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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.

  • Meeting Planning is one of the Top 10 most requested services for virtual assistants
  • Planning meetings and events takes a great deal of time, an eye for detail and many specialized skills that a busy entrepreneur just does not want to deal with. As such, meeting planning is the perfect thing to outsource to a virtual assistant.
  • Meeting Planning can vastly widen your prospect pool
  • Entrepreneurs understand that events are a great marketing tool. Coaches need to hold workshops and boot camps. Small business owners need to participate in trade shows and organize their booths. Many companies need to have thank you events for their current clients. All these events need to be planned and a virtual assistant is the perfect person for the job.
  • Get more money out of your current clients
  • Many of your current clients would like to have meetings and events, but they may not be sure where to start. Or perhaps they already have meetings they plan and trade shows they participate. By offering this service to your current clients, you will be able to lighten their load and increase your revenue.
  • Get paid to network with potential clients
  • Many times, coaching boot camps, marketing summits, etc. need on site management as well. As a virtual assistant, you do not get out of the office much. But perhaps you should on this occasion. Many of these events target busy entrepreneurs and small business owners, the very people who are your target market. You will be able to show off your skills, network with potential prospects and perhaps pick up a client or two.
  • Increase client retention
  • If you do not offer this service, someone else will. And although there is something to be said for specializing, we all know that our clients don't want to hunt for yet another service provider. They would like to work with someone they already know and trust: you! Chances are that if they find another virtual assistant that can serve their needs and also can handle their meeting planning business, they will jump ship. Be the one they jump to, not the one they jump from!

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.

The Virtual Assistant (VA) field is coming of age. More and more people are becoming familiar with the term Virtual Assistant; however, they are unsure about the significance of hiring a virtual assistant. Whether you are a large business or a one man shop, there are several advantages to working with a VA. In this economy, businesses are trying to keep down their overhead costs. One of the biggest benefits of hiring a Virtual Assistant is cost savings. Here are five different ways a VA can save you money.

  • Only pay for the work you need, when you need it. Working with a VA allows flexibility since they work with your schedule. Whether you need a set number of hours per month or help with a seasonal project, a VA can assist you. Imagine cutting back on overtime! Outsourcing your overflow or specialized work directly to a VA is cost effective.
  • Minimize overhead costs. Hiring a full time employee comes with a list of overhead costs that include benefits, vacation/sick time, office space, and equipment. There are no overhead costs when working with a VA. Since they are a business owner and independent contractor they have their own home office and equipment needed to get the job done.
  • No down time or training expense for specialized skills. If you need a specific skill or expertise for a project, hire a Virtual Assistant that has the skills you need. Working with a VA allows you to get the job done without the extra expense of employee down time and training costs.
  • No agency fees. Temp agencies usually charge an agency fee to work with them. While using a temp is one way to augment your staff, there is no guarantee you will get the same person each time you need help. Working with a VA allows you to partner with the same person for consistency and at the same time gain valuable knowledge of you and your business needs.
  • Delegate the small stuff. Do you spend nights and weekends trying to keep up with your administrative type tasks? Why not outsource those items to a VA? Hiring a Virtual Assistant to accomplish these tasks is a win-win. The tasks get completed and it gives you time to concentrate on the things most important to you. Like growing your business or spending time with family and friends.
Working with a Virtual Assistant has many benefits besides the ones mentioned here. It can save you time and money. Look into partnering with a VA today.

In the present business world, the significance of hiring a virtual assistant is becoming more evident. Why? Consider this; you can get them to accomplish a lot of tasks without costing too much. In fact, virtual assistants are considered to be one of the most efficient workers out there.

Outsource Your administrative assistant needs to an online virtual assistant will allow your company to save a lot of time and money. Most transactions are done with the aid of the internet technology. This means that there would be less operating costs such as electricity and transportation expenses. Even if you are separated y miles or even countries away, works can be done and sent in a click of a mouse. This faster and innovative working method allows your company to get a more efficient service than usual.

The significance of hiring a virtual assistant can also be gauged with the amount of work that can be accomplished at a short period of time. When you hire a virtual assistant, you are only getting him to do a specific task. And you will only have to pay him depending on the task that he is given. Unlike having full time employees when there are inevitable times of idleness, this per-project basis allows your company to utilize a more efficient workforce.

