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If you are a virtual assistant who is not offering meeting planning as a service, you may be leaving money on the table. In this economy (world), for our businesses to thrive, we need as many clients as we can get, keep as many of them as we can, and get as much revenue out of each client as possible. Or as Adam Urbanski, the Marketing Mentor, would say: attract more clients, increase client retention and add profit multipliers. Here are 5 reasons why adding meeting planning to your tool kit can increase your profits.
These are 5 excellent reasons to add meeting planning and to promote your business in most innovative manner with virtual assistant services to your business plan . When you add meeting planning to your virtual assistant arsenal, you can attract new clients, retain your current clients and making more revenue from the clients you already have.
Evidently I've been living under a rock. Recently, I stumbled across the small business solution that turned my overwhelming to-do list into something manageable. It's called Virtual Assistance, and it has freed me from the burden of what would otherwise be time-consuming busywork. Simply put, a Virtual Assistant is an off-site employee who provides web or administrative support services, conducting nearly all transactions electronically.
Not only was I surprised to discover this neat lifesaver, I was even more amazed to find that it has it's own association: The International Virtual Assistants Association (ivaa.org). The IVAA website is a great place to find what will most certainly be an indispensable resource for you: Your own Virtual Assistant. Below are the top seven reasons to hire a VA:
1. They are all business. Your Virtual Assistant will support your needs, not the other way around. Since they bill their hours for the work they accomplish - some in increments as small as five minutes - you are not paying for personal phone calls, late arrivals, childcare crises, or sick time. If you detest the forced socialization of a corporate workplace, or listening to the humdrum minutiae of your co-worker's life story, a virtual staff solves that problem.
2. You're in control. Your working relationship is based upon a contractual agreement whereby you state in no uncertain terms what you expect. They either do it or they don't. If you want a web designer who uses Dreamweaver instead of hand-coding HTML, then you specify that. Or, you can entirely defer to your Virtual Assistant's expertise and focus your energy elsewhere.
3. Professional rapport. Your Virtual Assistant is in the entrepreneurial boat, too. They work at home, market their services, prospect for clients, and provide a service just like you do. It's a great way to add to your network base, as they may have found ways to solve problems you never even thought of. Often they have their own network of resources that they utilize for printing, document processing and promotion. Tapping into their resources doubles your own.
4. Cost savings. You can hire a VA from anywhere on Earth. It's as competitive an industry as any other, and you can expect a wide range of fees for various services offered. If you like the fees for web design, but think a particular service is too expensive for document editing or proofreading, you can hire multiple VA's to do different tasks to keep your own costs low. You are not under any obligation whatsoever, except, of course, to pay your bill.
5. Pride in their work. If you are hiring a VA for tasks such as web design, you can easily preview their work. Often the VA service will place testimonials on their site or examples of web pages they have designed. Examine their portfolio pages to determine the depth of their skills and experience.
6. Virtual freedom. No on-site employees means no liability, no worker's comp insurance, and no payroll taxes to calculate. Everyone is an independent contractor. You can utilize a virtual assistant for either ongoing work or on a per-project basis.
If your business is expanding as well as profiting you might find that time can become scarce. You might want to consider hiring someone to aid you with every day office duties. If your business is truly booming, you might find time scarce to even hire someone else. What do you do? Now is the time when you must decide on hiring another employee for your business or a virtual assistant. I want to stress the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant which can save you not only time, money and your sanity.
Got a last minute project? -:
Virtual assistants are available whenever you need them. If you only need help for fifteen hours or seventy hours a month, these assistants can accommodate the needs of your business. These assistants will perform virtually any project you throw at them to include last minute projects which you absolutely do not have time to perform. Virtual assistants are available for last minute projects when actual business employees would not be able to perform such tasks.
Save time and money -:
You can save expenses while paying a virtual assistant merely for their time and materials for specific projects. When assigning specific projects to actual employee's you might have to place aside particular hours and even if the project does not stem for those allotted hours, you will still have to pay for them. With a virtual assistant, you will only have to pay for the time and materials on that specific project. This will save your business money in the long run.
No need to worry about office space -:
You will not need extra equipment nor worry about extra office costs with virtual assistants. As a small business owner, you might not have the extra space of an extra employee within your business this is where virtual assistants prove their weight in gold. These assistants do not need space in your business to work, virtual assistants work primarily out of their own homes. This saves you not only time but valuable space in your business. Virtual assistants have their own equipment as well as workspace in order to aid your business with any project you throw at them.
