What is a Virtual Assistant? And Why Smart Business Owners Use Them

Imagine a world where you focus on growing your business, and all your administrative, technical, and customer service tasks are cared for by capable and dedicated hands. If this scenario sounds like an unachievable nirvana, you’ve likely never heard of a virtual assistant. Virtual assistants (VA) can save the day–and your sanity. Knowing how to find and use VAs can change your life as an entrepreneur and help you take your business to the next level.

 

Why Use a VA

As you start and grow your business, it’s easy to fall into the trap of doing it all. You manage your calendar, pitch products, book travel, invoice clients, monitor your social media–all of it. But that’s neither sustainable nor advisable. First of all, you can’t be an expert in everything. Even if you are an expert in things as varied as social media, accounting, and marketing, managing it all is too much for one person who is focused on launching and growing a business. 

Recognizing that you need help and finding it is not a failure. Rather, it’s a way to set yourself up for success. Recognizing the need to outsource tasks, such as those that are administrative, technical, or generally outside your wheelhouse, is a sign of growth and commitment to your business. By outsourcing tasks that distract you from the core work of growing your business, you are showing your commitment to success in the areas that matter by focusing on what’s important and the things that make your business great.

 

More about VAs

VA’s are a real game-changer for many entrepreneurs because they can save you so much time and hassle as you scale your business. Often, VA’s have their own computers and other office resources. Some VA’s work for more than one client on a part-time basis and others work for a single client.

And, they commonly participate in support networks to continue learning and growing. Many have extensive contacts within the VA world if you find you need additional or focused support. 

There are two main types of VA’s. General VA’s can help in a wide variety of areas and those with a specialty within an industry or specific tasks. 

 

General VAs

A general VA is often a jack-of-all-trades who can help you with various tasks across categories. Think of this person as your day-to-day go-to resource to get things done. 

If you think of a traditional office, the general VA is like an executive assistant. The person who functions as the nerve center of the office, keeping people and projects on track. They can offer on-demand support, just how and when you need it. For example, general virtual assistants often perform:

  • Administrative tasks, including:
    • Managing your email and calendar
    • Arranging travel 
    • Performing receptionist duties (including answers calls, which are easily transferred to any phone in the world)
    • Managing files (including creating a file management system)
    • Taking minutes in meetings
    • Planning  events 
    • Issuing invitations
    • Entering data 
    • Creating reports and slideshows for presentations
    • Running personal errands, such as online shopping for holiday and birthday gifts
    • Answering support tickets
    • Transcribing voicemails, podcasts, or video content
    • Building databases
    • Maintaining mailing lists
    • Booking appointments
    • Entering CRM updates
    • Creating and managing spreadsheets
    • Updating web site pages
    • Creating PDFs, forms, and templates
    • Conducting basic research
    • Recruiting other resources, as needed
    • Serving as a liaison between you and other team members
  • Technology services, including:
    • Training team members to use new and existing software
    • Managing software
  • Customer Service tasks, including
    • Responding to customer emails and calls
    • Sending routine messages, like birthday wishes and reminders
    • Identifying trends from customer emails and calls and bringing them to your attention
  • Marketing and Social Media activities, including
    • Setting up, managing, and updating social media accounts
    • Creating large email lists
    • Testing and sending email blasts
    • Setting up Autoresponders
    • Publishing blog posts, managing comments, and replying to comments
  • Basic Financial tasks, including:
    • Bookkeeping
    • Invoicing
    • Entering receipts
    • Managing accounts receivable

 

Speciality VAs

A specialized VA possesses specific skills and know-how in a distinct area or industry. A specialist VA is more of a resource for particular projects or elements of your business. If you think of a general VA as an executive assistant or office manager, the specialty VA is more like a department head–the person with deep knowledge about a specific function or area.

Some Specialty VAs often focus on an industry, like real estate. However, many have deep expertise in a specific area, such as:

  • Social media
  • Research
  • eCommerce
  • Marketing 
  • Accounting/bookkeeping
  • Content creation and editing (written, audio, and video) 
  • Graphics (Design and photography)
  • Project management services
  • Mobile app development

Specialized assistants can complete more complicated and in-depth tasks within the specialized area. For example, a general VA can post a Tweet or update Instagram. A specialist can help with more in-depth work, such as embedding SEO words into posts.