Perhaps the greatest economic importance of virtual assistant is the avoidance of expenditures used for employee benefits. This is because an online assistant does not require additional benefits such as insurances, paid vacations and other privileges a conventional employee receives. This explains why companies are still able to save a lot despite assistants receiving higher payment. Some companies implement additional bonuses to further motivate the assistants.

This new trend in business process outsourcing really is a big step in today's corporate world by creating a multitude of possibilities even to the smallest of companies.

The definition of a Virtual Assistant provided on Wiki (typically abbreviated to VA, also called a virtual office assistant) is an entrepreneur who provides professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients from a home office.With a full range of options to choose from, you can customize your remote receptionist service to meet your exact needs. Your calls can be screened, announced and seamlessly connected to you or your employees anywhere. They usually work for other small businesses, brokers and consultancy groups. It is estimated that there are as few as 5,000-8,000 or as many as 35,000 Virtual Assistants worldwide; the profession is growing in centralized economies with "fly-in, fly-out" (FIFO) staffing practices.

Then, what's the benefit of a hiring a virtual assistant?

Yes, we can hire a secretary to handle all the daily trivial things, which is very common and convenient. However it is not wise to expect all the skills that you need on merely one person. You may need a professional PPT designer when you have a presentation to prepare, you may need a note dictator who writes fast when you have a meeting to hold, you may need a clerk to write your report when you don't have the time to do it yourself... but how can one possesses all this skills, and if we take a step back, assuming you finally find one, how much would you like to pay for such a virtual secretary?

So, sometimes it is necessary to hire a virtual assistant, and outsourcing your administrative tasks to a virtual assistant, a team of reliable professionals. Leave the specific work to specialists; hire a team at the cost of hiring one ordinary secretary.

Better still, you can avoid all the unnecessary cost by hiring a virtual assistant. You don't need to worry about the insurance, the farewells, this may not mean that you can save money on that, but it means you don't have to keep an eye on that. You save the energy. You usually have to pay your assistant when they deal their personal problems during working hours, as often the case when you hire a human assistant. While you can avoid this cost by hiring a virtual assistant for you, because you only pay them for the time they spend on your task, not anything else.

You even save the time and money on supervising them. If you enter the phrase "virtual assistant" in Google, you can get nearly 5 million results within a second; this indicated the emerging of this industry, and the intense competition among the number of enterprises who provide this service. In this way every enterprise has to keep an eye on the quality of the service they provide to their customers, so as to keep their quota in the market. In this way you leave your burden of supervising your staff to the market which is most just and efficient.

The World Wide Web plays an important role in our business environment, one of the results of this has been the rise of virtual assistant services. Commonly known as home secretaries, virtual assistants offer a unique and useful service to small businesses and similar, that need a secretary but can’t afford a full-time person at their place of work. This is where the virtual assistant steps in.

With access to a computer and a good Internet connection, as well as strong organizational skills, a virtual assistant can run a complete office from his or her home, for a fraction of the cost a physical office manager would be. Reports can be completed, emails from clients can be answered, and meetings can be arranged and cancelled. They can even be used for telemarketing and customer service purposes. So where did the virtual assistant come from, and is it a job anyone can do?

The first virtual assistant can be traced back to the early 1970’s, although this was by virtue of having a typewriter and a telephone. It wasn’t until the introduction of word processors and the Internet that the term virtual assistant really took shape, which took until the 1980’s and the introduction of computer networks.

Two organizations really brought the role of the virtual assistant to the fore – one was run by an Australian lady by the name of Robyn Green, and the other was based in Los Angeles by Linda Anderson, who runs the Homesecretary.com website today. These two services offered work at home solutions for businesses who needed the professional services of a secretary, yet either couldn’t afford or didn’t wish to have an onsite person.

From these small beginnings, the industry grew steadily in the 1990’s, especially with the surge in the property market that many countries saw. With homes being bought almost as soon as they were being built, real estate agents became the biggest buyer of virtual assistant services, and the home worker industry took a giant leap forward in popularity.

The Numbers Game

Today, the virtual assistant enjoys a strong presence in the workforce, in industries perhaps not usually associated with secretarial work. The earnings that someone can make as a virtual assistant are also a lot higher, with the average wage hovering around the $20 per hour mark. This can easily double if the work needed is of a technical nature.

