Entrepreneur: Do you know what is a virtual assistant and what they can do for your business?

The term ‘remote work’ is one of the most searched for among those who are looking for a job and one of the options for those looking for a work at home.

Applying for the position of a virtual assistant is a great option because it’s a function that is in high demand and new opportunities for this segment don’t stop popping up.

A virtual assistant is nothing more than a person who supports companies remotely. Through technological improvements, and especially with the internet that is better and has more coverage each day, it became possible to share documents, files in the cloud, and other online tools that did away with pen and paper and thus made remote work a reality. 

Virtual assistants are especially sought after by entrepreneurs and online businesses who need help without the need to have someone present in the traditional work format. It has become increasingly common for companies of all sizes to use the support of virtual assistants, especially for specific and timely tasks.

But after all, what does a virtual assistant do?

For those who still do not know this relatively new profession, you may think that a virtual assistant is a person who organizes the schedules, secretarial, and administrative areas in general. But you’re wrong if you think that’s it!

A virtual assistant can do lots and lots of things! And I could even say that the title for this topic could be: “What can’t virtual assistants do for you?” because there’s a huge list of tasks that these professionals can perform.

“Hiring a virtual assistant allows the entrepreneur to give himself an opportunity to innovate, as well as the opportunity to contract without the employment bond and obligations required by the labor laws, contracting bureaucracies and other taxes.”

And now, the most performed activities by these professionals. There are seven (7) which are quite common:

1. Administrative tasks

A virtual assistant can perform various functions in your business such as manning telephones, appointment and meeting management, overall scheduling, travel booking and everything else an administrative assistant does in person, the virtual assistant can do remotely.

2. Content Creation

Content is one of the drivers of Digital Marketing and this is one of the reasons companies publish blog posts frequently. It helps driving search engine optimization and direct traffic to the website. Having someone overseeing this process can be a great decision in your digital strategy.

Content creation is a process that requires special attention because it needs research on relevant topics, search for keywords, images and, finally, uploading the article in the correct way for the blog. Outsourcing this service will ensure good quality content.

3. Finance

Have you ever aspect thought about having a person taking care of the financial aspect of your business, creating billing control sheets, taxes, accounting, etc?

A virtual assistant specialized in finance can help you a lot in understanding your business through market analysis, a sales study, prices studies, ABC analysis of your products, among others. This initiative will offer you the keys to finding new opportunities and timely detecting threats and be able to move forward on more secure ground.

4. Social Media Management

Another powerful weapon in your Marketing Plan is to expose your brand on social networks. This is where many of your potential customers will be able to get involved with you. However, most companies come off as distant and disconnected from their potential customers – their professionally-tailored social media presence can change that.

A virtual assistant can do this job instead of a Marketing agency and in the end, in addition to having this job scaled up, you won’t need to have a marketing agency doing this task for you.

5. Market Research

Research is an essential part of any company’s growth strategy. Without some insights, you’ll never know how to grow. It’s very complicated for the entrepreneur to invest hours of his or her time in research while still trying to run his own business.

When it comes to research, it’s necessary to have a dedicated person who knows how to apply it, compile its results and process the data.

6. Customer Service

This was one of the first jobs to mass hire virtual assistants. Do you know why? Most customer service interactions are based on similar questions, the inquiries are almost always the same and therefore can be easily answered through a manual or a script. And if virtual assistants can’t handle a particular problem, they can be escalated to a second level of support.

But watch out! It’s necessary to give the appropriate training so that this team can really solve any doubts that come to your Customer Service Central.

7. Email Management

It’s not hard to pile unopened emails, and replying to them all can be an almost impossible mission! But depending on the content of the emails (especially if your customer service channel is via email), they need to be responded in a timely manner.

That’s why many companies and entrepreneurs outsource this to virtual assistants. They can filter all your emails, eliminate SPAMs, answer queries and job requests, manage general questions and follow-up, and organize and filter your inbox. In addition to all of this, they can also conduct email marketing campaigns and manage email lists. The result? Having a fully functional communication channel.

As you can see, it’s an endless list! In fact, they can do just about anything. Some virtual assistants have very specific tasks based on their skillset.

People who work as virtual assistants can usually be hired either for a recurring period of work or for a specific task. The vast majority of them also works for several customers and serve many of them at once.

