The impact of virtual assistants in this new normal (hybrid/remote) work environment is becoming more and more viable day by day. With the help of a remote, virtual assistant working on your behalf, doing everything – from web research to customer support – your life gets a lot easier. 

Let’s explore what a virtual assistant is, why and how you should hire one and how you can be benefited through a well-planned VA recruitment program. 

What Is a Virtual Assistant?

A Virtual Assistant (VA) is a person that can help you with a wide range of services you need to keep your business running seamlessly. Usually, they work remotely and have access to all the necessary tools and data to do the job perfectly. 

They are independent contractors you can hire to help you take some load off your hands so you can focus on more important things for growing the business. 

Why Hire a Virtual Assistant

Traditionally. VAs were self-employed individuals skilled in specific sectors. With the expansion of the modern work field and the advancement in digital technology, virtual assistants have become a necessary part of growing and scaling a business. 

Here are the top ways you can get benefited from appointing a VA to your business: 

Lowered operating costs

Most business owners employ VAs to reduce the cost. VAs usually work on an hourly basis and that can be better than employing someone full-time. You’re only paying for the work done, which can be significantly cheaper than providing full-time employment. 

VAs will also help you reduce your operational expenses. They won’t need additional support like overhead internet, tools, or gadgets from you since they work online. Additionally, you won’t have to spend money training a new employee. 

VAs work on specific works and come qualified. Instead of paying a lot in operational costs, you’ll just pay for the job done and that can be significantly cheaper. 

Increased efficiency

Each company has to perform some tedious but essential non-core work that can’t be ignored. Some of the tasks are: sending out emails/newsletters, data entry, customer response, and many more. 

Appointing a VA can help get rid of a big chunk of these time-consuming tasks off your hands. Instead of relying on in-house employees, you can hire a professional that will do the work for you. That way, your in-house (core) team can focus on more important core tasks. 

Access to the best talents

Hiring a Personal Assistant (PA) is becoming outdated as time progresses, with many PAs transforming themselves into VAs, hiring VAs is becoming the choice of the future. Cloud communities and job-seeking platforms have become a great way to recruit qualified VAs.

VAs are generally good at communication. As an entrepreneur, you’ll have a lot on your plate, and getting the right people to assign a task with confidence will give you a sense of relief. 

Scale your business seamlessly

Unlike on-premise businesses, businesses that adapt to distributing the workload across multiple off-site channels perform much better. 

You hire a VA on a contractual basis, and with the tedious and repetitive work out of the way, you can be able to scale your business however you like. When the workload increases, instead of going through the painstaking recruitment process, you can simply assign multiple VAs. 

You are always welcome to recruit people to your core team. However, every business needs to operate a range of activities, where VAs can help scale your business more easily. 

24/7 online

Nowadays, most businesses have a global client base and it can be difficult for your team to provide support to your customers from every country and timezone; especially if you only have one. VAs can help you here as well.

You can hire VAs from anywhere and let them work in different time zones because they work remotely. A well-instructed VA will help you sell your product/service even when you are asleep. This is a great way to increase your availability online. 

Creative freedom

Hiring a VA will also help you invest more time into your business. Rather than using all the effort and resources into performing non-core, day-to-day tasks; you’ll be able to focus on what’s more important and leave the tedious work to your assistant. 

For example, a VA will take on responsibilities like customer support so you can focus on growing your business. 

Work-life balance

Maintaining a work-life balance is essential. Many young entrepreneurs invest too much of themselves into their projects and as a result, end up compromising the work-life balance. 

If you fail to maintain this balance, this can have a negative impact on both your office and personal lives. Hiring a VA will help you have a better life because you can’t really do everything yourself. 

Consistent reports

With the support of a VA, you’ll no longer be tied to your 9-5 schedule. They’ll be there just when you need them. They’ll mostly help you with technical and strategic tasks like bookkeeping, managing social media, copywriting, email marketing, and video/photo editing. 

However, they will also provide you with daily/weekly/monthly reports of the job completed on their part. That way, you’ll have a clearer picture of what is going on and what needs to be done. 

In-depth research

Modern-day VAs can effectively perform anything starting from market research to publishing content to your website and more, which can be a big help for many one-man-show entrepreneurs out there. 

Finding the best keywords, tracking your competition, and coming up with new business ideas – all need research. A well-qualified VA can make your research much easier and more effective, bringing positive changes for you and your company. 

Improved online presence

When you and your VA work in harmony, you create a seamless experience for your website visitors. They can interact with the VA while you do market research, or the VA does that for you too. 

When that happens, you can focus on improving new ways to impress your visitors. You can send out newsletters, provide live chat and publish new content regularly through your assistant, strengthening the online presence of your company. 

What Tasks Can Virtual Assistants Do?

There are very few things present-day virtual assistants can’t do. To give you a bigger and sharper image of what services VAs provide worldwide; here’s a chart:

When to hire a virtual assistant?

So, a virtual assistant can do almost anything you can think of. But how do you know if you need a VA or not?

You most probably need help from a qualified VA when you —

• Don’t need full-time support
• Have repetitive or tedious, non-core works
• Want to scale your business
• Cut your operational cost down
• Reach clients from a different location
• Need 24*7 customer support
• Have trouble maintaining work-life balance
• Need to conduct in-depth research
• Improve your online presence
• Run personal or professional errands