Are you thinking about using a virtual administration service but not completely sold on it? Here’s an entrepreneur guide to using a virtual admin service.
Full article with thanks to: rescue.ceoblognation.com/2017/09/20/19-entrepreneurs-explain-benefits-using-virtual-assistant
Virtual assistants are gaining traction as a tool among many businesses, particularly small ones. The fact of the matter is that most businesses could use a virtual assistant at least some of the time. Need will depend on the level of business activity (such as whether a business is in a growth phase), the complexity of operations, and the level of in-house expertise in areas such as marketing, bookkeeping, and graphic design. We asked entrepreneurs and business owners about the benefits of using a virtual assistant.
#1-  Focus on one niche
To run and grow a successful business, you’re going to need a team to make that happen. On that team, you’ll need specialists, because no contractor will be able to do everything for you. Most VA contractors focus on one niche, hence you’ll probably hire more than one person to handle projects. The main thing to think about is that with their help, you’ll be able to stop spending so much time on projects that are time-consuming, zap your energy, and instead focus on tasks that generate revenue. The great thing about a VA is that they are an independent contractor so you don’t have to pay for office space, employee taxes, and benefits. Other expenses you don’t have to worry about: hardware (they have their own computer, printer, and anything else needed), health insurance, vacation days, sick days, and wasted time while they chat with your other employees.
#2- Several Benefits
There are plenty of benefits that hiring a virtual assistant can bring to small business owners and entrepreneurs. First, he or she can help manage your email Inbox, especially for the more mundane items. This can free up lots of time and help make you more productive. That person can also help you keep track of your various appointments. A virtual assistant can assist with planning and arranging travel, and do research for you if that’s currently part of your job. In certain instances, they can also handle some accounting duties. And in general, you can save money compared to hiring an actual employee, where payroll taxes and possibly benefits come into play, and they’ll also be basically on call and work according to your schedule. You might also be able to eliminate the need for an office if you employ one. And a talented virtual assistant can help fill in the blanks as far as areas where you might not be an expert, such as possibly but not limited to accounting, content creation, and more.
#3-Â 24 hours office team working on your side
We use virtual assistants to help us compile data to venture into new areas of practice. By using the VA we can avoid overworking our existing staff, and the work can generally be done overnight. Our marketing team compiles the request and places it and by the next morning, we have the data we need to do the meeting and make strategic decisions. We also use VAs to categorise our expenses for our bookkeeping team. The time shift really helps as the data is ready for us the next morning. It’s like having a 24-hour office team working on your side. We are currently exploring the use of a legal VA for legal research. If we are able to secure that there will be no stopping our litigation team!
#4- Helps you grow your business
Hiring a virtual assistant helped me grow my business before I was able to commit to hiring any staff in house. I’m a commercial real estate broker and, in the beginning, revenue was spotty at best. I couldn’t commit to hiring an assistant that was going to be dependent on me being able to pay them each week. Besides, I didn’t have quite enough work to keep somebody busy every day. Hiring a virtual assistant allowed me to get the help I needed with the tasks that were taking away from me being able to generate new business. I had my virtual assistant putting together reports for clients, bookkeeping,  posting listings on different websites, researching and spending the time looking for the best deal from vendors for things I needed to purchase for the business. I even had them respond to certain e-mails while I was out of the office. Some weeks I would keep my assistant busy for 20 hours while other weeks when money was tight, I would only have three or four hours worth of work for them. Being able to delegate the tasks that took up a large chunk of my time without the stress of figuring out how to pay them during long stretches between commission checks was exactly what my business needed.
#5- Allows you to focus on more specialised tasks
For me, the main benefit of using a virtual admin service is that it takes the routine work off my plate. I use my VA to manage tasks such as posting and engaging on social media, handling emails and creating simple graphics for blog/social media. While this work is quite straightforward, it still needs to be done. Giving this work to a VA allows me to focus on more specialised tasks, such as creating content, recording videos, and building relationships with influencers. Since hiring a VA, I have witnessed a higher RoI on the time invested in my online business.
#6- Allow you to work efficiently at lesser costs
virtual assistants in different countries throughout the world allow us to have a global footprint. My company is embracing the fully remote team structure so having virtual assistants allows us to work efficiently and effectively without having to spend money on physical office space. The virtual assistants on our team play a crucial role in our community team. They are incredibly smart and have a great eye for content. Our virtual assistants never complain about tasks being too large or too small. They never ever complain about tasks being too hard or too monotonous. Having virtual assistants has allowed us to start a company and stay lean to keep costs down. Our virtual assistants are extremely educated and reliable. They infrequently ever miss a shift.
#7- Delegate part-time jobs
I’ve realised that no matter how important a task is to the success of my business, if I don’t want to do it, I’ll put it off for a long time and then agonisingly do it, all while beating myself up about how much I suck at doing it. Once I started outsourcing those tasks, it was amazing how much better I felt about myself, but more importantly, how much better the business ran. These tasks are not full times jobs (yet), thus it is completely beneficial to use a virtual assistant. To me, the benefit of using a virtual assistant is that I can outsource a specific task, rather than a role. Then I’m not managing a person for that role but rather managing the completion of that task or series of tasks. This has made life much easier for me because the virtual assistants are doing the work much better than I can since I hate it and that leaves me the time and energy to focus on what I enjoy doing in my business.
#8- Allows you to focus on the core operations of the business
Hiring a VA allowed me to focus on the core operations of my business. I start each week with a mental list of time-consuming tasks that I shouldn’t be doing on my own. These tasks, as appropriate, I assign to my VA. I have learned that not everything requires personal direct attention. My VA provides personal as well as administrative support, providing me with more time to focus on the most crucial aspects of running my business.
