You’ve probably never heard of them, but I’ll bet you’ve come into contact with some of their work: Virtual Assistants (VAs) are a fast-growing sector of the administrative workforce and their income potential continues to rise as more companies request highly specialized work.
The “ghostwriters” of secretaries, VAs often do the tough jobs of an office and rarely see their name in lights. They specialize in a wide variety of administrative duties and because of the scope of their services, are often able to work remotely.
According to Randy Duermyer, the "Web Go-To Guy," there is a high demand for virtual assistants among small and medium businesses because they provide the skills and experience of a long-time employee without requiring the resources of a full-time employee. Startups and small businesses aggressively hire VAs to tackle a wide variety of tasks, from bookkeeping to creating logos.
Read on for 3 common startup scenarios that call for a virtual assistant.
Three Ways to Simplify Your Life with a VA
1. When your planner is getting out of control
Even if you relish being in control of every other aspect of your life, you’ll feel nothing but sweet relief when you hand over the reigns of your jam-packed planner and calendar to a virtual assistant.
Big events? Planned. Meeting invitations? Accepted. Lunch with a potential client? Scheduled. Virtual assistants can save you a lot of time by handling scheduling tasks for you, so if you're struggling to keep up, hire someone to help. You can start your search by checking out trusted agencies like Conversational and Zirtual. Not ready to jump in with human help? Start by getting a hand planning your meetings with the help of AI instead.
2. When the books need some attention
Falling behind on bills, or having trouble keeping track of all your invoices and payments? This might be a good time to outsource your bookkeeping to a VA.
Once you’ve found an agency or individual you trust with your account information, you’ll be able to focus on your business knowing that your accounts are in order and that all invoices are current. That piece of mind is almost priceless for an entrepreneur.
3. When you’ve got lots of new data
Whether you’re fresh from an industry convention or just wrapped up a successful advertising campaign, you’ll have lots of new customer data that is essentially worthless to you until it’s plugged in and sorted.
Sure, you can plod through the mounds of data yourself, but wouldn’t your time be better spent planning the next campaign? Hire a VA to handle data entry in scenarios like these to hit fast-forward on your R&D projects and marketing tests. Additionally, you might get more clarity and insight on projects where you can strictly manage the "big picture" rather than the details.
While they are certainly common scenarios, these aren’t the only situations where VAs offer value to startups. Have you hired a virtual assistant to lessen your workload? What advice would you give to entrepreneurs considering hiring a VA? Leave your thoughts in the comments!