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Need To Cut Costs by 50% - Use a Virtual Assistant

Guest post by: Grainne Foley

Article Overview: Here is a simple definition of what a Virtual Assistant is and how it can benefit your business. There are a lot of misunderstandings about Virtual Assistants, VA's can save business owners money while improving their efficiency and productivity.

Need To Cut Costs by 50% - Use a Virtual Assistant

I keep hearing the term "Virtual Assistant" but I don't really understand what it is? This is a question that I hear constantly, if I'm at a networking event and someone asks me what I do, I barely have the word virtual out of my mouth and I can see their eyes glaze over. People immediately think virtual = sitting on the couch watching television while billing a client for hours. Unfortunately clients actually expect to see a completed project before they will pay the bill, they're funny like that! It seems to be the term "virtual" that puts people off. All virtual means is that I work from my home office as opposed to your office, by doing this you SAVE money because you don't have to provide: * Office space * Office furniture * Office Equipment That's quite a savings when you consider how much the three of those put together can cost. VA's work from home offices, which are outfitted with state-of-the-art technology, which you benefit from. The next question that people ask is "how do I communicate with my VA and how do I delegate tasks to them?" VA's are working from their home office, not outer space! You, the client decide what is the best communication method to use - phone, instant messenger, email, the VA is at the receiving end of this communication. If an emergency comes up, your VA will let you know this and they will have a plan in place. When you are starting your partnership with a VA, they will work with you to assess what tasks could/should be delegated to them to relieve you of time consuming tasks. A word of warning, if you like to micro-manage then a VA is not for you. We consider ourselves creative, professional, well versed, successful business owners and we love what we do. I understand all of the above but a VA can't possibly do everything that my in-house assistant can do! Why not! VA's provide specialized services such as pr, marketing, bookkeeping, human resources, legal, website design as well as the typical administrative tasks - calendar management, customer service, transcription, correspondence, researching prices, offering supplies and answering the phone. A VA can accomplish in 4 hours what an in-house assistant may take 8 hours to complete. The only thing that a VA can't do is make coffee and file - but we can turn your office into a paperless office! The wonderful thing about VA's is that there is one out there for your individual business, it's important that both the client and VA get along well and respect each other as individuals. VA's cost approximately 50% less than hiring a full-time employee - that will make a huge impact on your annual budget! Most business owners, who give Virtual Assistants a try, end up sticking with them!

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Article Tags: assistance for small businesses, cutting costs, efficiency, entrepreneurs, productivity, virtual assistance



Related Forum Posts
Outsource your work? - Hi BinaryGuy - do you really need someone 4 days a week to do accounting work? If you bring someone more experienced on you won't have to take them around with you and you can spend the time building your business. There are a number of people who you can outsource the work to - either a Virtual Assistant or a bookkeeper - have you thought about these options and not having someone actually come into the office?
Why should I hire a virtual assistant for SEO purposes? - Do you find it hard to find time for rest because of promoting your business or your website all by yourself? Well, perhaps it is the right time for you to hire the services of an SEO virtual assistant. Virtual assistants for SEO services will help you on the process of improving your rankings within search engine results to achieve an increase in natural traffic. The higher your site in the search engine results page, the more traffic and sales conversions you will obtain. Using the services of virtual assistants (VAs) certainly is the best method to move in order immediate results and in reduced operational charges. This provides a great answer especially for a small business owner whoever company is actually considerably expanding, and the jobs have normally doubled. Here are some of the services that a virtual assistant can do for you: • Traffic Geyser • Main Street Marketing • Data Entry • Web Research • Market Samurai • Managing Facebook • Managing Twitter • SEO • Local Business Listing Robot • Traffic Revolution • Infusionsoft • Senuke • Angela’s Banklink • Linkjuicer • Blogging • SMM • Virtual Assistant • Personal Assistant • Article Writing • Spinning Article • Press release • Email Response Handling • Online Order Processing • Word Processing • Forum/Comment Posting • Social Bookmarking • Video Editor • Internet Marketing • Email Marketing • Link Building • Powerpoint Presentations • Web Development • Other Administrative Support
Re: Is This The Answer For A Busy Entrepreneur?? - [quote="litekepr":396nnmxn]Have any people on the forum had experiences with virtual assistants?? Did it work for you?? If not, what kind of problems did you have?? Did you find a way to resolve these problems?? Shri[/quote:396nnmxn] I tried to get a job as a virtual assistant - I would have loved to do it... - but the job fell through. I don't think my prospective employer realized how much it would have cost for me to be doing the work she wanted... and after a prelimary 10 hours just to see how it'd work, she figured it would be cheaper to do it all herself! And I've got to agree! Unless the "boss" is some big shot who thinks the Virtual Assistant is a status symbol and is willing to pay for it, most VAs won't last long....
Hello from Nova Scotia, Canada - Hello all! I'm a Virtual Assistant and just started my business this past summer. I specialize in freeing up time and saving money for my clients by taking care of the time consuming, yet necessary, tasks that keep them from working on the revenue generating aspect of the business. At present my clients are from one end of Canada to the other - Prince Edward Island, British Columbia and here in Nova Scotia. I do a variety of tasks for them; client contact management, newsletters, website and blog updating; social network support and maintenance, and admin support within the financial services industry to name a few. I joined this forum because I feel it would be valuable to connect with those outside the VA world. I'm looking to get a different perspective on business from the varied entrepreneurs here and be able to give something back as well. Looking forward to meeting everyone!
Kathie from Melbourne, Australia - Hello everyone, I've been a contributing author for quite sometime with Evan Carmichael but only recently became aware of this forum - I didn't know it existed. I'm a mother of 5 daughters and wife of Graham. We live in Melbourne, Australia. My business was begun early 1994 fulltime from home so I could be here with our girls as they were growing up. I began a homebased secretarial business which became a Virtual Assistant business and network as the internet took hold in the business world. Today I manage a network of VAs in 15 countries. Blogging became the perfect outlet for me as I'm an avid writer so I write several blogs, have authored some books as well and periodically do articles for printed publications and online ezines and newsletters. Finally I've recently entered the speaking 'circuit' speaking at conferences, seminars and teleseminars, mainly in Australia but have begun to do a few teleseminars and radio shows for the US. I've just been asked to do my first 'physical presence' conference in Canada in 2009 which I am quite excited about.


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