The behind-the-scenes ninja who ties up all the loose ends and keeps life rolling.
By May Laughton
If your business is booming, I’d say that’s a great problem to have. But considering a busy business requires more attention, you may soon find yourself short on time making it harder to complete all the tasks you typically do.
The problem that small and large companies have is there are not enough hours in a day to work. Details get lost, and tasks begin to go uncompleted. And as the business grows, the momentum must continue.
The most successful business owners will tell you they’re not about to drop balls in the middle of a growth cycle or while rolling out a big project.
They understand when more help is needed. They know the most valuable secret weapon to maintaining administrative order is by hiring a creative virtual assistant.
The virtual assistant is a behind-the-scenes ninja that ties up all the loose ends and keeps life rolling during your busy “seasons.”
I’ve worked with start-ups and established company owners who’ve said their personal life and business transformed for the better after hiring a virtual assistant.
If what you’ve read so far sounds familiar, you may need an extra hand and a VA could be your answer. Here are eight reasons a virtual assistant can help your business grow and stay on track for success.
What is a creative virtual assistant?
A creative virtual assistant works remotely and behind the scenes in your business, taking care of the administrative tasks you can no longer take care of. They typically work part-time and can handle multiple tasks.
A VA will not only help you by taking care of administrative duties but also help you manage your personal calendar, and wrap up loose ends on your creative work.
Once they are established and understand your needs, your virtual assistant can also help your support staff by managing their correspondences, setting meetings, handling telephone calls, and taking care of any special assignments.
The benefits of having a VA manage your business overflow are endless.
1. A virtual assistant will stay on top of tasks
Growth is exciting, scary, overwhelming, and stressful. When you see your business plan working, the excitement may fuel the long hours in the office at first, but you will eventually burn out.
You may consider hiring an assistant or someone to help with the overflow before reaching this stage, and this would be a good time to look into a creative virtual assistant.
Take a look at the many skills of a virtual assistant:
- Data entry- such as client contact info
- Customer service- answering general questions online and telephone calls
- Ordering business supplies
- Bookkeeping- ensure invoices are getting paid and stay organized
- Book travel and other reservations
- Organize your professional and personal calendars
- Set meetings
- Schedule your social media content
- Sending emails and newsletters; answering emails
- Assisting staff with building your social media following
- Track packages
- Make simple adjustments to your website to keep you up and running
TIP: Be sure to review detailed notes from your VA for important instructions or information, such as how to dress for a function or how many RSVP’s were received for an upcoming presentation.
2. A virtual assistant will help you manage your day-to-day schedule
Imagine handing control over to someone who can manage your day-to-day calendar.
There’s a mighty big feeling of stress washing over just reading the sentence, but that’s what a virtual assistant will do for you.
They can look at your busy schedules and make it work.
TIP: Your business may be small on staff, but each employee manages a large volume of work.
If this is the case, and your staff feels stretched thin, a VA could help ease their pain. To determine what assignments can be sourced to the VA, have the employees track their work for a week and evaluate what tasks can be assigned.
Look at the list above and see what you can do to lighten the load on everyone.
Share the work, and everyone will feel the joy of more downtime, leading to better work performance.
3. Keep the details of your projects in order
Small and large businesses work on marketing campaigns that require hours of planning, research, data collecting, and details on how the product or service will roll out.
A creative virtual assistant will work with your team and organize your data so everyone can easily reference key details needed to stay on target.
They will also transcribe notes from meetings with your team to reference while in the development phase. Having a written transcript of notes can serve as a guide on what to do and what not to do when working on future projects.
4. A virtual assistant will coordinate your personal and business calendar
When you work with a skilled virtual assistant, they will seamlessly manage your personal and professional calendar.
What this means for you is better work-life balance. Meaning more time for family, friends, and growing your business.
Imagine a scenario where you’ll need several hours of uninterrupted time to accomplish. If your VA knows in advance, they can move appointments and meet-ups around your schedule to give you the free time you need.
5. A virtual assistant can book travel and reservations
If you or your staff are traveling for business, your VA can book flights and accommodation for everyone.
They will also book venues for meetings and ensure there’s a projector for presentations if needed. Your VA will even book reservations at restaurants.
