Being a small business owner that provides outsourcing services to different entrepreneurs I've heard a few "myths" about having a Virtual Assistant or "VA". To be clear, a VA is an independent contractor that provides general admin work, social media marketing, content creation, video editing and perhaps everything else that falls in the middle to help run a small business.
So let me share a few misconceptions about having a Virtual Assistant.
A Virtual Assistant is a personal assistant.
The term virtual assistant has really become a blanket term for contractors helping small business owners with various tasks. This could include personal assistant tasks as well as general administration tasks, but it could also include more strategic projects and thought leadership such as product launches, website maintenance and even social media strategy.
Having a Virtual Assistant is too expensive.
Virtual assistants set up and run their own businesses differently but the most common cost structure you will see when hiring one is to pay an hourly rate or a monthly service rate. One of the main reasons why a virtual assistant is key in the beginning phase of your business is because you can hire one to do a certain amount of hours per month at an hourly rate or they can provide a specific service for you at a flat fee making it much more manageable from a budget standpoint in the beginning of your business.
My business isn’t organized enough yet to hire a virtual assistant.
You don’t have to have all your ducks in a row to hire help. That’s the reason why you need support, isn’t it? As a small business owner, you don’t have time to get everything organized. Most virtual assistants are ready to dive into your business and create the standard operating procedures and processes, so you don’t have to. Another bonus to hiring a VA is that most of them work with various clients so not only will they have a great perspective from their experience but also have recommendations of what works well and what doesn’t.
If you are thinking of hiring a VA in 2022, I always recommend that you take a week and write down all the tasks and/or projects you are doing on repeat that YOU don’t need to be doing. A good example would be creating status documents or invoicing clients and the stuff alike. At the end of the week take a look at all the tasks you wrote down so you know what type of virtual assistant you will be looking for and what their skill set should entail. You deserve the support you need in your business and a virtual assistant is a great way to get it within any budget.