When you start out as an entrepreneur, you must have pictured the big highs - closing huge deals, taking critical business decisions, and leading a team of motivated employees.
However, you could not have anticipated how much time administrative tasks can take - handling phone calls, replying to emails, and staying on top of your to-do list.
Initially, every entrepreneur thinks that they can handle the workload themselves. But, sooner or later, all entrepreneurs realize they need serious help if they are ever to grow their businesses. Virtual personal assistants help you with the tasks that are the backbone of your day.
Booking flight tickets, replying to emails, call management, and other such mundane tasks are essential to keep your venture going but can take up much of your time. Get someone to handle those banal routine tasks and take the pressure of a mounting task list off your mind. Undoubtedly, hiring an online personal assistant is the most efficient way to handle your growing business.
This blog will discuss how your small business can benefit from a virtual personal assistant.
What Does a Virtual Personal Assistant Do?
Since virtual assistance is a relatively new term, you may naturally have questions, starting as simple as ‘what does a personal assistant do?’ To start with, here are some of the tasks that are part of their job description:
- Taking phone calls
- Scheduling meetings and booking meeting spaces
- Managing your email
- Updating social media accounts
- Calendar management
- Maintaining CRM
- Preparing presentations
- Proofreading documents
- Booking appointments
- Responding to customer queries
- Organizing data
- Helping in event planning
- Coordinating between different departments
- Oversee projects and ensure deadlines are met
This is just a glimpse of the tasks you can delegate to your VA. Now that we’ve answered the question, ‘what does a personal assistant do?’, let’s see how exactly hiring a virtual personal assistant online can help you grow your business.
5 Top Qualities of a Virtual Personal Assistant
Let’s look at the top 5 qualities that separate online personal assistants from regular in-house employees.
Flexibility: online personal assistants are not restricted to a traditional 9-5 schedule and can work based on your requirements, including night shifts.
Accountability: virtual personal assistants are paid by the hour, hence are more accountable for their work. Additionally, they send you detailed end-of-day reports explaining how they spent their time.
Affordability: online personal assistants work and are paid on an hourly basis, which makes them the ideal choice for up-and-coming small businesses.
Expertise: Virtual personal assistants are experts in their field and come with years of experience. Take advantage of their vast knowledge and use their expertise to help grow your business.
Trained professionals: since online personal assistants are hired from an agency, they are already pre-trained and vetted by the virtual assistance service provider. Therefore, you can save valuable company time and resources.
40 Reasons why Hiring a Virtual Personal Assistant is Important for Your Business
Get an Extra Pair of Hands to Manage Administration
1. Calendar management
Efficient calendar management is the key to making the maximum out of your day. Hire an online personal assistant to schedule appointments, notify you of updates, and send timely reminders.
2. Email management
Every day, our inboxes are flooded with new mail. Amid all the spam and sales-y mails, it’s easy to lose track of important mail. Sorting through emails is time-consuming and can take valuable time off your hands. Let your virtual personal assistant organize your inbox while you focus on the more critical aspects of running your business.
3. Travel arrangements
Have you been wasting time looking for the cheapest hotels and flights while planning your travel? No more! Just give your VA basic instructions about your budget and dates, and they will make all travel and accommodation bookings on your behalf. They can even help you plan itineraries and important places you can visit in your free time.
4. Booking appointments
How often have you put off that important doctor’s appointment because you were busy and occupied with work? Or how long have you been trying to get a table at the new restaurant, but they’re always booked out by the time you make time to call them? With an online personal assistant, you won’t have to worry about missing an appointment again.
5. Get things in order
You know how they say that a cluttered desktop leads to a cluttered mind? That runs true for Google Drive and other online files as well. Data and documents must be stored properly, or they might just be lost forever. A personal VA will organize your documents and maintain spreadsheets on your behalf, introducing order and discipline in your life.
6. Improve your online presence
Having a social media account is not enough. You need to constantly engage with your audience and respond to their queries. You must also regularly post relevant content and keep an eye out for what your competition is doing. Your virtual personal assistant can schedule posts, engage with your followers, and track metrics.
7. Handle customer queries
A virtual personal assistant is a well-trained professional with excellent communication skills. Once they understand how things work at your company, they can handle phone calls and respond to customer queries on your behalf.
