How to tell if you're ready to hire a virtual assistant
The Remote Assistant
Owning your own business is very rewarding, but also comes with a lot of responsibilities. You’re now in charge of Marketing, Customer Services, HR, Payroll, IT and other core functions.
Although essential, these tasks aren’t billable and will take you away from valuable client time.
IT Issues
Ask yourself: ‘How long have I spent resolving IT issues over the past year?’.
All companies have IT issues, and you will have inevitably spent hours over the phone or with a live chat operator to sort out problems with your website.
The pandemic and lockdown restrictions saw a need for a prompt shift to an online presence for a lot of businesses in March 2020.
Even if you were already online before the lockdown period, the use of evolving technologies such as Zoom has never been so popular. Zoom is a great tool for networking, taking client appointments, hosting your next big webinar or online workshop!
Maybe, you’ve already got these in the bag as you’re a natural computer Whiz. Or you’ve just stuck to your guns and watched every YouTube tutorial out there.
This may mean that you’re now spending too much time on the small tasks.
I get it, this is your business, and you love it! But it’s now time to take a step back and think about the future.
Think about what client work you’re doing now.
Do you want to find more super clients like this? Could a VA help relieve you from some of these time-bound tasks?
Think about your income.
Maybe you’ve had a really good year. Or maybe, you could have made more. If so, do you have the time or capacity to work on your next big money-maker?
Maybe you’re overachieving in all areas.
Now you need to take a step back and look at your client journey. Could a VA create SOP’s (Standard Operating Procedures) to improve your clients’ onboarding process? What can you do to be an industry-leading business?
If you’ve answered yes to some (or all) of the questions above, it sounds like you may not have the capacity or time to focus on the future of your business.
It’s very easy to spend 60 hours a week or more on your business. It’s yours. It’s what you love doing.
But don’t forget to take time off. Taking time off is necessary and is important to you and your business.
It takes a lot to hand over tasks to another person, but it’s pivotal in the expansion and growth of your business and will enable you to excel!
Although the term, Virtual Assistant is still fairly new to a lot of people, VA’s have been around for a while.
VA’s have become increasingly popular over the last 12 months, as we’ve always been remote and operated on a flexible ‘to your budget’ approach. As opposed to a Part-Time PAYE employee, which makes us an ideal solution for companies who require flexible support.
Maybe you’ve already looked at hiring a Virtual Assistant, but you’re not sure if they’re the right fit for your business.
As a Modern VA (a tech geek at heart!) I love working with systems and tackling technical challenges. Probably all the stuff you least like – find too time-consuming or just boring!
I go through a list of various tasks you could outsource to me in a future blog post.
But for now, if you’d like to have a chat, please feel free to get in touch for your complimentary consultation via tom@theremoteassistant.co.uk or take a look at my case studies here.
Tom Lingard
Virtual Assistant
The Remote Assistant