You may be wondering; what is a Virtual Assistant? And why would I hire one?

It’s simple, really. A virtual assistant is generally self-employed and provides professional administrative, technical, or creative assistance to clients remotely from a home office.

Clients are typically other businesses, of any size, who require additional support to run or manage certain tasks. However, VAs can sometimes be hired as personal assistants to individuals. They are not limited to remote working, either. Although not the norm, a VA may sometimes travel to the business location to facilitate a variety of functions (an important meeting, or networking event, for instance), but the costs of the travel are usually billed to their client as part of their terms and conditions.

Many VAs have a ‘niche’, or speciality service; this can be anything from social media or SEO, to design, or even accounting. They often have various recognised qualifications and often have many years’ experience in their field under their belts.

So, why would you hire a VA? What are the benefits to your business in doing so?

1. Cost Savings!

The first reason may be the most important to some businesses. In hiring a VA, you can save yourself a boat load of cash. For starters, there is no overhead. As a VA is self-employed and works remotely from their own location, you don’t need to worry about office space, equipment, or extra costs on your utility bills.

You will only pay for the hours that are used. If you contract a VA to work 5 hours per week, and they get everything done in only 3 hours, those extra two hours usually carry over to the following week (subject to contract, of course). Transparent charges and time spent working enable cost savings.

Additionally, a VA is not an employee; so, no payroll, no tax calculations, no pension contributions, no benefits packages to worry about. You simply receive an invoice, and that’s the end of that!

2. Save Time

Time is money. As well as saving cash, you can also save a lot of time by hiring a VA. Think of what you could achieve if you had an additional 10 hours per week… or even 5 hours? Would you take that course you’ve been putting off? Take clients out for lunch? Spend time with your family? Or even just concentrating on those all-important sales that are crucial to keeping your business running.

By outsourcing the vital but time-consuming admin tasks to a VA, you free up your own time to spend on actually running your business the way you want to. Or even taking some time out for self-care. Let’s face it, if you can’t take some time out for yourself, you will soon burn out; and this isn’t good for your business.

3. Improved Organisation

Businesses run better when they are organised. Doing repetitive tasks day in and day out can have a negative impact on your creativity and juggling all those things all at once will affect your organisation. Are your response times or SLAs suffering because you’ve not had time to sort out your inbox, manage your canned responses, or get those expenses filed?

You could have your social media platforms looking and working as you want, all your emails filtered and responded to, newsletters or blog posts published and sent out on time, expense claims logged in time for payroll, the list is endless…

A VA could step in and put some systems in place that work for you, creating a well-oiled machine that will produce better results.

4. Strengthen Any Weaknesses

We can’t all be good at everything, and you may have skill or knowledge gaps in your business. Hiring a VA could be just what you need in order to add value to the areas of your business that might be lacking.

You’ve done a great job so far; you’ve built your business to where it is today and that is amazing! But you don’t have to do it on your own – bridge the gaps with the help of your VA.

5. Collaboration

Bringing in a fresh set of eyes can often be the cure if things become stale. A VA often works for a huge variety of businesses in different industries, so your VA may be able to offer some pointers or tips that they’ve learned along the way. It’s safe to say, we’ve usually been around the block, and have seen and worked with more than our fair share of different systems and methods of working. Their contribution could prove incredibly beneficial.

We all have our own way of doing things, and your VA will be no different. Through collaboration with your VA, you may just find that that there is an easier and smarter way to tackle certain tasks.