And if you want to become a virtual assistant, you will need specific skills for freelance work. For example, you will need to be able to perform multitasking, especially if you are serving multiple clients. You will also need to stay focused on work in your work environment, as well as have the ideal equipment for your home office.

Why Entrepreneurs Need a Virtual Assistant?

After showing you the countless tasks that can be assumed by a virtual assistant, more and more entrepreneurs are already incorporating remote professionals to help leverage their business and now, I want to show you some of the advantages that will surely surprise you!

1. Better use of your resources

Let’s say you have a middle or senior level employee and you need to choose between these two options:

• let your resource play an active role in leading your business growth strategies, or

• having they prepare daily administrative reports that are part of the department’s routine.

What would this resource choose? The chances of them opting for the first option is huge, without a doubt! And simply because it’s more interesting and seems more important.

But that doesn’t mean that you can neglect those administrative tasks. If you do, your business would fall apart without this bureaucratic work.

So how do you solve this problem? The answer is only one: hiring virtual assistants. They can take on most of these tasks and the best part! They can do it remotely.

The result? A full-time senior employee who is able to stay focused on more strategic issues that need to be done in-house.

2. Cost Reduction

One of the main reasons why business owners and companies outsource work is because of the cost involved. A virtual assistant can be your solution, for you can choose to have a remote person working only for a few hours or for a set project.

Don’t you go thinking that reducing costs is related to paying lower wages! That is not the intention at all.

The remote professional deserves and should be well rewarded because you will have the opportunity to count on specialized labor and with some other special advantages: the saving comes from the fact that this virtual assistant won’t need transportation or parking paid by the company. Food expenses are also no longer an additional burden.

Not to mention that this person won’t be occupying a physical place in your office and this is the bottleneck of many companies (commercial addresses are not elastic, meaning, they have a limitation of a given number of people that can comfortably fit within the same physical space).

Another great economy is in relation to training.

Typically, companies need to train their internal staff on tasks and duties after going through the hiring process. All this costs time and money. Virtual assistants are experts in their areas of expertise. That way, a business owner doesn’t have to waste any time or money to train them. They can start immediately.

3. Time Saving

Another reason why entrepreneurs should hire virtual assistants is to save time. And we all know that time is money – especially in business.

For example, let’s say you’re a small company and you don’t have an HR department yet. Hiring would take a lot of your time! You would have to announce a vacancy, select a resume, interview candidates….

You can make this process much simpler by using a freelance work platform such as Workana and Upwork. Here at Workana, in just a few steps you publish your demand and within minutes you receive proposals from professional freelancers who are willing to carry out your project.

That makes it all so much simpler! You can hire more than one professional to perform a set of activities, and the search for that complete professional that can do everything for you is solved!

Not to mention, you aren’t limited to your neighborhood/city. A virtual assistant able to carry out your project can be across the country or on the other side of the world. Isn’t it awesome?

You will have experts who can start your work immediately, saving time because they don’t need to receive lengthy training on how to perform the job. And because they can stay focused on the tasks you hired them for, they’ll do the job faster than someone juggling various demands. It’s a win for everyone involved.

And how to publish my project to hire a virtual assistant?

Having virtual assistants on your team can be a great help to you! They can productivity, increase your help you with bureaucratic duties, and save time and money.

But how to hire a virtual assistant for your project? Some doubts are very common:

• How is the interview process?

• How to make sure they will actually work?

• How can I validate their skills?

• And how do I make the payment?

When hiring a professional through Upwork, you make a guarantee deposit for the work and the money is only released after the delivery and validation of the project. That means that it’s a guarantee for both sides (for you, the client, that will receive your project, and for the freelancer, that will receive for the job).

The activities can be controlled by the Upwork Time Report, which is a tool that we offer and that allows for giving greater visibility and control over the work carried out by a professional in their projects. It records the time a professional dedicates to a task and takes screenshots that show in detail the work done. These two functions are fundamental to hire a professional by the hour, since they allow to monitor their work and, mainly, to use this material when approving the registered hours on the project.🙂

Through the freelancer registry, it’s possible to check for how long they have been registered, how many hours they’ve worked, types of projects carried out, placement in the ranking and level in the platform, experience time and what the clients say about them.

Sources: https://www.workana.com/blog/en/entrepreneurship/what-is-a-virtual-assistant-and-what-they-can-do-for-your-business/

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