By using a virtual assistant you can 'shave hours from your workweek'. But knowing which tasks to delegate can be tricky, whether you're starting or growing a business or managing a large business.
Virtual assistants are contract or freelance workers who do their jobs from house and focal point on administrative duties which can be much like those of an govt assistant or secretary.
Virtual assistants are increasing. Entrepreneur can use a digital assistant for the whole thing from making dealer or client provider calls to sending thanks playing cards to customers. It’s principal and hard to construct believe, simply as you might with permanent worker. A virtual assistant can turn out to be a group member who simply happens to work remotely.
Not sure where to begin? Here are some approaches to make use of a digital assistant to beef up your business:
- BOOKKEEPING matters can be one of the easier things to assign to a virtual assistant. Many small businesses choose to share their bookkeeping systems with their virtual assistants.
- INTERNET RESEARCH: You can easily farm out Internet research to virtual assistants. Common requests include finding information on corporate websites, exploring new products and business contacts.
- DATABASE MAINTENANCE: Whether it's entering new business cards picked up at a conference or updating information for existing contacts, keeping databases current is a suitable task for virtual assistants.
- CREATING PRESENTATIONS: Making a clear PowerPoint presentation or summarizing research findings in a Word document can be a huge timesaver when prepping for meetings
- EMAIL FILTERING: To keep you from wasting time in your email inbox, some virtual assistants will filter your most important emails and respond to the rest on your behalf.
- SMALL PERSONAL MATTERS: Virtual assistants can be a good to handle tasks such as writing holiday cards or sending thank you notes.
- TRAVEL: Virtual assistants are a great way for finding hotels, booking airfares and mapping out travel roads both for business.
PROs and CONs of Having a Virtual Assistant Compared to a Real, Physical Management Assistant
Virtual assistant have so many PROs and CONs when we compared to a real, physical management assistant. But I point out some of important things:
1. The effectiveness of your working relationship with a VA would depend on the effectiveness of your communication. But it is easier to communicate with a real management assistant
2. Time zone differences. Assuming you can contract the services of a VA outside your time zone. You can't do this with a real management assistant
3. Your administrative staff isn't in the same office as you. But a real management assistant is normally in the same office.
4. Virtual staff comes with their own computer workstations, equipment and software: no extra office space, no extra desks, no computers and no software licenses required. But for a real management assistant, you need to arrange all those, costly.
5. A virtual assistant works from other place, then how can you be sure that s/he’s working accurately. But you can know about working by communicate and also by various technology. But for a real management assistant, that is easier to check it out.
6. You can monitor your virtual assistant’s work progress through time tracking tools and communication tools like instant messaging. A real management assistant can be monitored by yourself, face to face.
7. Virtual assistants are motivated to perform so that you give them a good referral or call on them for future work. They’re determined and dedicated. For a real management assistant, they are working look like: he need to do that’s why s/he’s doing.
8. You are paying virtual assistants by the hour. But a real management assistant you normally need to pay on a monthly basic. Which is expensive.