Sometimes a general VA and a specialist work together. For example, a specialized VA with a background in web development or graphic design can create new material that a general VA can update and tweak over time.

 

Can One VA Do it All?

No. As you can see from the lists above, one VA–even the best VA available–can’t do all of these things. So, the trick is knowing what you need in a VA, writing the job description that covers your needs, and finding the person–or people–that you need.

VAs are so flexible. It’s easy to staff up and down, based on your needs. 

 

How to Get Started

VA’s can be remote employees or independent contractors who work from home. Both models work well depending on your needs. 

The first step is to determine the work you want the VA to complete. This thinking creates a scope of work and helps clarify what you’d like to have completed, outlines the timeframe, and estimates the number of hours needed to complete the project. 

Once you assess the scope of work, consider the type of VA you need, a contractor or an employee. If you have several needs, you may need a combination of resources to fill your needs.

For example, depending on your workload, you may want to bring a general VA on as an employee. You may also want to find a specialized VA to create your website and another specialized VA to build out your marketing plan. Because these are both shorter-term needs, a freelance resource may make more sense for those roles.

If you aren’t sure who qualifies as an employee and who qualifies as a contractor, here’s a handy rule of thumb: 

  • You pay independent contractors for the result of their work. You don’t have control over how, when, or where they do the job.
  • You pay employees for the result of the work and the ability to control how the job is done.

Usually, independent contractors are in a different business than your own. For example, freelancers, like artists, editors, and writers, are often independent contractors. Independent contractors can also include outside companies doing work for you on an ongoing basis. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has set guidelines for determining if someone is an employee or an independent contractor. 

 

How to Find Your VA

With a good handle on what type of support you need, the next step is to create a job that highlights the skill set you need. Outline the tasks you want the VA to perform, detail the working conditions (onsite, virtual), and clarify your expectations for hours.

Expect to pay between $15 and $45 an hour, depending on the skills and experience you need to complete your tasks. 

Then, post your job on HireMyMom and relax while resumes for good candidates arrive in your inbox. Once you’ve narrowed the field, set up interviews, choose a candidate, check references and make a job offer. 

 

Why Use HireMy Mom

HireMyMom.com is a great place to find a VA that is right for all your needs for three reasons:

  • HireMyMom has exclusive partnerships with three top-rated VA training programs, creating a deep bench of talented professionals who visit the site looking for opportunities.
  • When you post your job, you’ll quickly have access to a wide array of qualified candidates who will be dedicated to helping your business succeed and grow. The site attracts job seekers from across the country with various specialized skill sets and a desire to work hard for you.
  •  HireMyMom’s Concierge service can streamline the process for you. The service was created for busy entrepreneurs and small business owners, like you, who need to hire help but don’t have the time or desire to go through the time-consuming process. With our full-service Concierge service, our HR Specialists will do it all for you from start to finish and present you with the top candidate(s). 

 

Stay in Touch!

* indicates required


User Type


Continue Reading

5 Questions Every Small Business Entrepreneur Should Ask Before Hiring A Virtual Assistant

As an entrepreneur, you may have reached that point in your small business where you are thinking you need some help. There just aren’t enough hours in the day for you to check and respond to emails, field phone calls, create social media posts, create email blasts, manage your calendar, research topics, manage day to day operations, and on and on.

There are many advantages to having someone who can assist with tasks that feel overwhelming so you can focus on the more important, revenue generating activities of your business. And working with a virtual professional can help you focus on GROWING your business and help you leverage your time better.

Before you jump in feet first and start the scouting process to find a Virtual Assistant (VA), there are some things to carefully consider.

Here are 5 questions you should ask and answer before hiring a Virtual Assistant or a Virtual Professional.

1. Do You Know What You Need?

Take some time to decide what tasks would be most beneficial to have someone else do. Make a list of the job duties you don’t like or don’t have time for as well as any tools or programs needed to complete the tasks.  As you create your job post, this list will help you refine the duties to help you find the right person for the job.