Although traditionally the domain of work at home mothers and women, the virtual assistant role is increasingly being looked at by many male workers. Some other statistics include:

  • The US accounts for 81% of all virtual assistants worldwide
  • Many have been in business since 2003, when home working really became a valid and profitable option
  • Over 86% of virtual assistants have their own website, advertising their services
  • Even part-time virtual assistants can earn over $15,000 per year for just 20 hours per week

With the constant demands that today’s workplace is placing on family and home life, it’s easy to see why so many people are looking at working from home. If you have the skills, becoming a virtual assistant can offer you an excellent income in an interesting job, and the chance to enjoy a far superior personal life. Have a look for yourself today.

In business whether you're starting or you’re already in business, it can be a roller coaster ride. The more business that you do, the more administrative tasks that you have. You have less time to generate new revenue by spending your own time on administrative tasks or other business operations that are not the core focus of your business.

Multiplying your manpower is a good business solution. One way to multiply your business manpower is to outsource. If you choose to outsource you can outsource portions of your business operations or you can outsource all of your business operations.

When outsourcing you may want to mainly outsource the business operations that take your time away from focusing on building and running your business, things that take away from your core business focus. Once you find the Virtual Assistant that you want to work with it is best to discuss these issues with them so you can get a better idea of what you should or shouldn't outsource.

Outsource administrative tasks that won’t let you breathe for a minute, things that you don’t have time to do, things that you may be inexperienced with but you need them done, if you need additional help with current employees, emergency tasks or tasks that keep you from generating more revenue and things that must get done in order to keep your business in business.

You can add to your business growth and efficiency by working with a Virtual Assistant. It may be obvious that you may need an assistant, in which case you have a thousand reasons not to hire one. Virtual Assistants provide practical solutions for business. This creative labor force has been around for quite some time, they are new to some people but very well known to others.

A Virtual Assistant is known to many as someone who provides beneficial business support services, bills you only for the work or tasks completed. They can be a great solution for a busy person, professional, executive, entreprenuer, individual or business.

There are many advantages to working with a Virtual Assistant. They are already trained in many aspects of business operations and business services. When you hire a Virtual Assistant you get the benefits of outsourcing, loyalty of a company employee, no employee tax, no benefit issues or employee government regulations to follow. A Virtual Assistant is fully tax deductable.

Hiring a temp is a transient solutions which can be expensive. If you only need someone a few hours a day or a week, a temp can be more costly in terms of the training and you have to pay the temp agency. Many temps are looking for full time employment, so the minute that you find someone that you like, they will leave you for better opportunities. These may be some reasons why you may have found that traditional staffing solutions have not worked for you. By working with a Virtual Assistant this would not be a problem.

In some cases, in-house employees (including temps) will leave you for a better paying job, some of them surf the internet on your company time looking for a job that pays more money, better benefits or a better location. Sometimes they didn't want to work for your company in the first place, they just work for you to tide them over till the next best thing comes along.

Some employees or temps will leave you if you don't give them a big enough raise. A Virtual Assistant will not leave you if you don't give them a big enough raise, you are not responsible for giving them a raise. A Virtual Assistant will be with you for the long haul as long as you need their services. They can help you to improve on your business or help you in your career search. It's all just depending on your needs.

You can call on a Virtual Assistant only when you need them or form a longterm business relationship with them.

Sometimes employees can come with some issues: you must supply them with equipment, furniture, you must comply with federal / state employee regulations and / or paid training & personal issues. The estimated cost of an employee is sometimes double or triple their salary in terms of benefits, liabilities etc.. If you have a home office or small office you may have to share your private space. Some businesses or professionals don’t want to share their private space or they may have to, if they want an assistant.

In this regard, with a Vitual Assistant you don’t have to worry about those issues. A Virtual Assistant does not become your employee but beneficial help to your business or projects. You can eliminate the high cost of employees or temps by working with a Virtual Assistant. They have their own offices and they are very diverse in many areas of business.

Their services can be used for many business reasons such as web design, business consultant, project consultant / project management, wordprocessing, secretarial services, outsourcing / overflow work, office management / assistant, typing, creative services (digital image editing, art, design etc...), business management, bill paying, appointment setting, personal life management, schedule or calendar maintenance, financial services, networking services, travel/ meeting planning, procurement / purchasing services, and much more.

As long as you are in business or as your business grows, Virtual Assistants become more of the obvious solution to staffing problems or for business support services. For half the cost of temps or employees, you can obtain professional assistance with a variety of skills from a Virtual Assistant.

Virtual assistants are becoming a popular alternative to traditional on-site office support for many entrepreneurs and small businesses. Now that there are more qualified VA’s available, there are also more choices to be made. When a small business owner decides it’s time to delegate some of their workload so they can focus on growing the business, it can be difficult to know where to start.

