How can a Virtual Assistant support your business now you are working from home?

How can a VA support your business with the current pandemic of COVID-19 affecting the way we all work?  Many businesses have had to learn how to work from home.  To some of us this has come naturally, but to others, it has been a sharp learning curve in online technologies.  Many businesses have had to ask the question, “Can we run our business from home and how can we do it?”

Some businesses have seen a decrease in demand and as a result they have had to adapt to an online market to see how they can maintain their market share.  Others have had a surge in demand due to their existing online presence and some are having trouble keeping their heads above water with the increased demand.  By investing in a Virtual Assistant they can have that added support to help them prioritise, adapt, and free up their time to manage and develop their business further.

So, what exactly is a Virtual Assistant? 

A Virtual Assistant (VA) is a person who provides support services to a business from a remote location. Which allows a business to have an extra pair of hands without having to create that extra office space to accommodate them.  VA’s have numerous transferable skills and can work with any type of business, in any location, in any time zone, and in any currency. This means they have more options than employees and might just have that great idea that you didn’t think of yourself.

By delegating tasks to a VA you can save hours from your working week.  Allowing you to spend more time on other activities.  You might not have enough disposable income to take on a full-time member of staff, but a VA can support you for just a few hours a week.

A VA’s main purpose is to assist small businesses, as their business goals are to help other businesses thrive.  So they will have numerous solutions to help their clients to adapt if they are struggling.

But how do you know which tasks to delegate? 

The first thing to think about is how you can organise your time more effectively to help increase your business productivity.  You can start by making a list of all your business day to day tasks and then highlight anything that falls in the following three categories:

• The things you hate doing.
• Things you can’t do.
• The things you shouldn’t be doing
• Things that only you can do.

By highlighting these areas in your business where you need support, you will identify the areas that you can delegate to a Virtual Assistant.  A VA can support you in any area of your business that you need that extra help.

General services that a VA can help you with:

• A VA can support your general admin tasks by providing a secretarial or PA service. They are used to working remotely, so they can help to guide you and your business through this period.  By giving you advice on how to communicate with your team.

• They can help support your team to make better use of your existing employees. By freeing up their time to be more hands-on in your business, your VA can take on the mundane tasks that can be done remotely.

• Working from home you may have experienced an increase in the volume of emails, or the need to manage all your incoming calls. A VA can help by helping to monitor and filter your emails prioritising those important sales leads and answering calls to free up your time.

• They can also assist in scheduling your meetings on platforms such as Zoom.  Sending communications, and invitations to meeting attendees and providing audio transcriptions for the meeting minutes.

• They can help to turn raw data into a clear presentation, or summary document for a meeting. Create monthly reports, or annual strategy documents, all produced in a professional manner with your company branding.

• Taking on tasks such as research to help you find information when exploring new products and reviewing your competition. VA’s often have wide industry knowledge and through keeping up do date with industry news this can be beneficial in saving your time. With their industry contacts they can also assist in finding new leads, evaluating prospects, and prepare proposals and contracts on your behalf.

• Social media can take up a lot of time even when you have the content prepared. A VA can organise your content and create engaging social media posts across your social media platforms. Processing analytics into meeting ready statistics that anyone can understand.

• Customer service is very important to any business, having someone keeping on top of queries and keeping your customers informed can be quite time-consuming. Delegating customer updates, feedback and follow-ups to a VA can help you concentrate on providing the service you are offering to your customers.  Helping you to provide an all-round quality service to your customers.

• With the current climate changes due to COVID-19, you need to be prepared for when we all come out of lockdown. Using this time to plan ahead, as there may be many new changes to your business even when you can open your business doors again.  A VA can help you plan your marketing promotion throughout lockdown and help you adapt your plans as we move through these tough times. They can help you hit the ground running when those doors are open again.

• In the long term, a VA can save you HR costs, as you don’t need to go through the whole recruitment process. Finding the right VA for the support you need, with no need to worry about TAX and National Insurance as they are self-employed.  They can also save you the cost of training, as they will offer you a bespoke service to your business needs.

• VA’s also help to bring that important work-life balance and help to support your wellbeing. By giving the mundane tasks to someone else to do, you will save all those hours in the evening/weekends when you are trying to keep on top of things.  It will actually save you money in the long term, as whose time is worth more to you?  You can stop saying no to that evening out and even make those important events in your children’s lives.

A Virtual Assistant will give you back the time to focus on the fundamentals of running your business.  Working together and learning through each other’s support has never been more important.  Taking support from a Virtual Assistant during these difficult times could help you stay focused, quickly adapt to changes and provide continued support for years to come.

Want to know more about what a Virtual Assistant can offer your business?  Visit our website www.first-ratepa.co.uk/#services to find out more about how we can support you.  Or contact us on 0333 577 9698 or by email at [email protected]

Why not take a look at our blog on ‘9 benefits of using a Virtual Assistant‘ to find out more about the services a VA can support you with.  Contact us to find out more about the services we can offer your business, call us on 0333 577 9698 or via email [email protected]