Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a freelancer, or just a busy professional looking to gain some time and organization back in your day, there is a cost-effective solution that is quick and easy to implement. Hire a virtual assistant (VA).
Think about it. For anyone who has a long roster of projects and to-do’s, time is money. Time is valuable. In fact, time is so valuable that whenever you are performing menial tasks that you are overqualified for, you’re working inefficiently. And when you’re working inefficiently, you actually lose money while you are performing those tasks. Shocking, isn’t it?
Although it may seem counterintuitive at first, it makes a lot of sense once you think about it. Opportunity cost is a real thing. The time you spend responding to emails, scheduling meetings, transcribing notes, or whatever it is that could be delegated, that is time you could be spending doing more high-value items.
Virtual assistants are budget-friendly
Who wouldn’t love to hire their own personal or executive assistant if they had the resources or the budget to afford one? In some cases, you could make the argument that having an assistant is an indicator of professional success. But hiring a full-time assistant is not feasible for everyone who could benefit from one. Depending on what your needs are, you aren’t restricted to hiring someone for a fixed part-time or full-time role.
Take, for example, anyone who is in a seasonal business where the work gets busier during certain months and tapers off the rest of the year. During those critical busy months, an extra person on staff would make all the difference. But training and hire someone for just a couple of months may not be worth the overhead and the amount that you have to pay in employee benefits. This is where having a VA would be a great alternative that is much more cost-efficient.
Virtual assistants can be task specialized
Virtual assistants can specialize in very niched tasks, making them the most effective in a limited scope role. This means you have the capacity to hire an entire team of VAs, each specialized in a different task to tackle all the mundane parts of your workflow. Below are just a few examples of tasks that VAs can specialize in:
- Answering Emails
- Data Entry
- Excel Workbook Management
- Market Research
- Research Projects – Business & Personal
- Social Media Management
- Light Accounting
- Marketing
Even if you don’t have a need for extended support, it is still an added peace of mind to know that if something urgent were to come up, VAs are able to jump in. As a part of business, emergencies and unplanned problems can arise at any point. Having reliable support that is readily able to jump in is reassuring.
Virtual assistants can help streamline your operations
One of the biggest barriers to getting an assistant is being able to assign work that is actually helpful and productive. For individuals who are very accustomed to being busy, it is hard to let go of the tasks that you are constantly doing every day. Over time, this adds to the overall inefficiency in your workflow.
How many times have you heard someone say, “an assistant would be great, but I don’t have time to teach or train them how to do this right now”? This is the result of all the tiny, day-to-day tasks compounding into a very convoluted system that is hard to explain. Having a VA begin with redundant, “housekeeping” types of tasks can build better habits and allow you to slowly streamline your overall operations.
In time, when VAs are involved in your work and you are only focusing on the high-level, important to-do’s, the process will be broken down into manageable pieces. Each segment of your work will be functioning independently of each other, which makes the overall workflow that much smoother and easier to manage. In other words, you can afford to take a sick day and the engine will still run.
Virtual assistants can be the catalyst to business growth
Because virtual assistants are freeing up a lot of the previously stretched bandwidth, the increased efficiency will naturally lend itself to business growth. Business growth can come from a few different areas. It can come from a reduction in overhead, operating expenses, net income, or decreased cost of goods.
When you hire a virtual assistant, you are directly impacting a few of those areas. You are reducing the operating expense, first of all (it is more expensive to “pay yourself” to do data entry than it is to have a VA do it). It is clearing up your time to pursue new business opportunities, which will add new income to your business.
Virtual assistants, over time, will become quicker and faster at some of the redundant tasks that you were doing, which immediately lowers overhead and decreases your “cost of goods.” As a result, you are now well-positioned to see the business grow, whether that is higher profitability or higher revenue overall.
The Bottom Line
If you’ve hit a point where you are seeing diminishing returns with the time that you are spending on all the tasks you have to do, it may be time to consider an assistant. No matter who you are, how talented, how focused, how savvy you are, a single person can only manage so much. And it is simply not feasible to operate at 100% all the time.
There are definitely benefits to having some extra help. This is why a virtual assistant or team of virtual assistants is the perfect alternative to a traditional assistant. VAs are budget-friendly and can streamline your operations, and will ultimately drive business growth.
If you haven’t considered going virtual as you scale your workload or business, there is no better time to look into it than the present.