8. Develop your management skills
Managing a virtual personal assistant offers valuable learning on handling future employees, especially if you’re new to entrepreneurship. Communicating with your personal virtual assistant through a system of mutually beneficial feedback will be an excellent way to develop your management skills.
9. Get round-the-clock support
A virtual personal assistant can provide much-needed support and assistance in your everyday life. From ensuring you don't miss meetings to reminding you to send gifts to clients on important occasions, you count on your VA to handle things efficiently.
10. Get help with paperwork
Handling paperwork is a nightmare. As the files on your desktop increase, so do your stress levels. An online personal assistant can review the files and update you on any errors. All you’ll need to do is sign them, and the documents are ready.
Virtual Assistants Help You Find Time for Yourself
11. Get the gift of time
One of the downsides of running your own business is perpetually being busy. Work never seems to end, and having more hours in your day seems like a distant dream. When you hire a virtual personal assistant, you can actually realize this dream! Delegate mundane and repetitive but essential tasks to your personal VA while you can focus more on the development and growth of your business. Thanks to your VA, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much more work you get done in a day.
12. 24*7 availability
In a fast-paced, growth-oriented startup, being available eight-nine hours a day doesn’t cut it. The benefit of hiring a personal VA from a different time zone is that they can handle work even when you are unavailable. This provides a dynamic presence and helps in building strong customer relations. As a result, your business will run smoothly even after you clock out for the day.
13. Remember what sleep feels like
The best part about hiring a virtual personal assistant from a different time zone is that they work while you sleep. With an online personal assistant, you can go to sleep assured that your business is in good hands.
14. More time for core-business tasks
Once you have delegated all recurring administrative tasks to your personal VA, you can sit back and focus on the things that matter - the more prominent problems related to your venture. Relaxed thinking can stimulate new ideas that may just take your business to the next level.
15. Free up personal time
Hiring a virtual personal assistant online not only boosts the efficiency of your business but also allows you to find time for your personal life. You can use the time you save to spend cherished time with family and friends or read a book at your favorite café – the possibilities are endless!
16. More time for networking
By delegating tasks that are unimportant, you have more time to network and socialize with industry peers and experts. Having the right contacts is everything in business; you can make meaningful business connections while your personal VA works in the background.
17. Understand your competition
Understanding the market and competitors is key to growing a business. A trained personal VA can perform market analysis, conduct customer surveys and provide you with the outcome of their research. This saves time and allows you to use these findings to ideate and understand how to progress further.
Virtual Assistants Help Boost Productivity at Work
18. More accountability
Virtual personal assistants are usually hired by the hour and must complete a task to get paid. On the other hand, full-time employees are less accountable as they don’t feel the need to be held responsible for their actions. A personal VA will try to complete as many tasks as possible and solicit your feedback to increase their productivity and build a stable working relationship.
19. Less chit-chat and more work
Every office has those points near water coolers and coffee machines where employees revel in gossip. With a virtual workforce, there’s no scope for idle gossip that saps employee productivity. Ultimately, this results in improved business efficiency.
20. Focus on your strengths
The key to an intelligent entrepreneur’s success is the art of delegation. By hiring a specialist to take care of routine tasks, you can focus on what you are good at. While your online personal assistant handles what they are good at, you can leverage your strong suits to propel your business.
21. Reduce pressure
It’s common for business owners to want to stay on top of every single task, but everyone needs a helping hand. Hire a virtual personal assistant to outsource work and lift a load off your shoulders. Nobody can function optimally when stressed, and hiring an online personal assistant is a great way to reduce work pressure.
22. Avoid burnout
Your staff is the backbone of your business, and their days are packed with essential tasks that require their knowledge and skill set. Piling their days with additional administrative tasks can build up pressure. Instead, you can hire a virtual personal assistant to avoid overworking them.
Virtual Assistants are the Economically Viable Option
23. Cost efficient
A business runs on its profits. To thrive in a competitive market, you must closely monitor your costs. For example, when you hire a virtual personal assistant, you only pay them for their work hours and experience a higher ROI than in-house hiring. There are no additional costs like insurance, paid leaves, or other regular employee benefits.
24. Hire based on business needs
When you hire a virtual personal assistant, you neither need to commit your company’s time nor resources for long periods. Instead, you can hire an online personal assistant based on the work you need to complete. This saves you from hiring a full-time employee for a project requiring only three months of work.
