Table of Contents
- What Exactly is Hiring a Virtual Assistant?
- How a Virtual Assistant Works
- Related Reading
- 12 Undeniable Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Assistant
- 1. Increased Productivity
- 2. Cost Savings
- 3. Enhanced Business Growth
- 4. Access to Specialized Skills
- 5. Flexibility and Scalability
- 6. Do More of What You’re Good At
- 7. Focus on Income-Generating Activities
- 8. Reduce Your Workload
- 9. Bolster Your Reputation
- 10. Promote Creativity and Innovation
- 11. Improved Products and Services
- 12. Helps Stay Organized
- Your All-in-One Virtual Assistant Management Solution
- Related Reading
- 6 Simple Steps for Hiring the Right Virtual Assistant
- 1. Document the Tasks You Want to Outsource
- 2. Create a Job Description
- 3. Post Your Job Description Online
- 4. Review Applications & Schedule Interviews
- 5. Assign Your Top Candidates a Test
- 6. Give the Best Candidate a Trial Period
- How to Effectively Work with a Virtual Assistant on Your Business
- Assign Tasks: How to Set Your Virtual Assistant Up for Success
- Set Expectations: How to Help a Virtual Assistant Understand Their Role in Your Business
- Provide Feedback: How to Help Your Virtual Assistant Improve Performance
- Use Online Management Tools: How to Improve Communication and Task Management With Your Virtual Assistant
- Treat Them As Human Beings: How to Build a Healthy Working Relationship With Your Virtual Assistant
- Provide the Right Training and Resources: How to Help Your Virtual Assistant Deliver Quality Work
- Related Reading
- Hire and Manage Virtual Assistants All in One Place with VA Bear
- Streamlined Onboarding for Your Virtual Assistant
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Running a business can be overwhelming at times. As you juggle various tasks and responsibilities, you may notice some areas of your work getting less attention than they deserve. When your personal life suffers, or you start to feel burnt out, it’s a sign that you need help. One of the biggest challenges of running a business is knowing when and how to get that help. For many business owners, the solution comes in the form of hiring a virtual assistant (VA). There are countless benefits of hiring a virtual assistant. This article will untangle the most obvious ones to help you reach your goals faster.
One of the best ways to get started on your journey to success is to partner with a reliable virtual assistant company. VA Bear helps you hire and manage virtual assistants, allowing you to focus on what truly matters.
What Exactly is Hiring a Virtual Assistant?
A virtual assistant provides administrative services to clients remotely. A virtual assistant is an independent contractor who operates outside of the client's office. They typically work from a home office but can access the necessary planning documents, such as shared calendars, remotely. People employed as virtual assistants often have several years of experience as administrative assistants or office managers.
New opportunities are emerging for virtual assistants skilled in social media, content management, blog post writing, graphic design, and internet marketing. As working from home has become more accepted for both workers and employers, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic, demand for skilled virtual assistants is expected to grow.
How a Virtual Assistant Works
Virtual assistants have become increasingly prominent as small businesses and startups rely on virtual offices to reduce costs and enterprises of all sizes expand their use of the internet for daily operations. Because a virtual assistant is an independent contractor, a company does not have to provide the same benefits or pay the same taxes that it would for a full-time employee.
A virtual assistant is different from a salaried administrative assistant who works from home and would have the same compensation and tax structure as any other full-time employee. Also, since the virtual assistant works off-site, there is no need for a desk or other workspace at the company’s office. A virtual assistant is expected to pay for and provide their computer equipment, commonly used software programs, and high-speed internet service.
Related Reading
12 Undeniable Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Assistant
1. Increased Productivity
One of the most significant benefits of hiring a virtual assistant is the boost in productivity. Virtual assistants can take over time-consuming tasks such as:
- Scheduling meetings
- Managing emails
- Conducting research
- Handling customer service inquiries
By delegating these tasks, you free up valuable time to focus on core business activities. According to a Gallup study, CEOs who excel in delegating generate 33 percent higher revenue. These executives know they can’t accomplish everything alone and position their team to tackle tasks they’re confident they’ll achieve, in turn empowering employees, boosting morale, and increasing productivity.
2. Cost Savings
Hiring a virtual assistant can also lead to significant cost savings. Unlike full-time employees, virtual assistants are typically employed on a contract basis, meaning you only pay for the hours worked. This can be particularly beneficial for startups and small businesses operating on tight budgets.
