Business management demands you to be a multi-tasker. Whether you are managing a big or small company, part of the key role that you play is to be able to wear different hats. To be a good entrepreneur, you must be able to balance your time and attention to make sure that you are on top of all the key areas in your business. Accomplishing the tasks that need to be addressed includes repetitive tedious groundwork down to the most crucial deal breaker decision that has to be made. This comforts you to know that all decisions made were only for the best interest of the company. Furthermore, being in control somehow provides you the sense of achievement out of all the efforts you give.
However, despite putting your best foot forward to accomplish all these, it does not change the fact that it is better to work smart than to work hard. A big chunk of being an entrepreneur is the capability to exercise leadership. And part of being a leader is to ensure that you have a systematic operation guideline that allows the whole organization to function efficiently. Part of that system is to have the best team for your business. With that having said, you may have initially realized the importance of the roles that employees or colleagues portray in running a business. They are your helping hands in ensuring that business goals are met, commitments are delivered, and there is value added in the company.
Time management is also a core challenge in projecting leadership. In most cases, 24 hours is not enough to fulfill all the duties that you have to face daily. So where and how can you maximize your 24 hours in a day?
A modern way to ensure that you have your “helping hands” in your corner and your 24 hours is smartly utilized is through hiring a Virtual Assistant. A Virtual Assistant or commonly called as VA is like a regular, fulltime, office-based employee. The only difference is your Virtual Assistant does not receive the same kinds of benefits of an office employee such as work equipment or health maintenance organization provider. A Virtual Assistant typically provides you service online. Meaning, your VA works in a remote area while all of your meetings and discussions are accomplished through the use of internet.
Many companies are resorting to recruitment of Virtual Assistants. First, it is much more cost efficient for the company as no need to furnish them with work equipment because these are all expected from the VA himself. Second, aside from maintaining low operation cost, you can keep your hired Virtual Assistant up until you a specific project is finished. Thirdly, there is no need to acquire or lease office spaces as your staff works remotely.
A Virtual Assistant is a key player to make your business grow. Your VA’s purpose is to take off your shoulders time consuming workload that can be done by a Virtual Assistant. Hence, you can work on the more pressing matters and focus on building your empire.
If you want to find out the core functions you can get from Virtual Assistants you gain maximum development, you can check our list of The Most Important Virtual Assistants You Can’t Go Without. Meanwhile, as I refer to our extensive experience in providing channels to make businesses grow, I have managed to make an extended version of this. Scroll down further to take a look at the 10 Things to Outsource to a Virtual Assistant.
1. Admin work – this is probably the top and the most basic function of a Virtual Assistant that provides a great amount of relief to business owners. Your Virtual Assistant is responsible for ensuring that your basic needs in business management are in place. This includes making sure the appointment schedule is followed, supplies are complete, emails are replied, calls are answered, hotel or flight is booked, and the list goes on. As you notice, these are simple time consuming clerical work that should be done by your staff so that you as business owner can address your other obligations as an entrepreneur.
2. Web development – Websites are the initial source of information in online research. It provides a searcher common details about a certain company or organization. We have grown in to the age wherein not only data is important in keeping both the website and user engaged but the interface, navigation, appearance has a role to play. This is why your Virtual Assistant for web development is imperative for your business. Furthermore, the goal of your web developer is to ensure that your company’s website is smoothly running and no kind of malfunction or interruption arises that will affect the customer experience.
3. Reports & presentation –Included in the business routine is to produce analysis of the total performance of a business or even an area of an organization. Which is why another key role of Virtual Assistants is to provide you reports and presentations. These efforts require time and a lot of data gathering which will gives you an objective and informative overview of a certain subject or topic.
4. Content Creation – As customers heavily rely on the internet to answer their queries, it is significant to raise and maintain the presence of your brand. This is a no easy task to do so you need the skills of content writers to manifest this. Content writers are wordsmiths who are knowledgeable how to create informative and creative pieces that will drive your audience to engage with your online and offline platforms. This type of Virtual Assistant is responsible for producing quality and relative contents that propel your market to land on your page by incorporating keywords and topics provided by your SEO base on their data and analysis. This brings you to another key Virtual Assistant called SEO Specialist.
5. SEO – Search Engine Optimization Specialist is your kind of Virtual Assistant who has expertise to analyze and implement necessary changes to boost the performance of your webpage. They make their recommendations through the gathered information from SEO tools or software designed to collect customer data and search behavior of the search engine user. Your SEO Specialist works best hand in hand with your content creator as it is the goal of both VA to make certain that your website is performing well by converting potential customers to actual paying clients. In other words, it is the duty of your Virtual SEO Specialist to make sure that the website visitors are drawn to make a call to action.
6. Bookkeeping – This is the activity of putting into record all of your financial transactions. Bookkeeping is a tedious job that is essential in making sure that you keep track of your expenses. Your Virtual Assistant will help you to complete your commitments that involve payments and at the same time, provide reminders to your clients to settle balances. However, bear in mind that this requires you to provide the passwords to your accounts. It would be a massive help if your bookkeeper also knows how to manage company funds and cash flows as these two are very relative to each other.
7. Social Media Management – Nowadays, Social Media’s purpose is not only to communicate but to also promote the existence of certain entities – business, person, associations, and the likes. Companies create their social media accounts to update their audience, market their products, and communicate with clients. Hence, it is vital to make sure that you delegate this to a Virtual Assistant who is tech savvy, responsive and has sense of urgency to avoid wasting the momentum of inquiries and raised concerns. Part of their role is to generate and implement ideas on how social media users can interact with your company through the use of social media itself.
8. Business development - Part of any kind of business is to look for potential source that will enhance the growth and financial stability of your company. Your Virtual Assistant is responsible in ensuring that you have that covered too. Through various lead generating activities such as cold calling, email marketing, heavy research, landing clients, your business development specialist will be there to support you with data and avenues that will help you achieve your business goals.
9. Marketing – It is essential in every company to have a person who has the proficiency and capacity to generate marketing efforts in order to increase income sales, capture your target audience, and penetrate a bigger size of the market. Hiring someone who has the abilities is a no brainer must have. Your Virtual Assistant’s key responsibility is to take charge in the composition of marketing campaigns and strategize how to successfully implement them. Your marketing specialist has a massive knowledge on proven and effective marketing frameworks that allow you to achieve your desired outcome. A pro tip for you to follow is to hire a Virtual Assistant who has background in graphic design as this is part of the marketing procedure.
10. Personal Tasks – Most often than not, we are preoccupied with the responsibilities that we have to complete. This especially goes to you who has a lot on their plate. An option to lighten up your duties is to hire a Virtual Assistant whose role is to help you with your personal tasks and expedite the process of how you manage things. From grocery shopping, running personal errands, keeping you on track of your commitments, your VA is flexible and versatile enough to help you with just about anything.
We are capable of providing you Virtual Assistant’s whose core goal is to keep your sanity and make things the easiest for you. Hiring your very own Virtual Assistant may vary depending on the kind of your needs. You can recruit Virtual Assistants with specialized set of skills for your business or hire someone who can assist you with your personal tasks. Either way, you have found the golden ticket to maximize your time in the most efficient way.