A virtual assistant provides support services to a business from a remote location. They are mostly considered for providing administrative tasks, however, they can perform many other tasks including providing customer support, taking initiative, and solving other problems that your business is facing. Their services also include:
- Cold calling prospective clients
- Answering technical support tickets
- Screening your calls
- Writing and sending invoices and purchase orders
- Reviewing and proofreading documents
- Backing up, updating, and maintaining your website
- Providing payroll support
- Digital Marketing Management
You have to be clear about your goals before hiring a virtual assistant as each VA owns a certain skill set and expertise. Your goals will make you decide who you want to hire. There are following some of the domains a VA works in:
- Administrative virtual assistant
- Ecommerce virtual assistant
- Data entry virtual assistant
- Social media virtual assistant
- Virtual assistant writers
- Virtual assistant bookkeeper
- Real estate virtual assistant
- Virtual research assistant
Why should you hire a VA
Here are some of the major reasons you will need to hire a virtual assistant:
VAs Prompt Business Growth
As a business grows, it requires many things to be done simultaneously. Relying only on yourself will only grow frustration in you as handling so many things including social media management, preparing analytics reports, and managing financing all at the same time becomes overwhelming. Hiring a reliable VA at this stage will lead to amazing growth as you will have someone to share your workload with. Your VA will handle all the extra workload while you’ll stay focused on the things which specifically require your attention.
Higher Affordability
Hiring a VA cuts on many of your expenditures. You will not have to spend money on office space, maintenance costs, and additional taxes or other office equipment like computers, or telephones as VA will be providing you with his services from a remote location.
A VA will cost you less than hiring a regular employee as you will not have to pay extra benefits along with monthly payments.
Enhanced Work Quality
Several minor tasks hold the same importance as the bigger tasks. For instance, making an active presence on social media, checking emails, or managing websites. These tasks might divert your focus from the other important tasks. A virtual assistant handles all these tasks for you and you can keep your focus on growing and marketing your business.
A virtual assistant also saves you from the other side hassles of training your employees about the new market requirements as a skilled VA knows all the stuff already.
Tips to Hire Virtual Assistants from Freelancer Sites
Hiring a trustworthy employee for your business might be overwhelming. However, many freelancing websites could help you to hire the right person. Here are some of the practices when you are looking for a VA…
Create a Transparent Post
Making a clear post about what tasks you want to hire a VA saves you a lot of time. That way only relevant people approach you to get hired. Write a job description that contains the following information:
- What tasks you will assign to your VA
- Whether it is a full-time or part-time job
- Be specific about how much work will need to be done
- Your rate
- Working Hours
Make Sure They’re Reading the Job Description
To save yourself some time, while screening the potential employees, create a post that could make you clear if the reader understood your job description or not. Many people tend to apply to the jobs without reading the job description properly which creates a hassle for you to select the right person. You can ask the reader to write back to you with certain words that will make you sure that the person read your post and understood it. For instance, you can ask them to use your name in commas, if they follow the instructions you consider their application otherwise leave it unread.
Focus on Quality
Quality is the key to growing your business. Do not choose people only based on lower rates. You can demand previous work samples and then make an informed decision if their work carries the required quality or not. If not, there are plenty of other options you can go for.
Generally, VAs tend to market themselves as a general service provider. Hiring someone who can perform several tasks is always a good idea. However, you can go for a specialized professional as well if you need him to focus on a certain aspect of the business.
Consider your Budget
Considering your budget is also an important factor to consider. A VA can perform several tasks and he will charge you for the amount of work you assign him. Plus, you’ll need to spend some extra pennies for better quality. However, if your budget does not allow you to hire someone with huge rates you can go for hiring a virtual assistant who is just a beginner yet who carries relevant experience.
Training Program
A VA can perform tasks in a better way when they have a clear goal in front of them. To provide him with transparency about what he needs to do, you can create a training program. It can be in the form of a document where you write all the instructions clearly. A live call or a video will also be an amazing way to elaborate things. A training program makes things easier even for a person who is just starting out.
Conduct an Interview
Talking to your potential employee is the best thing you can do before hiring. You can ask certain questions to know if they know what they will be doing. Additionally, you can ask them to do a paid trial run before hiring them permanently.
Bottom Line
In the digital world, hiring a Virtual assistant holds great importance. Taking the help of virtual assistants to become more productive and grow your business has become a necessity. It allows you to share your workload with a trustworthy person. If you like to read more blogs like this visit Lamar G Marketing Tree.