Virtual assistants often work remotely, eliminating the need for office space and related expenses. You don’t need to rent office space to be in business. There are certain advantages to gathering your whole team in the same space, but your costs would also increase. Remote teams can significantly move the needle the other way. According to PGi, the average real estate savings with full-time teleworkers is $10,000 per employee per year. The insurance giant Aetna shed 2.7 million square feet of office space, resulting in a cost saving of $78 million per year. The cost-saving implications of remote workers alone make it a huge draw.
3. Enhanced Business Growth
Hiring a virtual assistant can contribute to business growth. By freeing up your time and resources, you can focus on activities that drive revenue and expansion. Virtual assistants can help streamline your operations by taking on some of the everyday administrative tasks.
A VA can handle administrative tasks like scheduling meetings, managing emails, or data entry, eliminating inefficiencies and distractions. You can then focus on delivering higher-quality work on the core areas of your business. For start-ups or small companies that may not have sufficient resources to hire a full-time staff member, a virtual assistant (VA) is a cost-effective solution for managing a range of tasks more efficiently.
4. Access to Specialized Skills
Virtual assistants come with a wide range of skills and expertise. Whether you need help with social media management, bookkeeping, or digital marketing, you can find a virtual assistant with the proper skill set.
This allows you to access specialized skills without the need for extensive training or hiring multiple employees. For example, a specialized virtual assistant can manage your social media accounts, create engaging content, and analyze performance metrics, helping you build a strong online presence.
5. Flexibility and Scalability
Another advantage of hiring a virtual assistant is the flexibility it offers. You can scale your virtual assistant’s hours up or down based on your business needs. This is particularly useful during peak seasons or when launching new projects.
Virtual assistants can work across different time zones, ensuring that your business operations continue smoothly around the clock. This flexibility allows you to respond to customer inquiries and manage tasks even outside regular business hours.
6. Do More of What You’re Good At
You can’t be a master of everything, and you shouldn’t try to be. For every task and process that’s required to run your business, including the ones you don’t like or aren’t good at, there is someone who specializes in doing those tasks.
So why are you still trying to do it all yourself? When you hire a Virtual Assistant, you give yourself the chance to invest time and energy into the areas of your business that need you and that you’re uniquely qualified to do. Hiring a Virtual Assistant lets you do more of what you’re good at.
7. Focus on Income-Generating Activities
The fact is, your business needs to make money to survive. When you hire a virtual assistant, you can focus on activities that add significant value to your company and that have a direct impact on your income.
Hiring a virtual assistant lets you take a big picture approach to your business and focus on growth, rather than admin. If you want to grow your business, you need to let go of the idea that you have to do everything yourself. No entrepreneur is an island.
8. Reduce Your Workload
As an entrepreneur, delegating specific tasks and responsibilities to others is a crucial step toward reducing your workload and, consequently, the stress associated with running a business. If you try to do everything yourself, you can quickly find that the work mounts up, leading to long workdays, feeling overwhelmed, and having zero time for other areas of your life, like:
- Family
- Hobbies
- Self-care activities
Hiring staff is important not just for your business, but also for your mental health and well-being.
9. Bolster Your Reputation
From lost invoices and unreturned calls to late or even missed meetings, there’s a lot that can go wrong when small business owners overextend themselves. These kinds of incidents have the potential to tarnish your image and weaken your reputation among the people you rely on most to keep your business running.
But managing the agendas of busy business owners has been a primary function of administrative assistants for as long as the position has existed. That’s why hiring virtual assistants can brush your business with the professional patina that impresses clients, customers, and vendors alike by improving your:
- Organization
- Punctuality
- Correspondence
10. Promote Creativity and Innovation
Even the best small business owners need time to refresh, recenter, and refocus their thinking around their business goals. Being responsible for every aspect of running your business doesn’t leave much time for self-reflection.
When you’re in a constant scramble to meet essential deadlines, it can be challenging to focus on anything beyond the closest one. Hiring a virtual assistant for a small business means you’ll have more time to take care of yourself, making you better able to care for your business.
11. Improved Products and Services
No matter what industry you’re in, your business should give value to customers and help them achieve a specific objective. It’s an utmost concern to provide the best product or service to ensure customer satisfaction.
This will drive sales and revenue. With the services of a virtual assistant, you can lessen the workload of your team so you all can focus on your core functions. Tasks such as market research and competitor analysis can be outsourced to a virtual assistant (VA) to help improve my products and services.
12. Helps Stay Organized
A virtual assistant can give you a hand in staying organized by managing your calendar, scheduling appointments, and keeping track of deadlines. You will not miss your tasks and schedules with the to-do lists and reminders that VAs can do.
