Are you an entrepreneur who’s being choked with work? Do you barely have the time to keep up with other engagements outside your business? Or are you finding it hard to be effective due to work-related fatigue?
If this is you, then you should strongly consider hiring a virtual assistant, as that will not only increase your productivity, but will also give the chance to get some much-needed rest.
You may be wondering who a virtual assistant is, and how they can improve on your productivity.
Read to the end and find out!
Who Is A Virtual Assistant?
A virtual assistant is an individual who works for one or more clients remotely. They offer both administrative and creative support for a client’s business on a part-time basis, and their tasks could include appointment bookings, travel arrangements, and email handling.
Now that you know what a virtual assistant is, let’s take a look at 5 proven ways they can help you boost productivity.
1. They are cost effective
One of the best ways a business can maximize profit, is by effectively reducing operational costs.
Keep in mind that hiring in-house assistants would involve renting office spaces that are large enough to enable them to work. However, work spaces aren’t free, neither are they cheap.
This is where hiring a virtual assistant makes more sense, as they can work remotely from wherever they are, and save you the extra cost of paying rent.
Also keep in mind that you’ll probably be paying your in-house assistants more than you would pay a virtual assistant. This is because the salary of an in-house assistant will compensate for transportation costs and other inconveniences accompanied with leaving their homes and going to work.
As for virtual assistants, you can simply pay them per hour. You can also strike a retainer deal, and that will still be cheaper in wages than hiring in-house staff.
2. They can save you time
As they say in the business world – time is money. And hiring a virtual assistant will definitely save you a lot of it.
Going by McKinsey’s 2012 study, entrepreneurs spend almost a third of their work time on email management. But delegating that duty to a virtual assistant can help you save as much as two and half hours!
Imagine the extra work you can accomplish with the extra hours saved. The extra tasks completed automatically boosts your business’s productivity.
While your virtual assistant is handling your emails, you could use the extra time you have to post reader-friendly content on your social media pages and engage with your followers.
By doing so, your prospects will become closer to your business, and will be more inclined to buy your goods or pay for your services.
3. Hiring VAs allows you to rest
Resting might seem counterproductive, as the goal of your business is to boost productivity, right?
Sure, you would like that, but that will be impossible to achieve when you are fatigued!
Several scientific studies have proven that resting and being refreshed is a big part of being effective at work.
Imagine if you had to manage your emails, update your social media pages, respond to messages, write and deliver letters, and do every other task your business demands all by yourself!
That will be disastrous for both your health and your business’s productivity.
Delegating tasks to virtual assistants will allow you to have less work to do and more time to rest. And you can perform your tasks better if you are refreshed, and not fatigued.
Simply put, hiring a virtual assistant can allow you achieve more by doing less. And all you have to pay your VA is their wages!
4. They make up for the skills your business lacks
Do you know that your business’s productivity is largely dependent on the skills of its workers?
As an entrepreneur, you may not have all the skills your business needs to move forward. And that’s okay, as long as you are smart enough to hire a virtual assistant that can fill that skill-gap.
You might be great at customer relations, but terrible at creating sales copies that convert. In this case, you need to hire a virtual assistant that is great at writing sales copies, so that your business can attract more customers and generate more income.
Of course you will have to pay your VAs for their work, but that is just a chip off the iceberg when compared to how much money their skills can bring into the business!
5. You can feed off their ideas
Good virtual assistants will definitely have your best interest at heart. This means they will do their work diligently and execute their tasks in the quickest possible time.
But that’s not all, an innovative virtual assistant can also offer you useful tips on how to do certain tasks more effectively. In fact, they could offer tips that could positively impact the overall operation of your business.
These tips could be anything. Including how you target your prospects, how often you should post on your social media pages, changing your business logo to a more attractive one, offering promotional incentives, and so on.
No one knows it all, even you, the owner of the business!
If you’re not 100% sure about your VA’s advice, then you can just test it on a small scale and see the results.
There’s no harm in trying out your VA’s suggestions, especially if it doesn’t cost you any money!
Conclusion
If you’re hoping to improve productivity in your business, then hiring a virtual assistant is one of the best steps to take.
They can save you money, save you time, allow you to rest, make up for the skills your business lacks, and offer you useful operational ideas.
All these advantages can breathe new life into your business, and your bank account too!
With that being said, you should consider hiring a virtual assistant today.
Good luck!
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