In the previous chapters, I have talked about what virtual assistants are and the types of virtual assistants you can hire, allowing you to understand so far the concept of virtual assistant and their different kinds.
What comes next?
In this chapter, I’ll be discussing the top 5 reasons why you should take a virtual assistant on board.
Ben, one of my friends, is running a small bookkeeping company. Initially, everything was in order. Ben was having a perfect work-life balance.
But after some time, things became haywire when he got 7 clients in a few days. Ben started to stay late in the office to complete tasks. He was a bit apprehensive in scaling up. After his wife’s constant nagging, he hired a virtual admin assistant to reduce workload. Now, he reaches home early. He is happy, so is his wife and 6 years old son.”
Virtual assistant changed Ben’s life. Here is how a virtual can make a difference in your business life:
1 – Virtual Assistant Will Save You Time
Time, my friend is one of the most valuable things in your life. If you are not counting each minute of working hours, you are making a big mistake that can take its toll on your productivity.
If you analyze your daily routine, you will find that there is a good number of tasks that you can delegate to someone. These tasks include, but not limited to, email management/labeling, booking appointments with clients, calendar management, hotel and flight booking, setting up social media accounts, and more.
Ben delegated the tasks of handling queries to a virtual assistant. This alone saves him an hour on a daily basis.
2 – Virtual Assistant Will Save You Money
A virtual assistant will not only save you time but also save you money. Suppose my friend hires a full-time personal assistant. He will have to provide the assistant with office space and necessary equipment.
Even if he decides to buy an old work cube, he will have to spend around $1500-$2000 to build a proper working area. And he will have to spend around $750-$1200 to buy a computer and essential software. So, he will have to initially spend $2250-$3200 if he hires a regular employee.
What’s more, Ben will have to provide his personal assistant with sick leaves, earned leaves, casual leaves, and retirement benefits.
So, he definitely made a smart decision. When it comes to hiring virtual assistant Vs regular employee, successful entrepreneurs always choose virtual assistants.
3 – Virtual Assistants offer a Safe Way to Scale up
Though the idea of scaling up entered my friend’s mind many times, he was a bit apprehensive to execute it. And he was right in his apprehension. One cannot fire an employee if there is less or no work. Being the owner of a startup company, which means keeping a tab on the operating cost, Ben wasn’t in the favor of hiring a full-time personal assistant. To his virtual assistant, he pays hourly. And he adjusts working hours as per his needs.
You must have got an idea that it is easy to scale up with a virtual assistant.
In his guide to scaling your business with virtual assistants, Dave Nevogt explained,
“The truth is that there are millions of people all over the world who are incredibly skilled and willing to work for rates that you can afford. When done right, you can have a team (small or large) of highly-skilled, trained pros cranking on your business while you are sleeping.”
Dave Nevogt has built three (3) multi-million dollar businesses with outsourced teams.
Here are the top three benefits of scaling up business operations with virtual assistants:
- If you hire a virtual assistant from a different time-zone, you can be online 24/7
- You won’t have to train your virtual assistant as virtual assistants are skilled in their niches
- As virtual assistant assistants are hired on a contractual basis, you can terminate/replace them whenever you want
All these benefits make virtual assistants a great option to scale up business operations.
4 – Virtual Assistants Add Flexibility to Your business
If your clients are scattered in the different time zones, you will certainly want to have a customer care department to handle queries round the clock. And needless to say, if you want to hire employees from your own country, it will cost you a huge amount of money.
Hiring a virtual or remote team from offshoring virtual assistant agency will not only add flexibility to your organization but also save you money.
Virtual assistant cost is very low in India. You can hire a virtual assistant for $5-$8 per hour, depending on the virtual assistant agency you choose.
5 – Virtual Assistant Will Increase Your Efficiency
Andrew Cohen, the CEO Brainscape, has only eight full-time employees. With this small team, he is able to offer a high-level of customer service, educational content, and software quality.
Do you know want to know his secret?
He hires virtual assistants. In his article on Entrepreneur: Triple Your Business’ Efficiency by Using Virtual Assistants, he said,
“The dozens of tasks that are either repetitive, distracting, unpredictable or better addressed by an expert whom you can’t bring in-house, you may be well-served by getting it off your plate and freeing up your valuable management bandwidth.”
And he uses virtual assistants to delegate repetitive, distracting, unpredictable tasks. He himself explained in the article,
“At Brainscape, we use virtual assistants for customer service, software testing, copywriting, editing, bookkeeping, translating, voice recordings, market research, data entry and the occasional graphic design touch-up task.”
Virtual assistants have increased Andrew Cohen’s efficiency.
What about you?
With the growing demand for virtual assistants, now it has become easier to hire a remote/virtual team to complete a wide range of tasks.
Virtual assistants are a secret weapon for startup owners. By hiring a virtual assistant, you can easily save time and money.
Virtual assistants not only increase your efficiency, but also offer you a safe option to scale up business operations. And the best part is virtual assistants add flexibility to your business.