This helps you prioritize your tasks and stay on top of things in your business. Having all the jobs adequately lined up can help you reduce stress and improve your overall well-being.
Your All-in-One Virtual Assistant Management Solution
Stop juggling multiple platforms and spreadsheets to manage your virtual assistant team. VA Bear is the all-in-one solution that lets you:
- Find
- Hire
- Manage
- Pay
VA Bear comes with built-in time tracking, task management, and integrated payroll. Say goodbye to unreliable freelancers and operational bottlenecks as you build a dependable support team that scales with your business. Transform how you work with virtual assistants through our streamlined platform featuring job boards, CRM tools, and real-time productivity monitoring.
Get started today and experience the difference of having everything you need in one place.
Related Reading
6 Simple Steps for Hiring the Right Virtual Assistant
1. Document the Tasks You Want to Outsource
Start by making a list of all the tasks and processes you plan to delegate to your Virtual Assistant. Assuming these are tasks that you’re currently doing yourself, create training documents (aka Standard Operating Procedures) for each of these tasks.
If you’re hiring a Specialized Virtual Assistant, document the outcomes you want them to accomplish instead of specific tasks or procedures.
2. Create a Job Description
When you have your list of tasks you want to delegate to your Virtual Assistant, it’s time to create a job description for the role. Your job description should include:
- Background information about your business (e.g. your industry, what you sell, and who your main clients/customers are)
- Level of education, experience, and/or skills required
- List of duties and responsibilities
- List of any apps, tools, or software they will be using.
3. Post Your Job Description Online
Once you have your job description ready, the next step is to post it online and start accepting applications. You can use a general virtual hiring site like Upwork or opt for a specific Virtual Assistant hiring service or directory like VA Bear.
4. Review Applications & Schedule Interviews
Once you’ve received enough applications for your Virtual Assistant role, review the candidates and narrow down the list to the top 5-10 individuals. You can then schedule interviews with your shortlist. A video interview is the next best thing to interviewing someone in person with a video call; you can figure out pretty quickly if you can communicate well with the candidate and if they’re likely to be a good fit for your business.
If someone isn’t willing to do a video interview, this is a red flag. In addition to reviewing candidates’ work experience and skills, it can also be helpful to ask about their goals, preferred work style, and management approach during the interview. You could even ask your candidates to complete a personality test. This will help you to understand further their values, strengths, and how they work best.
5. Assign Your Top Candidates a Test
Before you commit to hiring a specific candidate, give your top 3 candidates a task to complete as a trial test. Pick a task that would be part of their regular responsibilities if they were to get the job, so you can see how well they perform with this task. Asking my candidates to complete a real task will help you determine who the top candidate is, but you should also pay them for their work.
6. Give the Best Candidate a Trial Period
Depending on the results from the interview and trial task, you can choose the best candidate for the job! Once you’ve selected your top applicant, start them off on a trial period – for example, for 30, 60, or 90 days.
A trial period gives you the chance to see how your new hire gets on in the Virtual Assistant role, as well as giving the successful candidate a chance to see if your business is the right fit for them. This is an essential settling-in period where you can both adjust to working together.
Note: Ensure they sign a formal Service Agreement before commencing any work, and, if necessary, a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) as well.
How to Effectively Work with a Virtual Assistant on Your Business
More than 50% of remote workers report that poor communication negatively impacts their trust in leadership, ultimately affecting their productivity and performance. Regular communication is crucial to understanding your VA’s progress and addressing any issues promptly before they escalate into significant problems.
Selecting the right communication channel can significantly enhance productivity and collaboration between you and your virtual assistant (VA). Stay in touch with emails, video calls, or instant messaging apps. For example, if your VA is working on a project and encounters a problem, they should feel comfortable contacting you for guidance.
Assign Tasks: How to Set Your Virtual Assistant Up for Success
In part because of poor communication, nearly half of workers lack clarity on their roles and responsibilities. With virtual assistants (VAs), be clear about what you want them to do, providing detailed instructions and deadlines to avoid confusion.
If you need your VA to manage your emails, specify which ones they should prioritize and how to respond to them. It can be helpful to let your VA know the impact on your business if the task is not carried out correctly or on time, so that they can understand the importance of their work. With clearly defined tasks, your virtual assistant (VA) should be able to work with minimal supervision.