#9- Run the backend of a business
Virtual assistants run the backend of my business. I work primarily in freelance writing and rely on my assistants to help with research and outline preparation before I dive in and make it all sound great. It really helps to tee me up for my work so that I can focus on the most important things that only I can do. I think that’s how people have to think in terms of hiring a virtual assistant—thinking about outsourcing the tasks that might not be the best use of their time.
#10- Freedom to continue to establish and develop relationships with clients
Using a virtual admin service has helped my business to grow quicker. My business partner and I have benefited from the freedom to continue to establish and develop relationships with clients, including creating and implementing coaching and mentoring programmes, running events and speaking, building our brand along the way. We can focus on the high-value tasks such as generating income through 121 coachings, whilst outsourcing the low-value tasks like posting on our social media platforms, maximising efficiency. Everyone should have a virtual assistant. If you don’t have one and you want to grow your business exponentially, I recommend you get one today because you will see a return on investment quicker than you think!
#11- Offload various tasks using a virtual admin service
I have used a virtual assistant that I contract through Upwork for three years with great success. She is in Latvia and helps me with all sorts of tasks doubling my effectiveness and stretching my time twofold.
Over the course of three years I have managed to offload the following tasks to her:
– Bookkeeping
– Research for email and contact information for sales prospects
– Social media monitoring and interaction
– Excel spreadsheet data entry
For each of these skill sets, I had to take the time to instruct her how we wanted them done, however, once we have them in place it has been a tremendous timesaver for me. Utilising Skype and screen share services I can instruct her to do any remedial tasks to offload from my day to day workload. This enables me to focus on high leverage activities such as product development, strategy, and planning. It’s quite possible we wouldn’t be where we are today without her.
#12- Provide needed business support to business people
Virtual assistants provide needed business support to business people who need extra assistance but don’t have the bandwidth or resources to add an employee. One advantage of a VA is that these are skilled professionals who can bring their expertise to bear on a problem. In many cases, particular marketing expertise or a deeper knowledge of how to use software enables these professionals to finish projects more efficiently than the business person can do them. As a result, a VA is more than simply somebody to whom busy work is delegated; the VA can improve work product quality and expand the capabilities of the business. VA services are also scalable – business people can use them for only a few hours a week and then increase usage as their business grows.
#13- Peace of mind using a virtual admin service
I’ve actually found my virtual assistant to be very helpful. I have a day job that is separate from my company that I run on the side, so I’m not really ever able to answer calls or complete tasks that pile up during the day. I used to have to do it all when I got home from work. I decided to investigate a few virtual receptionist companies out there and ended up going to Davinci Virtual. Since then, it’s been awesome not having to worry about letting calls go to voicemail during the day. It’s really more about the peace of mind for me that if I get a call, they are going to actually speak to a real person that has a good understanding of my business and how to answer client questions and schedule meetings for me if a client shows that they are potential quality lead.
#14- Several Benefits
Not having a full-time employee and having the opportunity to delegate out work that is not the highest and best use of my time. This in turn gives me the ability to focus on working with my clients, creating new content for them, and spending my valuable time where it is business savvy to do so. With technology today using a task management website and assigning tasks to my virtual assistants saves me additional time in need to speak to them for each new task.
#15- Get Back to Doing What You Love
As a business owner, the workload can often become so overwhelming that you no longer have the time to partake in the aspects you love about the company. By hiring a virtual assistant, you are able to delegate the busy work/ routine tasks and get back to doing what you love. Having the extra support of a VA will free up several valuable hours a day, allowing you to focus on the more important aspect of the business, like ensuring the overall growth and tending to your staff. Virtual assistants are also generally very flexible in terms of hours worked and skill set, making them a great source of help 24/7.
#16- Several Benefits
Using a virtual admin service can offer a few great benefits such as saving on the expense of hiring a full-time employee. You don’t have to worry about the paperwork that goes along with a new hire as well. Virtual assistants are independent contractors, so they are responsible for their own taxes and bookkeeping.
#17- Immediate relief of some kind and taking some things off your plate
There are endless possible benefits to using a virtual assistant. The greater question is, what impact can a VA have on your business which will benefit you the most? When hiring a virtual assistant, first and foremost you should be looking for immediate relief of some kind. You benefit by not only from having something taken off of your plate but also a weight being lifted. Whether it is finally being able to get your bookkeeping done, your social media posts scheduled, a timeline to begin your online course offerings, a website optimised, newsletters sent, workbook created, etc. the impact is two-fold. Virtual assistants not only perform the work but allow you to keep your momentum up. A body in motion stays in motion. This means you can stop just spinning the ideas around in your mind and, instead, you can put the wheels in motion to move forward. So before hiring a VA, decide on the benefit you want to have first and hire the right virtual assistant who will provide the outcomes needed.
#18-Â Â Three benefits of using a virtual admin service
We have 9 years of experience in online entrepreneurship in South America, now with 34 employees and more than 21.500.000 users internationally in Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Mexico and Colombia. I am thinking about sharing what we have learned working on the Internet through all these years. What are the benefits of using a virtual assistant?
For 3 years I have been a virtual assistant and these have been the main three benefits:
1) I have 45 minutes per day to focus on long-term strategic decisions, rather than micro-day-to-day problems.
2) I can go home 30 minutes earlier every day to be with my family before the kids go to sleep.
3) I have an agenda that allows me to organise 2 weeks in advance.
We hope you found the opinions of using a virtual admin service useful. It can be used as an entrepreneur guide on using virtual administration in the business.
Full article with thanks to: rescue.ceoblognation.com/2017/09/20/19-entrepreneurs-explain-benefits-using-virtual-assistant
Did you enjoy that? Why not share this article.
Want personalised advice or need services with virtual administration or virtual bookkeeping? Book your free consultation with Sandcress today.