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8 Ways a Virtual Assistant can help you Grow your Business

An entrepreneur’s journey is not easy, and you need all the help you can get to succeed. 

While many tools and apps are available online to develop your business, working with them and understanding how to utilize them best requires time and patience, something you don’t have in abundance during the initial days of your business.

To boost your productivity and grow your business, you need someone skilled enough to handle various recurring but essential tasks on your behalf. Someone you can trust and depend upon someone to deliver on time, every time.

A Virtual Assistant!!!

Virtual assistants can help you manage your business, generate business leads, and think strategically to grow your business in the time saved from recurring tasks. 

In 2020, there was a 41% increase in the use of offshore agencies to hire Virtual Assistants. This statistic shows how the demand for VAs is growing and how small businesses are inclining toward hiring a VA.

Source: Unsplash

Who are Virtual Assistants?

Virtual Assistants are professionals who work remotely and independently, away from their client’s place of business, to provide administrative and marketing services to their clients.

They often offer assistance with tasks like answering emails, managing your calendar, researching your competitors, scheduling appointments, etc. Although they frequently work from home, Virtual Assistants have access to the latest digital tools they need to conduct their jobs efficiently, no matter where they are.

Virtual assistants can handle various tasks and assignments based on clients’ specific requirements. Some of these tasks are:

  • Providing customers with administrative and technical support.
  • Scheduling and overseeing appointments and meetings.
  • Writing minutes of meetings
  • Reserving conference rooms or other locations for in-person meetings.
  • Booking and making travel arrangements.
  • Putting together shopping lists and orders.
  • Managing your inbox
  • Communicating with other team members, clients, partners, and associates on your behalf
  • Answering accounting, billing, and shipping queries
  • Tracking payments and expenses for sales, travel, and vendors.
  • Online research and data collection for presentations.
  • Updating databases and data entry
  • Keeping track of file systems, records, and organizing documentation.
  • Making and maintaining profiles on social media.

Source: Unsplash

How can Virtual Assistant support you in your business?

  1. Manage your social media accounts

Social media management is the best marketing tool when it comes to growing your business and staying connected with your customers. Being interactive it helps you know your customer’s feedback in real-time, so that you can make any changes if required to your marketing strategy. 

Not managing your social media accounts regularly or replying to customer complaints/queries in time can also negatively affect your business and create a bad reputation for your brand among customers. 

Since social media enables you to interact with customers, build trust, and promote your brand, most businesses need to have a robust social media presence. But unfortunately, being short on time it can often end up at the bottom of your list of priorities.

A Virtual Assistant can help you in this scenario by managing your social media accounts and regularly posting social media updates, and replying to tweets and comments. They can also help you create interesting, engaging content that will promote the growth of your business.

  1. Reduce operational expenses.

As independent professionals rather than employees, Virtual Assistants are not subject to additional payments such as paid time off, insurance, etc. Moreover, there are no overhead costs such as office infrastructure, technical equipment, etc., required when you hire a virtual assistant since they work with their equipment from the comfort of their home. 

For the aspiring entrepreneur who is always looking at cost-saving measures, this can be a wonderful thing. 

According to experts, using remote employees (like virtual assistants) can reduce your company’s costs by up to 78%. Moreover, these savings can be applied to other essential areas of your company, like boosting your marketing strategy, updating your manufacturing facilities, etc.

Source: Unsplash

  1. Create detailed reports

Detailed data analysis is essential to running your company and presenting information in an easy-to-understand format to your partners and investors. In addition, website analytics help you highlight areas for improvement, enabling you to increase conversions and revenue. 

Further, by using social media analytics, you can identify the posts that have the most engagement and boost them to increase the visibility of your business and revenue.

To help you swiftly process the data and choose the best course of action, Virtual Assistants can create thorough daily, weekly or monthly reports for you. The time it takes to compile reports and analyze data is substantial, so getting a Virtual Assistant to do it on your behalf can be pretty productive. 

  1. Scale up your business activities

When your company starts to take off, you could find it challenging to meet consumer requirements independently. Customers have little patience and are quick to cancel orders if you can’t deliver on time or take an excessively long time to complete them. 

Hiring and onboarding new employees is time-consuming, which may lead to you losing out on substantial business in the intervening period. You also need to invest in their training, which is quite an expensive exercise. 

Virtual assistants can scale your operations as and when required in less than 24 hours. 

Isn’t that awesome? 

Moreover, Virtual Assistants can also help you close sales leads, which is essential to growing your business. 

Source: Unsplash

  1. Manage your calendar

Checking if your diary is organized is a step that is sometimes skipped but is very important. You may avoid scheduling conflicts by using Virtual Assistants to help you manage your meetings, appointments, and tasks.

VAs can also ensure you have sufficient time to get from one appointment to another and manage any personal obligations. Additionally, they can serve as a reminder for essential tasks that need to be completed regularly while helping you stay on top of your daily schedule.

You probably have many tasks to handle as a solopreneur, making it difficult for you to stay organized, which is something virtual assistants are quite proficient in. Therefore, hiring a virtual assistant is probably the best decision you can take if you want to manage your calendar efficiently. 

  1. Taking Care of Non-Essential Tasks

There are quite a few tasks that need to be conducted by businesses regularly, such as following up with clients on orders, payments, etc. Though recurring and time-consuming, they are essential for the smooth flow of your finances and business growth. 

Here too, virtual assistants can be a big help. 

You can also outsource your customer service tasks to Virtual Assistants. For example, they can manage all phone conversations, returns, social media posts, and answering emails.

The time you save on these routine tasks can be better utilized for;

  • Preparing a marketing & growth strategy for your business
  • Sourcing new suppliers for your products & services
  • Networking with potential clients
  • Raising funds
  • Team outings
  • Tax filings and other regulatory tasks
  • Enjoying a proper work-life balance
  1. Hire global expertise

The market for Virtual Assistants has expanded beyond only performing secretarial tasks to encompass more specialized jobs. In addition, high-speed internet has made it feasible for virtual assistants to provide a wide range of specialized and technical skillsets from anywhere in the world.

Nowadays, you may hire a professional to manage almost any task that requires specialized knowledge or skill. Some of the specialized roles that Virtual Assistants can handle are:

  • Designing websites 
  • SEO
  • Designing social media posts 
  • Writing blogs
  • Copywriting
  • Digital marketing
  • Online inventory management
  • Market research
  • Transcribing services

Source: Unsplash

Conclusion:

By working remotely to perform a seemingly endless list of potential duties, Virtual Assistants can help you be more productive and grow your business. Their varied skillsets, ability to learn and grasp things faster, and being more cost effective than in-office employees make them an asset for any organization. 

As the world looks at adopting a remote working model in favor of a hybrid or work from office environment, you need to plan your manpower resources accordingly. 

Considering virtual assistants is a step in the right direction, as geographical boundaries no longer restrict you from hiring the right people for your organization. With an increased focus on diversity in the workplace, hiring virtual assistants from across the globe is what you could have been looking for to increase the dynamics and strength of your team. 

If you are looking at hiring top-notch Virtual Assistants, we suggest you consult Wishup, which has high-qualified, skilled, and dedicated Virtual Assistants ready to onboard within 24 hours. 

By Crispino Santamaria
Brightest Minds

Brightest Minds

Included, schedule a call any week to make sure the process is setup in the most effective way with me.