Set Expectations: How to Help a Virtual Assistant Understand Their Role in Your Business
Ensure your VA understands your expectations. This includes:
- Work hours: Clearly define the hours you expect your VA to be available and working. This doesn’t necessarily mean they must align with your business hours (especially if they are in a different time zone), but they should be aware of when they are expected to be online and responsive. Also, ensure they are aware of whether you want them to track the time spent on different types of tasks.
- Response times: Set expectations for how quickly you expect your VA to respond to emails, messages, or tasks. For example, you might require an immediate response to urgent matters, while less urgent tasks can be addressed within 24 hours.
- Quality of work: Define acceptable work quality, and don’t compromise. Accuracy, attention to detail, creativity, and efficiency are all critical for maintaining a healthy working relationship.
- Communication: Please specify your preferred communication channels and the frequency at which you would like to be updated on tasks or projects. Some managers prefer daily updates, while others are fine with weekly summaries.
- Confidentiality: If your VA will be handling sensitive information, ensure they understand the importance of maintaining confidentiality.
- Professionalism: Your VA represents your business, so they must conduct themselves professionally. This includes how they communicate with you, clients, and other team members.
- Task prioritization: If your VA will be handling multiple tasks, guide them on recognizing priority tasks. Which tasks are most urgent or important? Which tasks can be done concurrently, and which ones require complete focus?
These expectations should be communicated clearly and early on, ideally during the onboarding process. It’s also important to revisit these expectations regularly and adjust as needed.
Provide Feedback: How to Help Your Virtual Assistant Improve Performance
Regular feedback helps your virtual assistant (VA) improve their performance. Praise exceptional work, constructively address areas that need improvement, and show gratitude for their help. Correct mistakes gently, remembering we all make them.
Use Online Management Tools: How to Improve Communication and Task Management With Your Virtual Assistant
Tools like:
- Asana
- Trello
- Slack
It can help you assign tasks, track progress, and communicate with your virtual assistant. For example, you can use Asana to assign daily tasks and set deadlines, and your VA can update their progress directly in the app. An even better option is VA Bear.
VA Bear is the all-in-one solution that lets you find, hire, manage, and pay top virtual assistants from a single dashboard. VA Bear comes with built-in time tracking, task management, and integrated payroll. Say goodbye to unreliable freelancers and operational bottlenecks as you build a dependable support team that scales with your business.
Treat Them As Human Beings: How to Build a Healthy Working Relationship With Your Virtual Assistant
Treating your virtual assistant as a human being might seem like a given, but it’s worth emphasizing. Because there is sometimes no personal interaction, they can often feel underappreciated. To bring out the best in your VA, make sure you:
- Acknowledge their personal lives
- Show empathy
- Celebrate their successes
- Encourage work-life balance
- Provide constructive feedback
- Involve them in decision-making
- Respect their ideas and opinions
Remember, your VA is not just a task-doer. They are a valuable member of your team and should be treated as such. They have feelings, needs, and personal lives. For example, be understanding and flexible if your VA is sick or has a personal emergency.
- Action plan: Use their name as often as possible to make sure you are humanizing them in your mind instead of just inputting tasks into a computer.
Provide the Right Training and Resources: How to Help Your Virtual Assistant Deliver Quality Work
To guarantee that your virtual assistant performs tasks according to your business's preferences, provide them with an effective onboarding process and the necessary training materials. These resources should cover your company's:
- Policies
- Procedures
- Details
Related Reading
- Upwork vs WorkChest
Hire and Manage Virtual Assistants All in One Place with VA Bear
If you are feeling overwhelmed by your growing to-do list, hiring a virtual assistant can help you regain control by delegating tasks to someone who can take the burden off your shoulders. Finding the right VA can take time, a resource you likely don’t have to spare.
VA Bear is a platform that can help you quickly find a reliable virtual assistant to help you regain control of your life and your business. With VA Bear, you can post a job, collect applications, and even conduct interviews all in one place. Instead of juggling multiple platforms to find a qualified VA, you can streamline the process with VA Bear and reduce your stress.
Streamlined Onboarding for Your Virtual Assistant
As a business owner, you likely already have too many operational tasks to manage. So when you hire a virtual assistant, you don’t want to add to the chaos. Unfortunately, that’s often what happens when you bring on a freelancer to help your business. VAs have their own processes and systems to manage their work.
If they are using a platform you aren’t familiar with, it can create operational bottlenecks that slow your business down. VA Bear helps you get organized by providing a platform where you can both get to work right away without missing a beat. You can set up tasks and workflows for your new VA and create a system that works for your business from day one.
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