What is a Virtual Assistant?
Whilst the profession is becoming more widely known, I do still meet new people who have not heard of a Virtual Assistant before, so what is a Virtual Assistant?
A Virtual Assistant is:
An experienced, self employed business professional
Their experience may be from a background in providing personal assistance in an employed capacity, or it may be in the line of work that they are specialising in, for example, a VA with a marketing, website creation or social media background.
Generally, Virtual Assistants are self-employed, and cover all of their own tax, national insurance and pension contributions – so fewer overheads for you as a business owner to worry about.
Often works from home
Not all Virtual Assistants solely work from home, although the majority do – the clue is in the title. This means that as a business owner, you don’t need to provide a desk and office space for your VA, nor do you need to provide tea & coffee, or heating and lighting or worry about all the other things that come with employing staff.
Undertakes tasks to support several businesses at once
As Virtual Assistants, we strive to make each of our clients feel like our only client. The reality is that we may be supporting anywhere between 2 and 20 clients each, with varying levels of support. Don’t panic though – we are extremely good at managing our time.
Works with you, not for you
We are business owners ourselves, and work with you to enable you to get the most out of your business. We may make suggestions on how things could be done differently, to improve your customer experience or maybe to do things more efficiently.
Helps you have time to work ON your business instead of IN it
It’s really important to allocate time for your own marketing and business development, including networking and building and maintaining client relationships. By outsourcing the admin, we free up your time to do these crucial things.
Virtual Assistants come in many shapes and sizes, some are known a Generalist VAs, whereas others may specialise
Some Virtual Assistants provide specific, specialised services to clients such as book keeping, call answering, marketing, social media, website development and newsletters. Other Virtual Assistants offer a spectrum of services.
If you have any questions about how a Virtual Assistant might work with you and your business, please get in touch, or read on to my blog ‘Why use a Virtual Assistant’
I have also created for you a few handy guides:
- 30 ways to use a VA
- 30 ways to use a VA – coaches guide
- Delegation checklist (how to decide what to delegate!)
I hope you find these useful.
If there is anything else we can help with, or you would like to talk to us to see how we can help you to find the space to grow your business, call us on 07814 218142 or email joanne@joannemanville.co.uk