How might a virtual assistant help your company?
Entrepreneurs and small business owners face many new obstacles and great opportunities in today’s dynamic business world. As a result, knowing the necessity of productivity and efficiency in order to effectively utilise your talent and professional abilities is critical to remaining relevant, successful, and competitive in any business. In other words, it’s all about focusing on your abilities and contributing significantly to the growth of your company, while outsourcing and training the proper people to handle the rest.
“The fundamental thing about outsourcing or global sourcing is that it becomes a really strong instrument to utilise talent, enhance productivity, and minimise work cycles,” says Azim Premji, a business entrepreneur, investor, and philanthropist. Furthermore, outsourcing allows businesses to minimise the cost of their services or products while also stimulating the economy and lowering unemployment.
What are some of the ways outsourcing can add value to your business?
It’s only natural that as an entrepreneur, a start-up, or a small business owner, you won’t be able to keep up with your deadlines, successfully handle customer inquiries, manage your e-mail and website, grow your social network, do salary calculations, update accounting, or simply keep up with your to-do list.
Finally, a persistent lack of time to complete important duties, or a lack of finances to acquire extra full-time staff, can lead to a drop in your company’s production and efficiency. It will be more difficult for you to remain competitive in the current market. And, let’s face it, filling out financial statements or arranging and coordinating meetings isn’t going to help you achieve your professional goals.
“Doing less worthless work, so that you may focus on things of greater personal importance, is not laziness,” says Timothy Ferris, an author, entrepreneur, and angel investor. Most people find it difficult to accept, since our culture rewards personal sacrifice over personal productivity. “
Based on our experience working with Scandinavian companies (Denmark, Norway, and Sweden), the most efficient way to deal with this challenge while growing your business is to hire a virtual assistance service to assist you with accounting, bookkeeping, marketing, customer service, and anything else on your to-do list.
In fact, removing the barrier to physical presence opens up unforeseen opportunities to hire a highly experienced and qualified employee from anywhere on the planet. A good virtual assistant may also do more than book flights and manage your schedule; he or she will automatically become a member of your team and will assist you in achieving your professional objectives. Additionally, a virtual assistant keeps you organized, focused on adding value to your company, and most importantly, it frees up time for you and your team to work on marketing tactics and make real progress in developing your business.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT AND A REAL ASSISTANT?
A virtual assistant (VA) is a highly qualified, experienced, professional, and knowledgeable someone who provides administrative, accounting, marketing, technical, creative, and/or personal help to any entrepreneur, business, or startup from a remote location.
Freelancers and Personal Assistants (PAs) have been in high demand for some time, as enterprises and small businesses have realised the importance of flexibility and cost-effectiveness in their services. However, with simple access to the internet and e-mail, many independent professionals may now work remotely from their home office while still offering the same value to their employers.
As a result, if you need additional secretarial or bookkeeping assistance for your business but don’t have the finances to engage another full-time employee or purchase additional equipment or office space, employing a Virtual Assistant is the best option for you.
10 RESPONSIBILITIES THAT CAN BE DELIVERED TO A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT
Choosing which tasks to delegate to your Virtual Assistant, whether you’re just starting out or expanding your company, can be difficult at first. As a result, the Virtual Assistants at balticassist.com were requested to present the most common activities they currently perform for their clients for this article. So let’s take a deeper look at 10 VIRTUAL ASSISTANT TASKS YOU CAN DELEGATE.
1. Personal responsibilities
By managing your calendar and schedule, scheduling team meetings, managing your e-mail, and simply assisting you with your to-do list, a Virtual Assistant can help you stay organised. The VA may also make restaurant reservations, schedule dental or medical appointments, plan your travels, purchase airline tickets, and even write thank-you cards to your partners or family members.
2. Administrative responsibilities
A virtual assistant can help you stay on top of deadlines, manage your e-mail, and organise meetings with clients. They can also plan and coordinate upcoming events or staff meetings, send invitations, manage customer relations and incoming inquiries, send confirmation e-mails and invoices to customers, update and enter information in your database, and edit and proofread material. They can also keep track of your inventory and place orders for supplies.
3. Maintaining Accounts and Bills
One of the easiest tasks to delegate to a Virtual Assistant is keeping track of your accounts and payments. VA can generate financial statements and management reports as well as answer credit institution and tax authority queries. They may also assist you with salary calculations, providing payslips to employees, preparing end-of-year reports and payments, managing bank accounts, entering credit card transactions, and preparing and sending outgoing invoices. Balance your books and deliver end-of-month reports, of course.
4. Marketing and social media are two of the most important aspects of a business.
A Virtual Assistant can assist you with developing a digital marketing strategy, conducting research to establish where your potential clients congregate online, providing online marketing data, and locating industry-related social groups to join. A virtual assistant may also assist you in creating e-mail marketing campaigns and newsletters, increasing your social media followers, writing and scheduling tweets, and posting on social media sites. They can also help you manage an SEO-friendly website. VA will send out invitations to upcoming events, as well as assist with marketing the project, press promotion, and the creation of a customer feedback form.
5. Do some research on your company.
Virtual Assistants can assist you in researching competitors and vendors, investigating potential customers and business opportunities, preparing reports about the target industry and existing market, finding new products and services, investigating a specific topic, compiling market data and statistics, keeping you up to date on industry changes, as well as locating business contacts and obtaining information.
6. Customer service
A Virtual Assistant can assist you in managing client relations and dealing with incoming queries, responding to phone calls and e-mails, providing technical support and live chat services, maintaining your website’s information, and monitoring user conversation on various social media platforms. They will assist you in expanding your social network and increasing your social media followers, as well as creating, managing, and scheduling your advertising content and newsletters.
7. Content Creator
A virtual assistant can help you get your message out there by supporting you with the creation of blog entries, articles, newsletters, and social media posts. Your virtual assistant (VA) can proofread your website to ensure that it is SEO friendly, as well as transcribe information, design marketing e-mail templates, write guides and instructions for your product or service, or simply edit and format documents, formal letters, invitations, and presentations.
8. Web development, design, and upkeep
A professional website can be built, designed, and maintained by some Virtual Assistants who are knowledgeable in various programming languages. VA can update your website with new information, make minor text changes, add new items and services, or simply post a notification about an impending event or promotion. VA can also assist you in promoting your website, identifying the proper keywords, and optimising the content on your website to increase search engine traffic.
9. You can use a virtual assistant to aid you with sales.
They’ll find business contacts and people, call your leads, research new potential markets and prospects, make telemarketing calls, prepare promotional materials, contracts, and individual proposals, enter order information into your database, prepare and send invoices, and handle sale administration.
10. A One-time Project
If you don’t need a full-time Virtual Assistant, you can always hire one to assist you finish a one-time job so you can get back to work and make the growth you want in your business. VA can assist you in marketing a certain project, researching a specific niche, writing or proofreading material, preparing PowerPoint presentations, researching competitors or vendors, and so on.