No tax and benefit worries -:
You will not have to pay business related taxes, insurance fees, benefits or vacation time for virtual assistants. Virtual assistants are independent contractors therefore; you do not have to worry about providing any of these things to them. You do however have to pay them for their services and the agreed contract price.
Make sure you research for the best virtual assistant for your business -:
Make sure you perform your research for the best virtual assistant for your business. You will want to interview while asking many pertinent questions. How much will you charge by hour? Can I pay you per project? What types of services does the virtual assistant offer? Ensure you enter everything into a contract. This will protect not only your business but this will protect the virtual assistant as well. Legal is the best way to go.
If you are on the search for a virtual assistant, you must look for some particular things. If you are seeking an assistant for clerical duties as well as other administrative measures for your business, you must seek an assistant who has performed in an upper level position within the clerical field. You want an assistant with a high-level of expertise which will greatly become a benefit to your business.
Virtual assistants are independent contractors and not business employees. You want to inquire about the training and certification of the virtual assistant. If you need competent and professional help from your assistant, there are qualifications which you must look for.
Certifications are nice however, as a business owner, you should not place too much stock into certifications. It is not difficult to become certified through many ludicrous professional associations as well as programs. Certifications can prove misleading therefore, why it is more important for you as a business owner to concentrate on the training of the virtual assistant as compared to the numerous certifications which they might contain.
You want a virtual assistant who is literally in business for themselves. This shows commitment and a desire to succeed and you can rest assured that they will show this toward your business as well. You also to view if the virtual assistant has poor communication skills or long periods of unavailability's.
Ask the virtual assistant how long he or she has been in business. Do they work on a full-time or a part-time basis? There are questions which are very much pertinent in forming the decision of hiring a virtual assistant. Is the assistant confident? Is their business thriving? Request testimonials from the virtual assistant. You want to view if customers have been satisfied with their services. Testimonials speak volumes for the quality of work the virtual assistant more than likely gives as well as offers.
Lastly, you want to inquire about pricing. Most virtual assistants typically charge anywhere within the price range of forty dollars to seventy-five dollars an hour. This may like steep pricing however, you must understand that you do not want a ten dollar an hour virtual ads working for you and your business. You truly get what you pay for and this rings true with virtual helper.
In letting the price of the virtual assistants soak into your brain, you must think about how your services are not cheap. You feel that you offer quality products and services and that customers receive a great bargain for the quality of the products and services which you offer. Now, aim this mind frame toward hiring a virtual assistant. Get the picture?
As a business owner, you want someone you can work well with as well as someone who can offer great customer service while representing your business. You also want someone who is going to stick around therefore seek quality and value when searching for a virtual helper and the investment will prove worth it as you view not only the increase of your profits but the success of your business.
Businesses that need to employ people to do certain jobs can alternatively employ virtual assistant (VA) services for more efficient result. What is a virtual assistant? They are skilled people with high level of competency that either work for themselves or with a company to provide services to people that needs to accomplish certain task within their range of expertise.
Although there are many people who call themselves personal or virtual assistants on the internet these days, not all of them provide quality or efficient services. So it would be good to look for efficient virtual assistance through companies that have good track records.
Other VA points to note include:
1) There are also independent virtual assistants. There's no guarantee whether they would do well or not unless they have build up a reputation through their previous assignments and recommendations. So check out their resumes, experience, samples, etc.
2) A business may need virtual assistant service if there are processes that need to be accomplished but there's no available personnel in the company that match the required expertise to do it effectively. A competent virtual assistant will do the job efficiently at a cost lower than what a company would spend by hiring a people to do the job within the business organizational framework. Virtual Assistants usually do tasks that are not regularly done in the operation of business so hiring people is not a good choice. But even if the process is important to the business a virtual assistance would be cost-effective because the need to buy machines and equipments required to do the job will be eliminated.
3) Many industries employ virtual assistance in the operation of their business. Medical practitioners needs medical transcriptionist to accomplish their duties. Some virtual assistants are replaced by machines or software to do their jobs. There is a mechanical virtual assistant that helps decode voice in medical transcription. Accounting also uses virtual assistants in doing its jobs. There is also available software that could act as virtual assistant to business people that needs to do accounting jobs.
