What Is A Virtual Assistant?

Did you know that a virtual assistant can help your business save time and money? As you scale your business, it’s important to bring the right people in. For that reason, virtual assistants are becoming more popular addition to many businesses, and we’re about to tell you why. Here are some of the common questions most business owners are asking about virtual assistants.

What Is a Virtual Assistant?

Ah, the question of the hour: Exactly what IS a virtual assistant anyway?

First of all, the most common answer to this question is that virtual assistants generally provide professional administrative, technical, or creative assistance to their clients while working remotely from home.

A virtual assistant is someone who wears many hats within your business. They can adapt and relate. In a sense, they are transformers and lifesavers to your business saving you time and money because you are not wasting it reading emails or responding to calls.

Why Do Businesses Hire VAs?

There are many reasons to open your doors to a virtual assistant within your business. Perhaps you want to free up your time during your work day, or you just need someone with specific experience and expertise to be by your side.

However, most businesses hire virtual assistants because the VA can drive business growth exponentially. Since the goal of a business is always to scale, you want to make sure you’re putting your business in a position to do just that. A virtual assistant can bring expert level experience to a wide variety of tasks which means other team members can focus their time and attention on other areas for growth within the business.

Another reason businesses hire virtual assistants is because it decreases operational costs on your side of the budget. Since virtual assistants are independent contractors, they are less expensive to hire and onboard than employees. Additionally, they may be able to provide coverage outside of your normal business hours.

By hiring a VA, businesses can save on office space expense, maintenance costs, and technology expenses like computers, phones, and faxes, etc.

What Tasks Can a VA Complete?

The best thing about virtual assistants is that they can handle a wide variety of tasks. There are some virtual assistants who are great for general administrative tasks while others specialize in a specific area. As your business grows and changes, so will its needs. A virtual assistant is the perfect person to keep up with the pace.

With that being said, it’s totally up to you to determine which tasks you’ll need a virtual assistant for, however, here are some ideas you can use to get you started.

• Email Management/Filtering
• Setting up Autoresponders (Aweber, Mailchimp)
• Booking appointments with clients
• Following up with clients/customers (sending thank you and other reminder emails)
• Receptionist duties (answering occasional calls)
• Travel arrangements
• Data entry
• Customer service

A more specialized virtual assistant may be able to help with more detailed tasks such as:

• Social media management
• Email marketing
• Content Creation
• Website maintenance
• Bookkeeping
• Research

Since there are so many things a virtual assistant can do, it’s important to make sure you find someone whose skill set meets your needs. For example, if you know you’re going to need someone to monitor your social media accounts, you’ll want to hire someone who already has experience in that area.

How Do You Hire a VA?

First, you will want to hire an experienced and reputable VA. For instance, here at the FreeUp Marketplace, we can put you in touch with experienced virtual assistants who have specific experience to accomplish what you need done.

We take pride in doing this part for you. Hiring can be difficult, especially if you aren’t sure what to look for in a virtual assistant. We vet each and every VA based on your specific task requirements. From there, you can conduct interviews with the candidates you feel could best suit your business needs.

Using a platform like FreeUp is a great option because it allows you to expand your search outside of your local job market. Having more options gives you a better chance of finding someone who is the perfect fit for the job.

If you’re not ready to take your VA search online, there are other ways you can hire. Consider talking to friends and colleagues about the experiences they’ve had with virtual assistants. Learn which of these businesses has used virtual assistants and you can glean recommendations from these businesses through word of mouth.

When Is the Right Time to Hire a VA?

Knowing when to hire a virtual assistant is just as important as knowing how to hire one. Many business owners like to wait until things get hectic before expanding the team. However, when it comes to hiring a virtual assistant, you want to be proactive; not reactive. If you’re anticipating an increase at work or notice that things have been getting a little busy, you should start your search for a virtual assistant.

You want to make sure the person is hired, onboarded, and ready to get to work before the workload becomes unmanageable. The truth is that adding a virtual assistant to your team can increase productivity and promote growth. The best time to hire a virtual assistant was yesterday, the second best time to hire a virtual assistant is right now.

What Should You Pay for a VA?

Of course you want to get a fair rate for the virtual assistant you hire. On that note, you also don’t want to cut corners to find the cheapest person possible. As the old saying goes, you get what you pay for and you want to know you’re investing in someone who will benefit your company.