Are the tasks suitable for one type of assistant or should you hire more than one person? It may be that you need a part-time administrative assistant as well as a part-time social media manager, bookkeeper, blogger or customer service specialist depending on the tasks and duties you need to have done. Many businesses start out small and hire someone for 5-10 hours per week until their business grows and they need more help in various areas.

 

2. Are You Looking for a Certain Personality?

You will be working closely with a virtual assistant, so it’s important to find someone who gets you. Are you a Type A driven personality who works better with similar personality types? Are you more laid back and work better with someone who is too? Do you procrastinate too often and could use a no-nonsense person to help keep you on track? Do you run a faith-based business and want someone who shares your Christian values?

Knowing your personality type and what type of person you are looking for in a virtual assistant who will complement that is essential.  If this is important to you, you may consider having the applicants submit their scores to a personality assessment test.

 

3. How Will You Work With Your Virtual Assistant?

You will have the most success working with a VA when roles and communication are laid out clearly. There are a lot of project management resources out there like Slack, Asana and Trello to help with task tracking, communication, and project management. Or you may choose to keep it simple with daily or weekly check-ins by email or Zoom calls, sharing via Google Suite or DropBox folders. Decide up front how you will work best to ensure efficiency for you both in work and communication. But remember that communication is key and that no one will be able to read your mind or do a good job if they are not taught, show and directed early on especially.

 

4. What Skills Do You Need in a Virtual Assistant?

Having a list of tasks to delegate is a solid foundation when you are ready to hire a virtual assistant. Keep in mind, though, that hopefully this will be an individual who can grow with you and your business to form a great long-term working relationship. Think about what kind of skills you want a virtual assistant to have and what would bring you the most value as your business grows over the next two or three years.  If you are unsure, try searching the internet for Virtual Assistant (or whatever role you need) job duties to get an idea of what others are hiring these assistants to do and what skills may be needed.

 

5. Will They be Dealing with any Private or Sensitive Information?

If you need someone to help with parts of your business that include sensitive or private information to you or to your clients, you should consider not only checking references but also doing a background check or requesting a Trust Badge from a service such as SafetyPin Technologies. In today’s remote economy, it is important to do the extra work up front to reduce the chances of someone having access to sensitive information or business assets that turns out to be less than trustworthy. It is wise to get to know the person before allowing them full access to your business. Start small and allow them to prove themselves. The extra work up front may save valuable time and headaches in the future.

  

And when you are ready to hire, HireMyMom can help you find a great Virtual Assistant or Professional.  We believe Moms make great virtual employees or contractors.

FACT: Over 5.4 million mothers put their careers on hold to stay home with children*. That adds up to a lot of talented women with experience, education, skills and the motivation to find flexible work that can be done from their home office. (*Source: U.S. Census Bureau)

What are the benefits of hiring remote employees or contractors from HireMyMom?

  • Save time.
  • Save money.
  • Save on office space and office equipment.
  • Save Your SANITY!
  • We do NOT take any commissions from You or our Job Seekers!
  • You will have more time to focus on your clients and improve your business.
  • Your project or job is posted to our entire pool of talented work from home candidates saving you valuable time.
  • You save money by not paying high salaries and benefits for traditional employees.
  • You interview, evaluate and decide which candidate is best suited for your business (or you may choose our Small Business Concierge program and allow us to do it all for you).
  • We provide the candidates. You provide the work. We get out of the way.
  • We’ve been around since 2007, and as moms and entrepreneurs ourselves, we are committed to helping small businesses, entrepreneurs and moms find mutual success!

FIND A TALENTED VIRTUAL ASSISTANT

 

What Types of Professionals Can You Hire?

Here are some of the more common job types posted with us:

  • virtual assistants / administrative assistants,
  • blogger / writers / editors,
  • social media marketers,
  • marketing / public relations / advertising,
  • legal & real estate assistants,
  • researchers,
  • graphic designers,
  • accounting / bookkeeping,
  • web designers,
  • customer service reps,
  • sales,
  • e-commerce specialists,
  • human resources, and more!

FIND YOUR NEXT VIRTUAL PROFESSIONAL NOW!

If you need help with hiring, try our Small Business VIP Concierge service and we can do all the hard work for you!

 

=

 

Continue Reading