Do you sometimes feel that you are being stretched thin as a business owner?
No, it is not because you are lazy. Instead, you just have too much on your plate. From marketing to operations and finance, you are trying to do everything alone. And by doing this, you are heading towards a dead end.
Confused? Let us explain.
See, there are 7 main functions in a business, and these are: sales, marketing, finance and accounts, operations, HR and people management, R&D, and leadership. Ideally, you, as the founder, should handle a fixed function (leadership) along with a floating function (depending on the stage of your business). By doing everything alone, you miss scaling opportunities, attending to customers, or going on important business calls.
The key to scaling a business is delegation. Other than the two functions you head yourself, find talents who are extremely good at managing others and start delegating. Also, hire a personal virtual assistant to manage your calendar. Yes, hiring a virtual assistant is essential. We explain the reason below.
1. Why Hire a Personal Virtual Assistant?
Small business owners are known to work hard. It is common to see them working 40 to 50 hours a week. But a new survey reveals that most small business owners spend around 36% of the workweek doing admin activities. The list includes creating invoices, ordering office supplies, formatting documents, chasing debtors, managing the calendar, writing social media posts, booking travel for work trips, etc.
As you can see, none of these activities contribute to the bottom line. However, most business owners still prefer to keep doing these activities because:
- They enjoy doing them.
- They feel that it is faster to do these activities themselves.
- They have no one to delegate these activities to.
- They have trust and control issues.
If you also fall in the same bracket, don’t worry because we won’t be judging you. As you are starting a business, it is quite natural to personally look after every business activity including calendar management, office cleaning, ordering supplies, etc. But as your business grows, it is important that you start delegating these activities.
Because unless you delegate these tasks to a competent personal virtual assistant, you won’t have time to focus on core leadership functions like strategic planning. Here are some of the broader advantages of having a full-time or part time virtual assistant.
1.1 Improved Time-Management and ROI
You can delegate tasks like scheduling, social media management, email management, calendar management, invoicing, ordering office supplies, etc., to your personal virtual assistant. This will help free up your time for more strategic work. You will also be able to enjoy a better work-life balance and focus more on your core competencies, leading to an improvement in productivity.
1.2 Enhanced Customer Service
As your business grows, you will likely have multiple customer touchpoints. Responding to customer requests on each of these touchpoints in a timely manner is essential for building your online reputation. However, if you are managing it all alone, you will soon find it overwhelming, leading to delayed responses, loss of customer trust, and revenue.
You can avoid such a situation by having a full-time or part-time virtual assistant to handle customer queries, manage your online presence, and offer support. Just by having a VA on board, you can improve customer satisfaction and boost your revenue in the long run.
1.3 Improved Organization and Structure
Does your calendar often overflow with tasks, and do you tend to miss important ones? Well, the solution lies in delegating calendar management to your personal virtual assistant. VAs can organize your workflow, manage your calendar, and keep track of important tasks—letting you become more productive in the process.
1.4 Cost Savings
Adding a remote resource as a virtual assistant is more cost-effective than having a full-time employee doing the tasks in your office. This is because virtual assistants often come at a fraction of the cost it would take to hire a similar-caliber employee in your locality. Moreover, when you hire virtual employees, you avoid administrative, IT, benefits, equipment, and other additional expenses.
Hiring a remote resource to act as a virtual assistant is also a very flexible alternative, as you can choose between full-time and part-time resources and pay accordingly. You can also scale your team as per business needs, eliminating the need to keep paying resources during lean seasons.
2. Choosing Between Full-Time and Part-Time virtual assistant
As discussed above, when you have virtual employees working as virtual assistants, you get the flexibility to choose between part-time and full-time resources. Therefore, the question arises: whom should you choose—a full-time or a part-time virtual assistant?
Well, the answer to this question lies in the amount of work that your virtual assistant needs to do on a particular day. A part-time virtual assistant works for four hours a day, while a full-time virtual assistant works for eight hours per day. So, before choosing between the two, first calibrate the amount of work that the resource needs to do and the reasonable hours it would take for the resource to complete the work.
Depending on your calculation, choose between a part-time and a full-time resource. However, even if you are starting with a part-time virtual assistant, you might eventually need a full-time resource as your business grows. Therefore, it might be better to start with a full-timer initially. But if you have inhibitions and want to test the waters before committing, you can start the journey with a part-time virtual assistant.
Final Words
As a business owner, you have a lot on your plate. Therefore, it makes sense to have a personal virtual assistant and delegate certain admin work so that you can focus on strategic planning and other core areas. Besides, by having a virtual assistant, you can experience better time management, improved customer service, better work-life balance, cost efficiency, and a deeper focus on core competencies.
Now the question arises as to whether you should have a full-time or a part-time virtual assistant. In the above pages, we have talked briefly about both options and what would prove beneficial in the long run. The greatest advantage of partnering with Remote Resource® is that you can always switch between full-time and part-time resources as per business needs.
Still having doubts? Connect with us to learn more and start now with the one-week free trial.