25. Loyal and dedicated workers
Once you’ve established a successful rapport with your personal VA, they will likely stick with you. There is no need to worry about them leaving or another business trying to poach them away from you.
26. No recruitment costs
When you hire a virtual personal assistant from Wishup, you don’t spend on sourcing, recruiting, and hiring. All you need to do is schedule a free consultation call, list your requirements, pick a vetted and trained VA hand-picked by us, and start working with them in less than 24 hours.
27. Reduced operating costs
When you hire a virtual personal assistant, you forego a lot of operational costs - paying for an office, office supplies, team lunches, etc. This allows you to reduce your operating costs, a big boon for startups struggling to keep their head above water anyway. Stop burning a massive hole in your pocket with full-time hires and invest in a personal VA to reduce your costs.
Tap Into a Global Talent Pool
28. Work with trained professionals
Wishup’s online personal assistants are trained professionals with years of corporate experience. This saves you considerable time, which would otherwise go into training them for the role. Armed with soft skills and technical competency, they can start work immediately after being briefed on job expectations.
29. Work in multiple time zones
When your personal VA belongs to a different time zone, it can increase your visibility and get more work done in a day. Don’t keep your customers waiting, your emails unopened, and your daily tasks pending for too long.
30. No geographical restrictions
The best part about hiring a virtual personal assistant online is that they work remotely and are always available. This means you’re not restricted by geography while hiring your VA. You can hire a person living across the globe, and it wouldn't matter as long as they fit your specific needs.
31. Be the real 21st-century nomad
When working with a virtual remote workforce, you don’t need to stick to a place or buy physical office space. Explore that new city you wanted to work out of or move to a new country altogether. You don’t have to be stuck in the same place when you hire a virtual personal assistant.
32. Hire only for as long as you need
The benefits of hiring virtual assistance services are multifold. Firstly, you can instantly hire virtual employees with a wide range of skills. Make quick hires when you need to. Once you are done with the virtual personal assistant’s support, feel free to let go of your VA. Because they’re not on your payroll, it’s easy to stop their services.
33. More perspective
Virtual personal assistants come from different cultures and nationalities. This will have enriched their experience over the years. Their views might just be the fresh perspective you need to consider your business.
Improve Your Emotional Wellbeing
34. Find time for Self-Care
The benefits of hiring a virtual personal assistant extend beyond work. An online personal assistant can help improve your emotional well-being. Don’t forget to spend time on yourself in the race to the top. Start an exercise regime, sign up for yoga classes, and meet friends you haven’t met in ages. Hire a virtual personal assistant to take some much-needed time off to come to work with renewed vigor each day.
35. Spend time with your family
Family time is important, but it can get hard to get enough quality time with them once you embark on an entrepreneurial venture. When hiring a virtual personal assistant online, you ensure family time is not restricted to occasional family trips or meals. Instead, get enough time every day to sit at the dinner table and have a proper conversation with your family.
36. Find balance in life
White balancing is a critical practice in photography essential to bringing out the true colors in an image. Similarly, you need balance in life to bring out your best potential at work. Hiring a virtual personal assistant online gives you enough time to relax, gain perspective, and find balance in life.
Expert Virtual Assistant Services at a Click
37. Just a click away
Your virtual personal assistant is just a click away. Gone are the days of reading through thousands of resumes and shortlisting candidates for interviews. With Wishup’s expert virtual assistance, hiring is just a click away.
38. Hand-picked experts in various industries
At Wishup, we value quality above all else. We personally hand-pick all our candidates through a rigorous hiring process. Only the top 0.2% make the cut. So when you hire a virtual assistant from us, you can rest assured that you’re working with top talent.
39. Build profitable long-term relationships
As your business grows, you will need to expand your team. Working with an already-established virtual personal assistant can help bridge the gap. If you enjoy a good professional relationship building with customers, you can promote them to higher positions - no more hiring and interview nightmares.
40. Easy replacement policy
If for some reason, your virtual assistant is unavailable due to an emergency, it’s super easy to find a replacement. We have a no-questions-asked replacement policy, and your work doesn’t have to suffer in the rare case that your primary virtual assistant is unavailable for work.
What are you waiting for? Build your business with a Virtual Assistant today!
It’s time you get trained professionals to look after your business and help you scale. Hire a personal assistant today and improve your professional and personal life. Click here to schedule your free consultation today, or drop us a mail at [email protected]
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