant with VAV

Are you ready to embrace the idea of working with a remote personal assistant? If you are, here are the basic steps we take to ensure you get to match with the right virtual professional:

Project Analysis

What do you need help with? We must understand your needs and expectations so we can find the assistant with the skills to make it happen.

This will speed up the search as we will have the qualities to look for from our vast pool.

Interview

Once we have our candidates, we will narrow the list with a thorough interview. Speak with your top prospects and see which one of them matches the personality or communication style of your company.

Just any assistant won’t cut it; we want you to hire the one who truly fits the bill.

Onboarding and Training

In just 3 to 5 days, you can meet with your remote assistant. To ensure your personal assistant hits the ground running, we take care of integrating them into your system.

VAV has a well-structured onboarding system with ongoing training for your assistant so they can keep up with your evolving needs.

We can do the tedious work for you, but first, you have to reach out to us.

Final Thoughts

Virtual personal assistants are essential elements of modern business. For just half the price, you can streamline your workload and gain the focus you need to take the next step.

Whether you’re looking for a full-time assistant or a part-time virtual assistant, VAV is the recruitment agency that gets it done. We have a full range of reliable virtual assistant services to cover every business's needs.

We are dedicated to providing personalised solutions with talented virtual assistants, performing exactly how you want to do it. This makes us a top choice for companies, no matter the size.

Give us a call and let’s discuss further how our VA services can help you realise your bottom line.