Virtual Assistant: The Time Saver of Your Busy Life
Abstract: Attempting to do too many tasks all by yourself can take a toll on your time and energy So the ideal choice will be to hire a virtual assistant!
The current article emphasizes the need for a virtual assistant in your business to improve your work-life balance and productivity
Time is valuable but limited. Whether you are running a small business or you are a startup founder, how happy and successful you are in your business depends on how well you manage it. If you are finding it difficult to complete your tasks on time through your busy schedule, then it’s time that you reflect on hiring an online virtual assistant to save time.
Yes, you heard it right! A VA (Virtual Assistant) who works remotely can assist you to complete a number of tasks in a short span, thus freeing up your time and helping you focus on important business goals.
Here’s how Virtual Assistance can help you manage your time better and get more productive:
● Organizing your calendar: Running a business isn’t child’s play. It demands intense focus and involves juggling multiple activities. That said, there are core and non-core activities in any business. Tackling all of them together can really be a tedious and time-consuming task. In such a case, you can approach any leading virtual assistance services to get your non-core tasks handled. A virtual assistant can help in taking the load off your back, helping you focus better on the things that are core to your business. With time, as your VA gets to learn more about your activities you will realize that they can be a great asset to your business.
● Bookkeeping: This is one of the arduous tasks that demands time, patience, and focus. Have you got enough time to manage your invoices, expenses, and bills? If your answer is ‘No’, then leave the work to the VAs. Virtual personal assistants or virtual accountants are skilled at managing ledgers, invoices payables, receivables, etc. In addition to this, a VA not only ensures your bookkeeping is done properly they can help you do the most important things like tracking collections and follow up which are important to keep the cogwheels of your business running smoothly.
● Social Media Management: Social media is one of the best and quickest ways to connect with your target customers in real-time. It immensely helps in building your brand, marketing your product or service and is pivotal to the growth of your business. But then, handling a social media account requires a lot of time, and that too a business account! The very thought would give you jitters. Instead of managing the work all alone; why not give it to a VA after some training and establishing clear guidelines? Virtual Assistants can do the work with ease. They can do everything from creating content/ posting/scheduling posts to responding to comments and messages that come in from your potential clients. VAs are swift in their action and can possibly help you grow your business on social media.
● Customer Support after-business hours / Handling Email / Chat: Responding to every email or chat quickly can be quite exhausting and can stop you from focusing on your immediate work. To avoid distractions you can take the help of a VA who can prioritize your mail as critical, to be handled later or appropriate for a canned response and handle it. On the other hand, you might require after-business-hours support that would be otherwise difficult to provide. An online virtual assistant can take care of the calls, messages, and mails while you can peacefully focus on your business and other important tasks. Overall, a VA can set you free from your packed schedule.
● Writing/Creating Blog Articles: Possibly one of the most time-consuming but important tasks from a marketing perspective. Creating quality content for the business is not simple as it involves good research skills, hard work and time. Thus, it is best to leave the content creation part to a Virtual Personal Assistant. VAs can help in writing blogs or creating various forms of content which can then be finally reviewed, edited and posted.
● Market Research / Business Analysis: Every business big or small requires some kind of research activity to study competition, market or new product launches. It requires a good deal of time and the right search skills to get the desired results. Good research skills in Virtual Assistants are much sought after by clients. Such VAs can be excellent at gathering various types of data needed from different sources, putting it all together in the form of a research report with the right information. They could even be trained to do business analysis once they understand your business and its markets well.
● Travel Plans: Managing travel for business is a bit complex and dynamic. Most travel may happen at short notice. You need to look for the flights at the best prices, arrange for pick and drop, book hotels that align with your budget at the preferred locations. It may take hours or days to plan. A virtual personal assistant can off load the extra burden from your shoulders. With time they will understand your travel preferences including seat choices, timings, budgets and stay preferences, thus making your business travel smooth.
Conclusion:
To sum it up, an online virtual assistant not only helps you manage your business and time better but also allows you to focus on the things that are most important to you. Thousands of small businesses, solopreneurs and startup founders worldover have benefitted from the extra support from virtual assistants. And unlike your regular staff, they are economical, available for work as per your needs with the flexibility to expand or contract your hours of engagement. There is just one caveat, don’t think of it as an antidote to all your business problems. As long as you understand the limitations and are willing to spend time initially, you can see a gradual growth in your business. Personally speaking, hiring a virtual assistant for your business can be relieving and rewarding. If you’re looking for a way to streamline your business, consider using remote work with GetFriday.
GetFriday is your personal virtual assistant helping you offload your time-consuming & mundane tasks. You just don’t get an assistant, but get access to an entire team with specialized skills to handle the entire spectrum of your business needs.
GetFriday (earlier YMII or YourManInIndia) is a service that was featured and used in the NYTimes best-selling productivity and lifestyle design book ‘The 4-Hour-Workweek’ by Timothy Ferris. Sign up now!