Do you know how 10 minutes a day can change your life? Read on about the benefits of hiring a Virtual Assistant.
What is a Virtual Assistant (VA) you ask? A VA is someone who does various types of administrative work, but rather than going out to someone else’s office, VA’s stay in their own home office. There are many ways that an entrepreneur, organization or company can use a VA. VA’s perform many tasks that would otherwise be assigned to an executive assistant or an office manager. However, we offer more than just administrative assistance because we work more as a partner with our clients and can be used as sounding boards, research assistants, lead generators and project managers.
The most important reason to hire a VA is money. The money you’ll save by not having to hire someone for more hours than you need; the money you’ll save not having to pay rent for a place for an employee to sit; the money you’ll save on the equipment you won’t have to buy for an employee; and the money you’ll save not having to do payroll and pay employer’s portions of costs.
But it’s not just about saving money. It’s also about making money that is why you’re in business, isn’t it? A VA can free up your time so that you can build your business by taking the hours that are eaten up by your administration off your plate, giving you the opportunity to turn those wasted hours into profitable hours, whether through increasing your billable hours or through growing the business generally.
How do we do this? One thing we can do for the small entrepreneur is help create the illusion that his organization is a larger operation than it is, thereby investing it with more credibility. We can do this by simply answering the phone as your “receptionist, Assistant or Office Manager”. Similarly, if you’re on the road a great deal, or regularly in meetings, we can be the hub of the business; taking messages, sending out information packages to potential customers or even booking appointments using a web-based scheduler.
Some VA’s offer web-design and others offer bookkeeping. The range of services is extremely wide and no two VA’s are exactly alike. That also makes the relationship between VA and client a very close one. We aim to partner with our clients and in the process, anticipate our client’s needs before even being asked. We also act as a reminder service for our clients for personal and business events. A gentle reminder at the end of every month about doing the monthly invoices may be something that focuses the mind on the need to get it done…after all, you won’t get paid if you don’t send out the invoice. We can give you the reminder, then produce the invoices you require, and if you wish, keep track of payments. If necessary, we can send reminder notices to your forgetful customers.
When do you decide to make the leap from not having an assistant to having one? For some of you it will be when you’ve pulled the last strand of hair out of your head, or you’re spending so much time working that your partner and/or children have forgotten your name. Others will see the fire coming towards them in time to douse the flames before being engulfed.
This is where the value of 10 minutes a day comes in. Here’s a simple test that anyone with Internet access can take.
Go to http://www.spudcity.com and download a trial version of TraxTime. Then, using this marvelous little tool, start keeping track of everything you do during the day that is administrative and not billable. (It’s also an invaluable tool for keeping track of your time if you bill your client’s by the hour.) If you spend an average of 10 minutes a day on administration…that translates into one week per year (41.67 hours). One week! And two hours a week is the equivalent of one day a month or 12 days a year. Think what you could do with that time if you weren’t spending it on your administration? You could make some of those hours billable! You could use some of that time for prospecting, building your database and growing your business. You could spend the time with your family and enjoy a more balanced life.
Ten minutes a day. Once you’ve tried tracking your time with TraxTime, you’ll probably wish that you were only doing 10 minutes a day of administration. Think how much more profitable it would be to give those 10 minutes a day to a VA so that you could create more income producing time or maybe take that week off a year and spend it on a golf course, or a beach or anywhere your fancy takes you.
Ten minutes. Gives us all something to think about doesn’t it?
www.TheVirtualAlternative.com