Why Hire a Virtual Assistant?

Virtual assistants are increasingly becoming more popular as online businesses have been growing over the past years. But some business owners might be hesitant about hiring a virtual assistant because they don’t completely understand why hiring a VA would benefit them. A few of the top reasons a virtual assistant would be beneficial for your business are:

• They will save time and save money for your business.
• They will contribute to the growth of your business with efficiency, productivity, and visibility.
• You will become less stressed and can avoid potential burn-out.

Read on to learn about the 15 benefits of hiring a virtual assistant for your business.

What is a virtual assistant?

A virtual assistant is an independent contractor who works remotely for business owners. They can be hired to work for a set number of hours per month or to complete a onetime project. As a freelancer, a virtual assistant will have multiple clients and will have a skill set to assist you with a wide variety of tasks. You might hire a virtual assistant to work on administrative tasks, social media management, website design, copywriting, and much more. To learn more about what a virtual assistant does, click here.

15 reasons to hire a virtual assistant

1. Saves you loads of time. You only have 24 hours in your day, and you can’t do everything that needs to be done if you want to grow your business. At first, the hiring and onboarding process will take some time. But once your virtual assistant is up to speed with your processes and systems, they will allow you to work ‘on’ your business rather than ‘in’ your business, affording your the best use of your time possible. You’ll spend less time doing administrative and time-consuming tasks. You can focus on the higher-level tasks that you have been wanting to accomplish but could never find the time to.
2. You don’t need to train a virtual assistant since you can hire a VA who has the exact skills you are in need of. Virtual assistants all have their own skill sets and expertise in a variety of areas. You’ll be able to find a virtual assistant who has the exact skills you need and can start working for you on day one.
3. Saves you money since you only need to hire the virtual assistant for the number of hours per week or month that you need them. If you hire a fulltime employee, you’ll have to pay them for the full work week no matter what they are working on. A virtual assistant can be hired for as many hours that you need assistance and that number can change from month to month.
4. Pay only for work. You aren’t paying for their breaks, lunch, sick days, or vacation. Whenever your virtual assistant gets up from their desk and stops working for you, that’s also when the timer stops. Think of how many times during the day that a fulltime employee gets up from their desk to talk to a co-worker, to make a personal call, to heat up their lunch, to run an errand, or to surf the internet. A virtual assistant won’t be charging you for that time since they are only keeping track of their time when they are entirely dedicated to working on your projects.
5. Save on benefits packages. You aren’t providing any health benefits, retirement benefits, bonuses, or paid outings to a freelance virtual assistant. A large chunk of money that a business owner has to contribute to a fulltime employee involves benefits. A virtual assistant doesn’t require this sum of money.
6. Save on office expenses on supplies, team lunches, equipment, software, or office space. The virtual assistant is required to have functional equipment with the software needed to complete the projects they are hired to work on. They’ll work from a remote location where the business owner doesn’t have to worry about paying for electricity, heating/cooling, desk space, or office supplies.
7. Saves you money on taxes, which you can spend on other business needs. A virtual assistant is an independent contractor who pays their own self-employment taxes every year.
8. Reduce the chance of employee drama since you will be hiring someone who won’t be working in an office where you might have other team members. Sometimes personalities can clash, especially when you are working in close quarters with them every day of the week. Having a remote virtual assistant will take this possibility out of the equation.
9. Increased productivity at a lower expense since a virtual assistant has control over their time, has fewer office distractions, and can work longer hours at home. Being in an office can be distracting. Employees will get interrupted at their desk, get up from their desks to chat with another co-worker, or get off task by starting to browse the internet. A virtual assistant will only work when they are able to completely focus on the task they need to complete. Your virtual assistant can have availability throughout the day and overnight. A fulltime employee will work a set number of hours every day. They’ll come in at 9 in the morning and leave at 5 in the afternoon, so you usually won’t hear back from them after 5pm. A virtual assistant has more flexibility in their schedule so you can hear back from them sooner. They can be available outside of the normal business hours and can accommodate your schedule. You might need help later at night which you can outsource to your virtual assistant. This is especially true if you opt to find a virtual assistant located in another time zone to help ensure the balance. If you need customer service overnight, you can find a virtual assistant to manage those off hours. If you need someone to engage and answer social media comments, there is a virtual assistant who can keep on top of that throughout the day.
10. Increase your own efficiency by delegating administrative tasks to a virtual assistant to take care of. By passing off time-consuming tasks, you can gain a significant amount of time back into your day to work on more core business activities. Your virtual assistant can also help document your systems and workflows as they are continuously improving and being updated.
11. Strengthen a weaker area in your business. Every virtual assistant has their own specialty, experience, and expertise. They can help fill a gap you have in your business since you don’t have a strength in that area or the time to learn how to do it. You may want to start a blog, but you aren’t a good writer or maybe you’re finances aren’t being tracked properly and you are terrible at math or perhaps you’re email inbox is extremely unorganized and you can’t find anything when you need it. There are virtual assistants to help you in all of these areas and will help you improve your business with their expertise.
12. Get some general marketing assistance. Increase online visibility by developing a website, contributing to your blog, or keeping your social media (linkedin, twitter, pinterest, etc) presence alive. Keeping up with these types of tasks take up a lot of time in a business and usually get pushed down on the list of priorities. But keeping your online presence active and alive is extremely important. Posting new content regularly will help you to gain new clients and customers.
13. You’ll have a built-in collaborator who you can bounce ideas off of. Your virtual assistant will get to know you and your business extremely well. They might have suggestions on how you can improve since they have worked with or are currently working with other business owners that they are also learning from. You can share your ideas with your virtual assistant to see if they think it’s a smart area to explore.
14. Stress reduction. You’ll be less stressed since you’re freeing your time up from doing the daily mundane tasks such as data entry, scheduling meetings, creating invoices, and other business operations. You will have someone to assist you, so you aren’t taking on every single project in your business by yourself. You can work less hours and be able to go home at a regular hour of the day. You’ll be avoiding burn-out and can create a better work-life balance.
15. If you don’t have a team yet, you’ll be developing management skills by learning the process of hiring, delegating, communicating, and teaching your virtual assistant specific tasks. You’ll become a better leader for others and within your business.
    

Additional resources

If you’re looking for more ways to improve your productivity here are some additional resources:

• 10 Productivity Tips for Business Owners and Entrepreneurs https://www.efrontlearning.com/blog/2018/01/productivity-tips-business-owners-entrepreneurs.html
• 20 Tips for Improving Productivity Among Small Business Owners https://smallbiztrends.com/2017/02/improving-productivity-small-business.html
• How to Make the Most of Your Workday https://www.nytimes.com/guides/business/how-to-improve-your-productivity-at-work
• 15 Ways to Increase Productivity at Work https://www.inc.com/john-rampton/15-ways-to-increase-productivity-at-work.html
• 5 Ways to Increase Business Productivity https://www.business.com/articles/five-ways-to-increase-business-productivity/
• 11 Proven Strategies for Increasing Employee Productivity in 2019 https://blog.hubstaff.com/employee-productivity/
• 10 Incredibly Easy Ways To Improve Your Productivity https://www.forbes.com/sites/nomanazish/2018/06/18/10-incredibly-easy-ways-to-improve-your-productivity/#14133057365b