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How a Virtual Assistant Can Help Your Business to Grow

– Contributed content –

27 June 2017. Once you have been able to get a business off the ground, the time will come when you need to think about how to take your business to the next step and help it to grow. You might have things up and running and it is steadily going along. But being able to crank it up a notch is needed for all small businesses that want to improve and innovate. If you think about it, the actual business development is a whole other part of starting up a business. You have your plan, and it is set up, but then the development of the plan doesn’t always get going as you might have imagined.

Laptop, phone, coffee

(acworks, Wikimedia Commons)

For many people, hiring a full-time team is going to be too much of an expense, at least to start with. Which is why hiring a freelance virtual assistant can do wonders for your business. They can be given tasks and time to complete them, but you are only paying for their time to do it, not anything else of theirs as would come with a full-time employed staff member. Even just the cost of things like internet and electricity won’t have to be covered by you. If someone is freelance, then they are working under their own self-employed business. Meaning that they will be the one that can claim anything against their own internet or computer bills. Hiring virtual assistants have been shown to save up to forty percent for small businesses for their business expenses. This kind of saving can then be used in other areas of your business. So it sounds pretty much like a win-win situation; is it too good to be true?

In order to make your business more scalable, you’ll need to think about getting more employees on the team to help move things forward. The team you already have will be likely to occupied with their usual roles. Which is why virtual assistants can play an important role. They keep the costs lower, as well as helping your business to be flexible.

Take, for instance, the times that they work. They aren’t on any set schedule, so you can assign them work as and when. You can also assign them to things that will need more attention than others. You will also need to spend less time training a virtual assistant than you would for any other job. The idea is that they will have already got experience in the areas you are looking for. You might take some time hiring the right VA for you but when you do, you can ask them to do something for you and they will know what that is and just get on and do it. Another benefit of having a VA, and how it keeps your business flexible, is that they are working on a freelance basis. So if it doesn’t work out, their work can be easily stopped and replaced.

A glaringly obvious reason to get a VA is that they will be able to organize things for you. Many entrepreneurs have all of the ideas and the drive to get things done but can lack the skills with paperwork and organization. So a VA can keep you in line with all of that kind of thing. They could help with emails, data, spreadsheets, as well as using rota management software to plan out your days, as well as that of any full-time team. They can help with all of those tasks that need to be done, but for you, are a distraction from the high-impact tasks that will help your business to grow. So social media, arranging meetings, manage your calendar and look at payroll admin can all be tasks delegated to your VA. These tasks aren’t going to be complex, and you’d be more than capable of doing them yourself. However, as the business leader, it is unlikely that you’ll have the time.

At the end of the day, a VA is someone who is going to really be a help in your business to see it grow. If you view them as someone working from home to just be your secretary, then it might not be the best way to look at it. They can be a real asset to your business to help lower the costs of your business, as well as help with productivity and growth. So it has got to be worth a try, right? Have you got any experience with hiring freelance virtual assistants?

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