4) The ultimate goal of a virtual assistant is to provide efficient jobs at the least possible cost. Companies and individuals needing a specialized task would sometimes outsource your virtual assistant service requirements from other countries. There are countries that offer their services for much lower cost than in the US. Some of these virtual assistants can equal their US counterparts as far as efficiency is concerned. They are becoming more and more popular because of the low cost of service and mid to high level of efficiency.
Virtual Assistant Services provide people with a cost effective way of accomplishing their purpose whether in business or otherwise. The high rate of pay in the US compels people to look for alternative way of doing a job. The virtual assistants whether here or abroad offers a promising solution. Reduction of cost is made possible because virtual assistants are paid only for the jobs they made as opposed to the regular pay the conventional employee would get. Another great thing about virtual assistance is that they are classified as independent contractors and so their service would be considered tax deductible
With the rise of Virtual Assistance and increasing workforce trends that allow workers flexibility of time and being with one's family when needed, the growth of remote/online workers have increased steadily throughout the years. People who used to think that a good job necessitates reporting to an office and staying in your cubicle the whole day, meeting set goals at the end of the day and being paid well for it are now realizing that this simply is not the only option. One CAN get a good job without being stuck in an office the whole day, get the job done and move on to other jobs and get good compensation - AND you can even spend time with your loved ones or take a break as often as you like without being called a slacker by your employers.
Virtual Assistants (VAs) appreciate this and are reaping the benefits of having regular work and having time to enjoy its rewards in the present.
What to think when hiring a virtual assistant in order to be well-recommended to clients?
First-off, having great administrative, communication and cyber skills are really important. Most of the tasks taken on by VAs are administrative in nature (whether it be on the professional or personal level of the clientele). Therefore, it helps when the VA has the organizational skills to manage the various administrative tasks in order to give the desired output to the client.
Being able to communicate well one's ideas and in the language of the clientele is of course conducive to better partnerships. There is less room for misunderstandings which may lead to dissatisfaction in the working relationship. VAs should also be quick in getting whatever the client is driving at. They must be intuitive and have the ability to read / hear what is both said and unsaid.
Cyber skills, of course, is a given considering that you are doing virtual work and the assumption goes that you have a fast and reliable internet connection. One must know how to utilize various internet offerings (such as emailing - knowing how to attach finished work and in what format, chatting for regular updates, etc.) in order to accomplish the task. Being computer-literate in terms of software usage (knowing which software to use) is important but even more so is the ability to command verifiable data from the internet. A VA who flounders around in researching and data-mining wastes valuable time.
Secondly, the VA must be a person who genuinely loves being of service to his clientele. Especially if the administrative work one does involves the personal life of the client, this quality is a premium. What the VA does is not just work but is a service to his client so that the client can concentrate on other things that are more important. The VA allows the client to balance his life priorities and rely on others so that he can relax and pursue more urgent things. If the VA considers his work as a service, he gets to appreciate his value and contributes better in the partnership. Thus, the VA must be pro-active and address whatever needs to be addressed as soon as possible. The client will appreciate the extra touch. It communicates concern.
Thirdly, the VA should be good in collaborative work. VAs may not possess all the skills needed in a particular task and they must be ready to accommodate others who may help them complete the task. Or their help may be requested by other VAs, therefore, they must be ready to build on what has previously been done before. VAs who work as teams are better able to handle bigger or more tasks and may counter-check one another to provide a more thorough output for the client. They can also get the job done faster and even jump in during busy periods.
The ability to collaborate is not just between VAs but also between the VA and his client. The relationship between the VA and his client is defined by collaborative support for the busy life of the client. This support transforms the VA to a resource that the client can often utilize to put order into the various aspects of his life.
Fourthly, the VA is also a continuing learner. In order to expand one's functions, the VA is continually looking for better ways, better software, and more skills to accomplish an increasing variation of tasks. This necessitates flexibility, openness to new things, and thoroughness in order to acquire expertise.
Increasing one's abilities cultivates a more lasting relationship that adjusts to the needs of clients. After all, this is a dynamic partnership. Ultimately, the goal of the VA is to help the client meet his goal.
Lastly, a VA is someone who is driven by a vision - of being able to do work that one loves, being compensated well for it, being respected for the service given and having time for a personal life as well. VAs should be proud of the work that they do, it is not just for stay-at-home people who choose to work when they need money or not when they don't need it. VAs are highly-skilled, focused, efficient professionals who have opted out of the rat race in order to enjoy a productive and balanced life.