When it comes to virtual assistants, there are a wide variety of skill levels and services to choose from. Most VA’s fall within one or more of the following categories:

  • Traditional administrative support such as typing correspondence, transcription, data entry, basic bookkeeping, reporting, customer service support, calendar and phone management, travel arrangements, proofreading, etc.
  • Executive administrative support such as meeting and event planning, complex PowerPoint presentations, proposal and contract review, coordinating projects, vendor management, budget management, financial reporting, managing administrative staff, etc.
  • Web 2.0 and Marketing Support includes social networking management (Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn, etc.), blog design and management, article writing and submissions, SEO, press releases, website copy and updates, teleseminars, ezine and newsletter design and management, shopping cart set-up and maintenance, autoresponders, e-books, promotional materials, brochures, etc.

Additionally, there are a number of specialized niche markets that a VA may focus on including real estate, insurance, law, finance, entrepreneurs, non-profit, and small business.

STEP 1 – Determine Your Needs

Decide what you need help with. Are you falling behind on billing clients? Do you need standardized internal processes and documentation? Do you need to expand and target your marketing efforts? Are you going to be launching new products or services? It’s important to think this through – you need to know where you are before you can move confidently toward where you want to be.

Decide how much help you need. How many hours per week/month are required to complete these tasks and reach your business goals? This should not be an arbitrary guess. Make a detailed list of ongoing tasks and special or seasonal projects, along with time estimates, to get a more accurate picture of the amount of work you want to outsource.

Determine whether you need short-term or ongoing support. Depending on where you are in growing your business, your support needs may be different. A new start-up may need a lot of help in the short-term to get up and running, whereas a more established business may need regular ongoing assistance with regularly scheduled tasks as well as new projects and initiatives to support growth over time.

Estimate your support needs for the coming year. Based on your business plans and goals, how fast do you expect your business to grow over the next 6-12 months? How will this affect your workload?

Determine the skill levels needed for completing your tasks. Are they mostly traditional administrative tasks (e.g., calendar management, documents, presentations, bookkeeping) or specific to a niche market (e.g., real estate)? Do they require specialized knowledge or experience such as website design, article writing, or online shopping cart maintenance?

STEP 2 – Determine Your Budget

What is your budget for retaining support services? Obviously, this is a critical consideration in deciding on the level of administrative support you need. Individual VA’s tend to have a lower rate than VA teams. The reason for this is that VA teams offer a range of skills, from basic to highly specialized, and are able to cover a wide variety of needs. This frequently results in a blended rate for most tasks with flat fees quoted for special projects (e.g., website design).

STEP 3 – Compare the Benefits

At this point, you should know what your needs are and how much you can afford to spend on support services. The following is a list of benefits to consider when choosing between an individual VA and a VA team.

Benefits of Working with an Individual VA

• Single point of contact
• Opportunity to build strong one-on-one business relationship
• Easier to manage one person
• May have very specialized niche skills/experience applicable to your business
• More likely to accept small assignments and lower number of guaranteed hours
• Lower hourly rate

Benefits of Working with a VA Team

• Team of people can handle larger workload
• Multiple tasks can be accomplished in a shorter amount of time
• Opportunity to build a multi-faceted support team
• Offer a wide variety of business skills/experience
• Able to take on large projects and accommodate fast growth
• Many offer discounted retainer packages

All businesses have unique needs, which change and evolve over time. Invest the time to carefully examine your needs, consider your options, and choose the type of virtual assistant services that best fit your business.

Hiring a Virtual Assistant for your business needs is more complicated than searching on the web and just getting along with signing the first VA that pop up in your web search. A professionally sound VA can help you grow your business where as on the other hand a wrong VA could do irreparable harm. So how do you know which VA is right for you? The post tries to detail on some of the cross check points you should look forward before hiring a virtual assistant.

