It’s an excellent question. Why should you spend good money outsourcing jobs to someone?
Well, there are many advantages to hiring a virtual assistant, and here are just a few of them.
We’re great at freeing you up to do the things that will push your business forward and make it grow.
As I say on my website, when you have a business, particularly a small business, you have to wear many hats. An endless list of jobs, only one or perhaps two of you.
A useful exercise is to break that list of jobs – the ones you do each week – into a traffic light system.
Red jobs are those that take up a lot of time, are completely necessary, but don’t necessarily push your business forwards. You know the ones. Filing, inovices, expenses, time sheets. The list is almost endless.
Amber jobs are jobs which are a bit more specialised, but aren’t really why you got into this business in the first place. They may be jobs (like S.E.O. or digital marketing for example) which you don’t really know enough about to do very well.
The green jobs are where your enthusiasm lies. They are the reason you built this business, they are your passion, they are what drives you.
The huge advantage of hiring a virtual assistant is that you can hand over those red jobs, the ones that need to be done but give you no joy, and those amber jobs where the virtual assistant might have more experience than you, so that you can focus on the green jobs.
That is how your business is going to grow.
That is how you are going to take over the world.
We specialise in areas that you don’t necessarily want to.
You know the ones – social media, blogs, setting up an online shop…things which are really important for your business to be profitable but take more time to learn than you have in a day. It’s those pesky amber jobs I mentioned above.
Unfortunately for you, those types of job are often better off not done at all than done badly. You can end up actively pushing people away with a poor website or a badly thought out Instagram story.
But hey! Guess what? There are any number of virtual assistants out there who specialise in that really important job that you don’t have the time to learn how to do well. And if we don’t specialise in the particular job you need to be done, you can bet your bottom dollar that we know someone else who does (we’re sociable like that).
Me? I’m an ex-teacher, so I love organisation, and I love lists. I’m also a bit of a tech-head, so if there is a piece of tech that lets me make a reeeeeaaally nice list, with colours and a hierarchy and other exciting things like that, then I’m hooked. I don’t sell Trello, but I could buy shares in it, I love it so much.
My other thing – my secret passion is writing. I like writing my own stuff, hence the fact I keep a personal blog as well as a professional one, but I also really like editing and proof-reading others’ work. It’s that pesky teacher coming out in me again. Give me a virtual red pen and permission to have at your blog and I’ll turn it into an A-Level worthy piece of work!
We’re actually a money saver in the long run.
Having a V.A. can seem like an indulgence, I know. But the fact is that hiring one is fantastic for small business owners and other solo-preneurs or freelancers because of how flexible we are. No contract. No sick pay! No holiday pay. Flexible ways to work. The list goes on and on.
Want someone for a few hours a week? No problem, we can come up with a retainer package. Just need a project finished off by the deadline? We can charge a flat rate for a project, easy-peasy. Want to give us a try to see if we’ll work well together? We can do an hourly rate – and some of us round up or down to the nearest quarter-hour too.
We give you that most precious of commodities: time.
It doesn’t have to be time to run your business. That may not be what you need most.
People who run their own businesses put their whole selves into it. If you’re lucky enough to have clients throughout the day, then inevitably your evening gets eaten by doing those fiddly, repetitive and soul-destroying tasks that are necessary to keep the business running smoothly.
It’s not good for your mental health to be sitting at the computer after the kids have gone to bed trying to sort out the bits you need to do your taxes, or setting up that CRM software you invested in. You end up feeling guilty because you don’t have the time to give to your children, your partner or your friends.
Above all else, if you take one thing away from this blog, let it be this.
Virtual assistants are nothing less than sanity savers, and you need one in your life, because we will change it for the better.
If any of those points rang true for you; if you need someone to save your sanity, don’t hesitate. Contact me today to see what I can do for you!