Why thousands of entrepreneurs and small businesses are switching to Virtual Assistants

Why thousands of entrepreneurs and small businesses are switching to Virtual Assistants

January 17, 20248 min read

Why thousands of entrepreneurs and small businesses are switching to Virtual Assistants


Got enough hours in the day to get everything done? Here’s why hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) could save you time and allow your business to grow.

Fact - Entrepreneurs and business owners are notorious for investing every ounce of time and energy into their enterprises.

But there is no team picking up the slack or supporting you, so if you want it done you have to do it yourself?!

How's that going? Stressful? Not what you expected?

What is a Virtual Assistant?

A Virtual Assistant (VA) is an experienced executive assistant but instead of having to pay someone full time, you only pay as and when you need them.

Compare this to hiring, using a VA is a fraction of the cost and you won't have to find them a desk or cover employee costs such as NI, paid holidays, sickness or pension schemes.

They can be based anywhere in the world, work remotely from home or a virtual office, and have flexible hours to suit themselves and their clients.

VAs come from a wide range of backgrounds and a wide field of expertise, so whatever a business or entrepreneur needs, there's a VA who can do it.

Businesses that hire VAs can have a dedicated assistant or a small team of VAs if the work takes in more than one discipline

A Virtual Assistant lets you work smarter, not harder.

Why use a Virtual Assistant?

Hiring a VA means you can stop working 'in' your business and start working 'on' it instead.

When you setup the business, it was not to handle the administrational aspects of the business, you did this because you wanted to make a difference to peoples lives and to pursue a market dominance.

So why let the admin and time consuming tasks get in the way of your unique set of skills?

Virtual Assistants use theirs so you can use yours, freeing up not only time, but often the mental space to think and plan growth for the future.

A Virtual Assistant can take the pressure off by completing the day-to-day tasks that need to be done.

Who are Virtual Assistants for?

Did you know that the average business owner loses 30%-35% of every week to time-wasting tasks that don't push their business forward?

What would you do if you got 35% of your week back?

· Spend time with your loved ones?

· Spend more time with clients?

· Take time to think and plan your next strategic goal?

· Take time out to spend on the things you enjoy, that you couldn’t whilst employed?

Sounds like a part of your business strategy, right?

It's a reality for more and more entrepreneurs and small business owners, and it could be yours.

Entrepreneurs can focus on growing their business, coaches and consultants can maximize billable time and executives can focus on delivering on goals and targets.

If you're part of a team think how much more could be achieved if a Virtual Assistant could take over essential but repetitive tasks that eat into your working day.

Virtual Assistants are for any business owner who wants to offload tasks and get some time back.


How can a Virtual Assistant free up your time?

Everyone has tasks they hate doing, or worse, have no clue how to do them. They're important, so they sit on your to-do list staring at you until you finally sit down and try to check them off.

Are those tasks a good use of your time? No. Are they essential? Yes.

VA’s solve that problem.

A Virtual Assistant can tackle the parts of your to-do list that never seem to get crossed off or reappear regularly so you can't ignore them but they take up so much of your time.

For instance, are your email notifications driving you to distraction?

A VA can take over for you, sifting out the spam and the general information requests so you only have to deal with the emails that really require your time.

If your business requires appointments, is it really a good use of your time setting them up instead of seeing clients? What if the time you saved using a VA to deal with your schedule meant you could see more clients? Isn't that what you love to do?

Keeping on top of your social media is one the biggest time consumers but yet one of the most vital components in the modern day business. You have to create the content, post it, and multiply that by the number of platforms you have...

A VA could take that load off your shoulders, writing content, and posting consistently.

Probably the least favourite task for most people are the dreaded expenses and finances.

It’s a love-hate thing.

Do you have a stack of receipts clogging up your inbox? Or maybe a backlog of invoices that need to be sent out but you just haven't had the time. Almost certainly you have sent invoices that haven't been paid and haven't found the time to chase them up.

You work hard to build a business but then it takes so much time trying to keep track of the money you're making.

If you hire a Virtual Assistant they can submit your expenses, send out invoices, and chase the outstanding ones. Then you can get on with tasks that actually generate money.

Here are more ideas of what a VA can do for you:

· Transcribe audio

· Edit and format documents

· Data entry

· Help with marketing

· Writing and blog posts

· Respond to emails

· Research

· Find products and services

· Book accommodation and travel


As you can see, a Virtual Assistant can support you personally and professionally, to get more done in less time, each of you focussed on your own area of expertise.

How much does a Virtual Assistant cost?

You're probably loving the idea of a VA by now but think that you probably can't afford one. Well, a Virtual Assistant can cost up to 90% less than an experienced full-time assistant.

Yes, it’s true. Even when you could pay £25 - £35 per hour for a VA

With a Virtual Assistant you're only paying for the assistance you need rather than a full-time salary, pension, holiday and other associated costs likes furniture, equipment and office operating costs.

If you’re a small business or an entrepreneur, you're unlikely to need a full-time member of staff because you run the business, or perhaps your personal brand is the business. Much of it can only be done by you.

So hiring a VA to cover the 35% of time-wasting tasks we mentioned earlier, is much more efficient and much more affordable.


Let's look at the differences between a full-time assistant and a Virtual Assistant:

Comparison

The beauty of Virtual Assistants is they are experts in their field so they could probably do the work much faster than you can, so you get your 30% of time back and only need to pay for 10% of it.


Let's give you a tangible example.

Here at RAW Corporation, our prices start at £300 which will give you a bundle of 10 hours per month. So for £300, you could probably get your time-wasting work up to date and feel a huge sense of relief.

From there, you can buy additional bundles or hours to keep on top of the administrative side of your business so you can actually put your energy into seeing paying clients, growing your product range, and making money.

The more hours you buy, the cheaper the hourly cost becomes so you can control exactly how much you are paying and plan ahead for your business.

How flexible are Virtual Assistants?

The reason so many entrepreneurs are switching to VAs is because of their flexibility.

If you get your best ideas at night and need someone to do some fast research a VA will be there to do that for you.

Maybe you like to get up at dawn on a Monday to plan the week ahead. You can talk to a VA as the sun is coming up and pass on your to-do list.

If you are constantly on the go and need to fire off tasks as they occur to you, at RAW CORPVA you can use text or an app to communicate with your VA so you don't even have to be in the office to get work done.

If you love email because it's how you organize your thinking, a VA will be there to receive it. Of course, some people do their best work talking on the phone and pacing around so you can call a VA if that works better for you.

VAs are so flexible they fit in with you, not the other way around.

Beyond flexibility, Virtual Assistants are responsive.

Virtual Assistants know that if you have a task, you probably need it done pretty quickly so they work fast but accurately and if a task is really urgent, there’s no extra charge to get it done.

In Conclusion - There's really nothing to lose and everything to gain:

· More time

· More headspace

· More business

Small businesses and entrepreneurs can have exactly the support they need, for the amount of time they need without any of the hassles of hiring, interviewing, managing, and contracting.

Find out what thousands of entrepreneurs just like you already know: Having a Virtual Assistant can give you your life back, so you can spend it doing whatever you want, knowing you have expert support “virtually” around you.

Back to Blog