The spirit of entrepreneurship is spreading like wildfire across the world. In the US, a little over 6% of the population have a business they run full time.
And the UK is the fifth most entrepreneurial country in the world, right behind Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, and Singapore.
Unfortunately, not all businesses make it to see its 20th birthday. You’ll find many won’t even make it past its first anniversary.
When we look at the reasons behind these flops, you can see a slight trend:
- 44% fail due to incompetence
- 30% fail due to lack of managerial experience
- 11% fail due to inexperience
These business owners aren’t educating themselves before jumping into opening a startup. But what these individuals could’ve also done was outsource in the areas they lack in.
That’s where virtual assistants come into play. With delegation, you’re able to get help in the areas you need help with – whether it’s project management or organization.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the reasons why hiring a virtual assistant is a great idea.
1. Learn How and What to Delegate
One of the pitfalls of entrepreneurs is that they try to wear one too many hats.
Trying to do everything on your own makes it difficult to manage your time and maintain productivity. This means you’ll end up wearing yourself thin.
By hiring a virtual assistant, you’re able to delegate tasks that’ll help you get rid of time-wasting tasks. For example, this may include responding to customer service emails, answering calls, scheduling appointments, and overseeing projects.
The key is to find a way to eliminate mundane tasks from your day so you can focus on running and growing your business. But the only way you can do this is if you know how to delegate tasks and what tasks to delegate.
You can begin your search for virtual assistants to see the skills they possess that you can use to benefit your business.
2. Enhance the Organization of Your Business
Whether you’re a startup or an established company, organization is key. You need to have all of your processes and systems in place (and follow them) so that there’s structure.
Without it, you’ll have a business that’s slowly running into the ground.
You need to organize all aspects of your business, including human resources, finances, project management and workflow, and customer data.
So it’s not just about maintaining organized files – it’s about ensuring your business operations are fully functional. But this can be an issue if you don’t have time to manage it all.
There are virtual assistants out there who can help create processes for your company so this doesn’t continue on. Your VA can handle all of your administration needs as well.
3. Offer 24/7 Availability to Customers
You’re only one person and unless you have overnight staff, you’re not going to be able to cater to customers at all hours of the night. And you likely even want to take weekends off.
Unfortunately, customers and prospects are shopping for products and services daily. The best and most affordable way to offer 24/7 availability is with the help of a virtual assistant.
These services have VAs from all over the world so there’s always someone up who can answer your emails and calls. Or you can simply hire a virtual assistant in a different time zone so they’re up when you’re asleep.
They’ll ensure you get updates as needed so you’re always in the loop the next morning.
4. Better Manage Your Finances
Your business requires an organized financial department. But affording one isn’t always possible. Yet, you can’t ignore your books or your taxes.
Doing so will land you in hot water with the IRS and the possibility of being audited or even fined increases. Your virtual assistant can help automate some of your finances, such as your invoicing and billing.
There are tools you can implement to make their job easier, such as invoicely. This allows you to track billing hours, automate recurring invoices, accept online payments, and set up payment reminders.
All your virtual assistant has to do is monitor the process and ensure all of your records are updated accordingly. Then if someone doesn’t pay on time, the VA can handle contacting the customer to inquire about the delay.
5. Grow Your Online Visibility
Virtual assistants are just good for office tasks – some also delve in the world of social media marketing. Having a presence on platforms your customers use can help grow your business exponentially.
Your virtual assistant can create and manage your social media profiles. This includes posting content that’ll attract and engage your audience.
Plus, they’ll answer questions, interact with users in conversations, and even set up a chatbot.
Then to help grow your presence, they can set up your social ads and boosted posts to help increase your list of followers.
6. Scale Up and Down as Needed
There will come a time when you need to keep up with demand, which will require more hands on deck. Virtual assistants are skilled and trained in their crafts and are ready to hit the ground running.
They don’t require much help and will lend you a hand as needed. You can hire them in just about any area of your business.
For example, they can help with taking incoming calls and processing sales during holiday seasons. Then when things die down, you can decrease their hours and days.
It’s easy to scale up and down as when you need to when you outsource to virtual assistants.
7. Cover Areas Your Incompetent In
As we noted before, many entrepreneurs fail because they lack competence in running a business and managing. So why not hire a virtual assistant who can help you in these areas?
Maybe you’re great at coming up with ideas but not so good at executing them. Or maybe you’re great at talking to customers and building relationships, but not capable of finding them.
Whether you’re lacking in project management or lead gathering, a virtual assistant can be contracted to help.
Why should your business fail because you don’t have much experience or knowledge in one area of your business?
8. Create a Work-Life Balance
When you went into business for yourself, surely you had the idea that you’d have more demand over how your time is spent. This is one of the reasons people become an entrepreneur – to get that work-life balance.
The sad truth is many never find it. And the reason why is because they try to take on every task and project themselves.
This is a breakdown waiting to happen. So to save time (and your nerves) you should hire a virtual assistant or two to handle the duties that are eating away at your day.
Then you’ll have the time to dedicate to spending time with family, friends, or yourself.
9. Save Money, Boost Production
You won’t find many ways to boost productivity in your workplace while also saving money. This is what makes outsourcing a beautiful business solution.
By hiring a virtual assistant, you’re only paying for the services provided. Compare this to paying a full-time staff that only spends a few hours of the workday being productive.
Because let’s face it – most employees don’t spend all eight hours of their shift working.
This is money down the drain.
You can keep that extra change in your pocket and use that in other areas of your business you can grow and improve.
10. Get the Expertise You Need
Sometimes, your employees don’t have the expertise you need in a particular area of a project. Say for example you’re looking to start a digital marketing campaign.
Rather than hiring a full-time staff, you can hire VAs with industry experience. This way, you’re getting the exact expertise you need rather than a Jack or Jill of all trades.
You can have your campaign handled by one or two virtual assistants who are paid for their time and service. Not hours wasted being unproductive.
This will ensure you’re getting the best value for every dollar you spend.
Hire a VA and Save!
As we’ve seen, virtual assistants don’t only help with saving your time, but your money as well. And in the process, they’ll even save you a headache or two.
But this will only happen if you hire the right virtual assistant. You need to first identify which tasks you need to delegate so you can find a virtual assistant that matches your needs.
You can start by writing down a list of all the tasks you perform that are tedious, time-wasting, and/or difficult. These are the items you want to check off your to-do list.
Once you have your list of tasks, you can see if you can find one or more virtual assistants to handle them all. There are various companies and sites you can use to connect with virtual assistants.
After you find one, come back and let us know how it works out!