Virtual assistants typically start at $15, but there are a few things that can impact the price of the VAs service such as their location, their level of experience, and the tasks they’re being asked to do. There are many calculators for finding this out and here’s one you can use which will help you determine the virtual assistant salary.

Remember, if you pay someone what they think they’re worth they will be happy and motivated to work long and loyal hours for your company. However, if you try to get what you can out of them without any regard to them personally, you’re setting yourself up for failure.

How to Integrate a Virtual Assistant Into Your Team

Once you’ve found a virtual assistant for your business, you’ll want their transition onto the team to be as seamless as possible. Making sure your onboarding process is smooth will make things easier on everyone involved. Even though you will probably never meet your virtual assistant in person, it’s important to maintain that human connection by keeping an open line of communication.

Teach Them About Your Company

Your virtual assistant has probably done some research on what your company is and what it offers, but once you bring them on to the team you can go into more detail. Give them a clear understanding of the company’s culture and how things work within your organization. Just because your virtual assistant will be working remotely doesn’t mean they can’t still be involved in the company culture.

Know Which Tasks You Plan on Delegating

As your new virtual assistant gets started, it’s a must that they know exactly which tasks they’re responsible for. Ensure there’s no gray area in terms of which tasks are theirs. If some of the tasks you’re giving your virtual assistant previously belonged to another team member, everyone should be on the same page about who the task(s) belong to now to avoid multiple people accidentally doing the same thing.

Establish a Preferred Method of Communication

When your virtual assistant is getting started, they make likely have some questions for you or another team member. If your business has a preferred method of communication (email, instant messaging, etc.), be sure that your virtual assistant is aware.

Provide Necessary Tools

Are there specific programs your virtual assistant will need to do their job? If so, provide them with access to the appropriate materials. This could mean things like email accounts and project management software. Having everything they need to get the job done will help your virtual assistant feel more confident as they get used to their new job.

How to Manage a Virtual Assistant

Anytime you bring a new person on to your team, you need to have a clear management strategy in place. This is especially important when hiring a virtual assistant because they will be working remotely. Below are some helpful tips to help you manage your virtual assistant successfully:

Start off Slowly

When your new virtual assistant comes on board, you’ll both probably be very excited to get started. However, you may want to consider easing them into their new role. Instead of piling on lots of work at once, give them one task at a time. Not only will this allow them to get acclimated to the job, but it’ll also help you make sure their work is meeting your expectations.

Set Clear Expectations

In order for you and your virtual assistant to build a strong working relationship, you’ll both need to be on the same page about what the expectations are. While onboarding your VA, take time to explain exactly what is expected of them. This will also give them time to ask questions as well. When you set clear expectations you’re less likely to have misunderstandings.

Document All Procedures and Create SOPs

If you’ve ever started a job without proper training, you know how frustrating that can be. Avoid putting your new virtual assistant in that situation by making sure that all of your processes are properly documented and there is a standard operating procedure for every task you plan to delegate. Doing this allows the freelancer to know exactly how to do their tasks. This will also save you the time of having to constantly repeat instructions.

Schedule Regular Check Ins

One of the most important things about working with freelancers of any kind is making sure that you’re kept in the loop. Since your virtual assistant won’t be in the office, you won’t have the luxury of just stopping by their desk to ask how things are going. For that reason, it will be necessary to schedule regular meetings so you can check in on the progress of projects. Phone calls or video chats are typically the best ways to handle these check ins.

Use a Time Tracking System

As with in-house employees, it’s important to have a system in place that keeps track of when and how long your virtual assistant is working. You may ask to gave your virtual assistant fill out a freelancer time sheet, or you may prefer to use a tracking software that keeps a record of their activity while working.

Decide on a Clear Point of Contact

Your virtual assistant will probably have questions from time to time and they should know exactly who to reach out to when those things pop up. Whether it’s you or another person in your company, be clear with your virtual assistant about the proper chain of command and who they should reach out to when reporting results, asking questions, etc.

In Conclusion

Now that you know what a virtual assistant is, it’s time to start thinking about which tasks you’re ready to start delegating. Remember, a virtual assistant can help you with almost anything, so the first step is getting a good idea of what it is that you’d like them to do. With the right VA on your side, you’d be amazed how much your business can benefit. If you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant, sign up for a FreeUp account today to get started.

Wade Harman is a content writing wizard with an M.A. in Cognitive Psychology. He shares social media psychology and other marketing tips online related to cognitive trigger response. He loves to fish and read comic books for fun, to get the creative juices flowing.