Why Does Every Entrepreneur Need a Virtual Assistant?

10 minutes read

If you’re an entrepreneur, you’ve probably got a ‘client’ and ‘online responsibilities’ running around in your head, jumping from one to another and back again. But what if there was a way to streamline your workload and free up time to focus on what really matters: growing your business?

Here come virtual assistants (VAs). Entrepreneurs are revolutionizing the way they run their day-to-day tasks with the help of virtual assistants and AI-powered assistants if they scale their businesses faster. Today, I’ve compiled this blog to discuss further what a virtual assistant is, why you need one for your business, and how it actually helps you run your business.

Introduction

A virtual assistant (VA) is an online working professional that provides either a secretary or creative services like audio production to a company. And from managing emails to gigantic ones like market research and data analysis, they can do that. Unlike traditional in-house employees who work on-site in a workplace, those who work remotely, from their own premises, and with their own resources.

Over the last couple of years, Virtual assistants have seen an exponential rise in demand. VAs are especially handy for entrepreneurs who find time freedom and can concentrate on bigger, more important work in their workflow without the added responsibility of full-time employees.

Time is Money: Why Delegation Matters?

Because entrepreneurs cannot do everything themselves, they often wear many hats. It’s efficient, but it can actually get in the way of productivity. In terms of work time, a Harvard Business Review study finds that CEOs spent 2.% of their time on meetings and administrative duties. While these are important tasks, they’re not the best use of an entrepreneur’s time.

Entrepreneurs, by delegating (or outsourcing) repetitive tasks such as customer service, sifting through emails, replying to messages, or other non-core work to a virtual assistant, can have happier employees, reduce costs, focus on strategic decisions, product development, and business growth. Most entrepreneurs consider hiring virtual assistants because it will help them to offload routine tasks.

Virtual Assistance or AI Assistant or BOTH!!?

When talking about virtual assistants, it’s important to mention human versus AI-powered assistants. Both provide remote assistance, but they serve different purposes:

Human Virtual Assistants deal with complex tasks that require creativity, decision-making, and human interaction.

Best suited to repeatable tasks, such as overseeing scheduling, answering customer questions, data input, support, etc. These are AI Assistants such as chatbots or automation tools.

Together, Human and AI assistants make a good team because they can be a powerhouse of support for entrepreneurs where the results are maximized for efficiency while reducing costs.

Cost-Effective Remote Assistance

However, hiring an in-house employee is a costly affair and would include salary, benefits, office space, equipment and more. These expenses can be burdensome for startups as well as for small businesses. Virtual assistants, on the other hand, offer a cost-effective alternative. Since they work remotely, there’s no need for office space, and they usually charge by the hour or per project.

Entrepreneurs are also free to employ virtual assistants on a part-time basis (which they can sometimes refuse) or on an as-we-need-it basis (which allows their team size to scale together with demand). The fact that this is affordable makes remote assistance the best option for entrepreneurs who want to keep costs down without compromising on quality.

Streamlining Daily Operations

For entrepreneurs, good time management is very important. Virtual assistants are skilled in organizing and managing various administrative tasks such as:

VAs allow the improvement of these tasks so that no detail slips off the radar, and no one gets burned out pursuing these processes. Entrepreneurs have fewer daily distractions and can channel their energy to advancing activities associated with their businesses.

Boost Productivity and Efficiency

As an entrepreneur continues to dive into the operational aspects of their business, their creativity and productivity take a hit. Virtual assistants take some of the pressure off by doing time-intensive jobs so that entrepreneurs can put more thought into the bigger parts of their business.

Stanford University conducted a study and found that remote workers (including VAs) are 13% more productive than those in the office. Often, virtual assistants have been equipped with specialized skills or the newest tools, which increases how fast and how efficiently they can work.

Scalability = Virtual Assistants

Your business grows, and your workload grows with it. It’s often this point when entrepreneurs need to scale their operations but don’t have the time or resources to hire full-time employees. Virtual assistants provide a scalable solution.

With a VA, you can quickly adjust the amount you get help with depending on what your workload currently looks like, and since you can scale up or down based on your needs, this means you can do away with hiring in the busy season and only hire when you feel you need to. This technology is particularly useful if you want to run your startup or any business that’s expanding really, really fast.

The Benefits of Remote Assistance

If you’re like every child, you’ve probably had to offer your own father assistance with his computer before.

The biggest advantage of virtual assistants is that they are flexible. However, because VAs work remotely, they can function anywhere in the world, even during out-of-business hours. A ridiculously useful tool for entrepreneurs working with clients in different timezones or for enterprises that need something after hours.

Also, the remote nature of this role lets entrepreneurs pass tasks off without losing control of their business.

Using VAs on Specialised Tasks

Virtual assistants aren’t just for administrative duties. Many VAs offer specialized services such as:

What that also means is that an entrepreneur can hire a VA that has the exact type of skill they need, and the work will be done professionally and without the overhead costs of hiring a full-time professional.

Hire a virtual assistant for startups

Startups often have a limited budget and very limited resources to work with. For these businesses, virtual assistants offer a perfect solution. An entrepreneur’s time is taken up by things like scheduling, handling emails and social media, with VAs able to take care of the essentials so the entrepreneur can concentrate on growth strategies.

Additionally, virtual assistants can be hired on short-term contracts, and startups do not have to pay for the services they don’t need.

The Right Virtual Assistant for what you need

Not all virtual assistants are created the same. You need to hire wisely for the results you want from a VA, so if you’re an entrepreneur trying to get the most out of one, it’s worth really thinking about what you need to help you achieve — and hiring accordingly. Here are some tips for finding the right virtual assistant:

Define your needs: Time to list all the tasks you’d want to have done before you hire.

Assess skills: Locate a VA with all of the required skill sets to cope with what you are considering doing.

Set clear expectations: When you need to have work done and by what dates, be clear.

Start with a trial period: Starting from a little project you can take on to make the VA a wonderful match for your business will help you to think about it.

Conclusion: The VA Revolution and Entrepreneurs.

Today, with limited information at an entrepreneur’s disposal, it’s as important as it’s ever been to have everything within reach. Virtual assistants are a flexible, cost-effective, scalable solution to help you manage your daily tasks, increase productivity, and grow your business. Remote assistance, whether that’s another human out of the office providing creative support or an AI assistant running repetitive duties, the efficiency and cost savings are obvious.

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