If you’re an entrepreneur, you’re possibly jumping into the craze of working with a virtual assistant. It’s today's popular staffing choice to reduce costs without compromising productivity.
You’ve heard and seen what a VA can do. From administrative to creative and technical, they offer valuable support without needing to be physically present.
However, there’s one pivotal decision you should make when you’re looking specifically for excellent virtual assistance: hire a VA through freelance marketplaces or choose a virtual assistant agency.
If you asked us, we recommend choosing the latter. Why?
You’re going to find out in this blog as we explore the reasons why VA agencies are more advantageous. We’ll also make a comparison between freelancers and agencies, so you better stick around.
Just like any staffing agency, a virtual assistant agency has a vetted, wide pool of talents all too eager to take on new tasks. These highly qualified VA candidates offer a variety of specialized services,ranging from administrative to marketing, content creation and beyond.
If your company is looking to outsource help, you can easily connect with a virtual assistant agency and get matched with the right person for the right job.
Okay, let’s understand how the whole virtual assistant agency works.
A VA agency is a company that connects trained virtual assistants to clients. Basically, they act as an intermediary between the two. They help clients find a suitable remote worker for their specific business needs.
The agency will handle everything—from vetting, recruitment, onboarding and management—offering business owners and entrepreneurs a convenient and reliable way to hire a virtual professional.
Below is how a VA agency brings talented remote workers into the fold:
As you noticed, this method is a little different from the typical hiring process. The most blatant difference is that a virtual assistant agency does all the legwork, delivering convenience and reliable service to its clients.
Hiring will take days, weeks and even months to fulfill, eating up a huge chunk of your time. If you’re understaffed, the process gets even more complicated.
When you barely get your head above water, you can’t afford to prolong the process of recruitment. The more reason that you should collaborate with a virtual assistant agency and avoid all the hassles of finding a top-notch remote helper.
A virtual assistant agency has an expansive pool of talented professionals who are available to help you out. This not only makes it easier to find a VA but also increases the chances of hiring the right person who fits your specific requirements.
Whatever your current needs are—a web designer or a digital marketing assistant—these agencies can provide a selection of candidates with expansive skills and experience.
After you reach out to a virtual assistant agency and discuss your needs and requirements, rest assured that they can work from their massive talent pool and swiftly match you with the VA you’re seeking.
According to the data provided by the Association for Talent Development, companies spend $1,252 per employee on training. With that price tag plus your time, that’s a lot to invest in, especially for small entrepreneurs.
With VA agencies, ongoing training comes as complementary support. This is to ensure your virtual assistants perform at the highest level. As a client, you can take advantage of an agency’s guidance to elevate the virtual assistant service you receive.
Virtual assistant agencies remove the burden of recruiting and evaluating candidates.They take care of the selection process on your behalf, with a thorough procedure to assess the professionalism and reliability of each assistant.
This way, you can save time and focus on more pressing matters in your company that require your attention.
If your virtual assistant suddenly doesn’t show up for work, it will mess up your entire workflow. Worse, you may end up covering administrative tasks and losing precious time on less important work.
With a virtual assistant agency, you have backups upon backups to replace a no-show employee. Agencies can provide a substitute who is familiar with your work and procedures. This minimizes interruptions in your operation, ensuring the continuity of projects.
Agencies want you to succeed in your VA partnership, which is why they continuously review your VA’s performance. This ensures that your remote workers understand their roles and build on their skills, so they can grow professionally and help you with your business goals.
Sure, hiring a virtual assistant with the support of an agency may be more expensive initially compared to freelancers. However, if you consider access to talents, the level of convenience and reliability, and peace of mind, all the value accounted for is worth the investment.
Sure, hiring a virtual assistant with the support of an agency may be more expensive initially compared to freelancers. However, if you consider access to talents, the level of convenience and reliability, and peace of mind, all the value accounted for is worth the investment.
Management and communication tools and platforms are a must to maintain a continuous work process. Additionally, earlier on, you should set expectations to curtail any possible challenges.
So, what’s the difference between hiring through an agency and freelance marketplaces?
VA agencies do the heavy lifting. They hire and train their virtual assistants. Then, they match their remote professionals based on your listed requirements and needs.
In terms of the hourly rates, they are set based on skill set, contract length or level of experience.
Freelancers are self-employed and usually work on short-term projects. They set their own time, price and terms. As independent contractors, they are not managed or vetted outside of their own standards.
If you want to work with them, you need to craft a job description, post it on freelance marketplaces, sift through resumes, hold interviews, negotiate rates and onboard.
In a nutshell, the biggest difference between the two boils down to the speed and ease of hiring someone. While there are great freelance VAs who can get the job done, a virtual assistant agency brings new talent on board without the drama.
Here are some of the disadvantages of trying to find your next star VA all by yourself:
Independent VAs don’t work for an agency. This means they can set their own time and choose to work with five different clients at once. It impacts their availability and response time, making it even more challenging for urgent requests.
You will shoulder the responsibility of verifying the skills of your independent virtual assistants. It’s a vetting process that will consume your time and energy. Regardless, it has to be done to ensure your VA is capable of handling their tasks with minimal supervision from you.
A virtual assistant is an independent professional who offers administrative servicesto businesses and entrepreneurs while operating outside a central workspace.
Virtual assistants have become in demand for small businesses and startups that rely on remote teams around virtual offices to cut costs.
The duties of a VA vary depending on the current needs of the clients ( check out the top 10 tasks to delegate to a virtual assistant). Some virtual professionals act as customer service agents, while others write articles to post on social media.
Virtual agents are automated software programsthat are often used as call center agents to engage customers and provide personalized responses without the assistance of human personnel.
Utilizing natural language processing, virtual agents provide opportunities for users to improve their work processes and operations in a variety of ways.
Let’s see: a virtual assistant agency offers a diverse, wider talent pool, speed and ease and ongoing support. On one hand, independent freelancers can offer flexibility and cost-effectiveness (at least in the beginning).
When it comes to which is better, it really depends on what level of support you need, your collaboration styles, and your budget.
However, if you want to skip the many steps and get on to building your business for the future, partnering with a virtual assistant agency is the best way to go.
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