  1. What skills are you looking for in a VA? Do you need someone to help with appointment scheduling, calendar management, travel management, spreadsheet and crm management, blog management? Knowing what you want will help you to determine the best fit for your needs.
  2. How much do you plan to spend each month? Thinking over the tasks you want done, try to estimate or have the VA’s you are considering estimate how much time it will take them to complete the tasks each month. Be wary of VA’s that charge significantly less than the market standard. Most likely they are from a country where English is a second language and they most times will need more instruction on each project than native speaking VA’s. You will also find that their grammar is not up to the standards that most people find acceptable for businesses.
  3. How do you plan to communicate with a VA? Communication for most VA practices is done via email. If you hope to have phone conferences with your VA, keep in mind that these will have to be schedule ahead of time and you will be paying for that time. If you hope to meet in person with your VA, you will need to find someone local.
  4. How long has the VA been in business? There are new VA’s on the market today than ever before. Newer VA’s come in with more varied skills and experience, but it might take them a little to adjust to the virtual work environment.
  5. Is there any information on the VA available on the web? If you do a quick web search and find nothing about a VA, you should know right away they are not someone you want to deal with. There are only two reasons why a VA would not be on the web.
>> They opened their practice yesterday.
>> They aren’t Virtual.

A VA without a web presence of some kind is like a soda company without a can of pop on store shelves. VA’s network on the web. 80% of VA’s today have their own website. 98% have their own blog. If a VA isn’t coming up, it should send up a big red warning flag.

The more you know about the VA you are planning to hire, the better. Talk to them on the phone and ensure your personalities and goals mesh. Are they confident in what they do? Like fingerprints, no two Virtual Assistants are alike. There is no universal training to become a VA like there is for other professions. Virtual Assistant’s, more often than not, have studied at the school of hard knocks. The clients they have, the tasks they take on, and their own drive to know and understand the business world are all the training most Virtual Assistants will have or need. This training helps to build a variable set of skills, making each VA unique not only in how they work but the type of work they take on.

There comes a time when small businesses and entrepreneurs reach a point of saturation... their business is successful, referrals are coming in, profits are going up, and the workload suddenly seems to be increasing exponentially. You find yourself working a ridiculous number of hours trying to stay on top of everything and start feeling overwhelmed. If this sounds familiar and you're ready to reclaim your personal life and reduce your stress level, it's time to find a virtual assistant (VA).

What is a virtual assistant? Virtual assistants are independent contractors who provide administrative, technical, and creative services for clients using telecommuting technologies, so they don't have to be local. They enable small businesses the luxury of having the expertise of an administrative assistant without the costs of a full time employee. You only pay for the time spent working on your projects and you don't have to worry about benefits, payroll taxes, additional office equipment, etc.

Often, small business owners and entrepreneurs feel that they can't afford to hire an assistant even though they could really use some help. A virtual assistant is the perfect solution to this dilemma because you have the option of hiring them for just a few hours per week if that's all you need. If you have an ongoing need for support, most VA’s will offer you a retainer package that gives incremental discounts depending on the number of hours you commit to each month. Delegating five hours of work per week to a VA could have a big impact on your life - what would you do with an extra 20 hours of free time each month?

To increase your effectiveness and successfully build your business, you should be focusing on the things you do best. It's a good idea to make a list of all the tasks you are currently doing to see which ones directly contribute to growing your business and what could be delegated to someone else. If you're spending extra hours doing administrative tasks instead of networking, marketing, or selling your products or services, you are wasting valuable time.

Another way to work smarter instead of harder is to outsource projects that require skills you don’t have time to learn. For example, if you’ve been putting off starting a blog or online newsletter because you can’t find the time to learn the software (or don’t have the patience!), it makes sense to find someone who can do it for you. To help minimize costs, you can write the articles yourself and let a VA proof and post them. There are lots of little things you can do to save time while also building your business.

Virtual assistants can help with anything from proofreading to desktop publishing to blog management. Give some thought to how you're spending your time and how you can become more effective in growing your business. Look at the amount of time and energy you’re putting into non-revenue producing activities and decide which tasks can be delegated. Just because you're a small business or a solo entrepreneur doesn't mean you have to do it all yourself!

source: http://biznik.com/members/kimberly-christensen

Articles on Virtual Assistants on Hire
  1. Advantages of hiring a virtual assistant
  2. The search for a virtual assistant
  3. Five cost saving benefits of hiring a virtual assistant
  4. Employ personal virtual assistant (VA) services for more efficient result
  5. What qualities to look for while hiring a virtual assistant
  6. Significance of hiring a virtual assistant
  7. Is it necessary to hire a virtual assistant?
  8. The evolution of virtual assistant
  9. Outsource your administrative tasks to a virtual assistant
  10. Deciding on hiring a virtual assistant or VA team
  11. What to think when hiring a virtual assistant
  12. Hire a virtual assistant to grow your business

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