First of all, what is a Virtual Assistant?
A Virtual Assistant is someone who provides professional administrative support to clients from a remote location, often on an ad-hoc or part time basis.
If you are self employed, running a small business or an entrepreneur you are no doubt, knowledgeable and incredibly passionate about your business, but that doesn’t always mean you feel the same way about your admin tasks. Here’s a few reasons why hiring a Virtual Assistant could be just the solution you are looking for.
Hiring a Virtual Assistant is more affordable than you think
Hiring a Virtual Assistant will not incur any recruitment fees, never mind the drain on your precious time having to shortlist and interview a suitable candidate. You do not have to provide them with an office, any equipment or ongoing employee related costs such as National Insurance contributions, pensions, holiday pay or other benefits. You pay for the hours they work, nothing more.
Virtual Assistants are flexible
A Virtual Assistant can be hired according to your business needs and you have the benefit of hiring them on an ad-hoc basis. For example if your business suddenly peaks in activity, or if you have big project you need some assistance with. A Virtual Assistant could also cover any annual leave, sickness or any other staff absence.
Alternatively, if your business needs administrative assistance on a regular basis, many reputable Virtual Assistants have a retainer option, where you can hire them for a set number of hours per month.
A good Virtual Assistant can reduce your professional stress
Need to send out invoices, create and update your spreadsheets or CRMs, book a meeting room and arrange all the travel, chase up payment from a customer, respond to 40 emails, write up your notes from one of your meetings, send a quotation out and concentrate on running your business? Phew, that’s a lot of work. A Virtual Assistant can do all of this for you, significantly helping you reduce your workload and giving you breathing space to concentrate on the higher-level tasks of running your business and making it a success.
Virtual Assistants can help you reclaim your family or social life
Although you recognise the importance of your admin tasks, as a small business owner, it can often be the admin that gets pushed into your evenings or weekends. In an increasingly busy world, it’s very easy to spend all your hours working. Reclaim your family or social life by allocating your admin to a Virtual Assistant. Your family or friends, but more importantly you, will thank you for it.
Your skill set can be enhanced when hiring a Virtual Assistant
Are you an expert in your industry but not at invoicing? A Virtual Assistant can usually help you with anything from general day-to-day admin tasks to invoicing, online research, social media management, project management, event coordination, organising travel and accommodation or audio transcription services. They may even remind you of important birthdays or anniversaries so you are never in the doghouse again. You are experienced in your field, hire a Virtual Assistant who is experienced in theirs, freeing up your time to concentrate on what you do best, running your business.
A good Virtual Assistant can be that second opinion you are looking for
As a good Virtual Assistant gets to know your company, they can be a fresh set of eyes or be able to offer different solutions to problems you may not have thought about. A Virtual Assistant can be an excellent sounding board or offer impartial ideas to help you grow your business.
Hiring a Virtual Assistant will create minimum HR concerns
Increasing headcount in a business can always been nerve-wracking, but hiring a Virtual Assistant should significantly reduce any concerns you may have. A Virtual Assistant will be working remotely, therefore you don’t have to worry about them being a good fit with the team or getting involved in any office politics. Most Virtual Assistants work from home so they won’t be late to work or overrun on their lunch. There is minimum training requirements with a Virtual Assistant so once you decide it’s the right step for you, you should be able to hit the ground running.
Testimonials
Here at Koobr, we hired Assistopia and Andrea to assist with client communication, project management, CRM administration and many more things. Andrea also identified areas of the business where we could make more money, a task which resulted in generating income that more than paid for her role for a year.
We think of Andrea as an integral and essential part of our team, all of the staff love working with her!
One of the great things about working with Andrea is that she’s not just virtual – she attends team meetings, keeps herself up-to-date with our operational challenges and offers suggestions on how to help.Andrea and Assistopia have been instrumental in improving our invoicing process significantly and now our credit control is actually under control thanks to her hard work. She even handles our tediously boring jobs quickly and with a smile too!
I’ve worked with Assistopia with 2 organisations and it is clear to see that Andrea is organised, dedicated and asks the right questions and can work autonomously with the ability to push on a project. She is diligent and demonstrates her experience time and time again. I would recommend!
Andrea helps me with research projects. She is friendly and professional and always delivers on time and to brief. By working with Andrea, I’m able to free up some of my time so I can expand what I’m able to do for my clients.
It’s been really great working with Andrea and Assistopia. Andrea is very organised and professional – exactly what I needed from a virtual assistant. Highly recommended.
Andrea is the Donna to my Harvey!
Assistopia and Andrea have been such a help to me and my business. Andrea is a self starter, flexible, approachable and extremely professional. I would not hesitate in recommending her and Assistopia to anyone.
When I looked for a virtual assistant in Derby, I came across Andrea from Assistopia and asked her to help me complete a complex digital administrative task that I was finding very time consuming. Andrea came to the table with a quick understanding of what needed completing, took full ownership of the task and I couldn’t be happier with the end result. Highly recommended.