TIP: Provide your virtual assistant with preferred hotels and airlines or any award systems you follow. They will track your points for you and use them while booking your accommodations. Designate where you’d like them to add confirmation for uninterrupted travel.
6. They often know how to troubleshoot simple technology errors
You may be surprised to learn most virtual assistants know how to work in the back end of your website and perform simple tasks.
For example, your contact form may not be working correctly, or someone has left a spammy comment on a blog post. With a VA monitoring these tasks, they can keep your web presence running smooth.
Skill Highlights:
- Fix errors in sending or receiving emails from the contact forms on your website
- Update your WP plugins
- They can schedule the posts you have already created on social media (This can literally take hours/days, depending on how much content you have)
- They know newsletter programs, like Mailchimp and Constant Contact
- Adding new emails to your subscriber’s list (from your store list or event)
- Create SEO keyword lists to give to your writers
- They can ensure your content links are going to the right source
TIP: Although there are virtual assistants offering writing services, we do not recommend using a VA to write blogs or create content. The reason is, the time you’ll take editing posts and blogs will defeat the purpose of hiring a VA in the first place. We always suggest hiring a writer to produce edited, well-thought-out blogs and articles for your business.
7. Shipping packages and re-ordering supplies made easy
The only thing worse than trying to remember if you’ve sent a package is running out of shipping supplies. No business can afford to slow down over a supply shortage—especially if the supplies are easy to keep in stock.
For makers and shop owners, a virtual assistant will create and manage a system for you to ship a package and re-order supplies.
A virtual assistant will ensure your momentum continues by setting up an ordering system that keeps the shipping and packaging supplies flowing.
If your vendor is out of something, you’ll have plenty of time to find the supplies elsewhere or adjust your business operations. (This is more common than you’d think, and it’s not a good feeling to be caught by surprise.)
8. A virtual assistant will keep track of your invoicing
Keeping track of invoicing, payments, and receivables will be challenging when you’re busy.
Most entrepreneurs already have a system that makes payment processing easy to manage. However, if your business is invoicing for services or products, keeping up with all this could be most challenging during peak seasons.
Your VA will follow up on emails and ensure you’re getting paid for your services.
They will also ensure that payment is processed before products are shipped. And once shipped, the VA will track the shipment for you.
Where to hire a virtual assistant
Now that you’re more familiar with the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant, you may be ready to start looking for a VA who will fit your team.
There are several online outlets where you can sign up, but first, have a good idea of what qualifications and skills they must possess and your budget.
TIP: Read reviews of the virtual assistant before bringing them into the mix and let them know what tasks they will be helping to complete. A good virtual assistant will understand what you’re looking for and offer insight into how their services will benefit your business.
You’ll want to check sites that hire freelancers, such as:
You can also look to a few of their regular hangouts, like Facebook groups, where users are looking for remote work, and Reddit.
Don’t forget about asking other entrepreneurs in your direct network.
How much should you pay a VA?
As previously mentioned, know your budget and what skills you’re asking the assistant to have before starting your search.
Your new virtual assistant will likely have their rates set. Rates could be anywhere from $15 to $75 an hour, or monthly payments of $200 to $2000+, dependent on assignments, of course.
This goes without saying, but you’ll want to be fair in the skill-to-pay ratio. Something to consider is your VA will not be working full time and will be remote.
Remember, they are giving you back time…. valuable time that will help you build relationships and create more business.
Let’s Review
Running a business of any size can bring out a whole set of emotions. Some good and some not so good—primarily due to the stress of being stretched thin.
When the overwhelm sets in and you decide there are too many pools to dip your toes into, so to speak, you should consider looking into hiring a virtual assistant.
Don’t drop balls on the tasks that make your business run smoothly, like responding to emails, invoicing, getting paid, and setting meetings.
A VA will help you manage these tasks.
Take time to review any detailed notes from your VA so you’re always up to speed on what’s happening behind the scenes. Don’t be caught off guard by a surprise meeting or conflict in your schedule.
If your staff feels stretched thin, a VA will help lighten the workload by assisting in tasks they are unable to make time for.
Your virtual assistant will manage your personal and professional calendar while creating openings in your schedule for better work-life balance.
This means time for family, friends, and growing your business with project management, business meeting, networking, and self-care.
If your company uses a virtual assistant, let us know what you find most helpful in the comments below.