Wouldn't it be great to have a magic solution to help your business take off? Does a solution like this exist? Is this one of the secrets behind a successful business?

Well, it certainly could be! Read on and find out what could make your life easier and your business work better for you.

Any sized company can employ this secret ingredient. That covers small one man/woman bands to large global organisations. From a startup that has been running for a year to a business that has been running for over 20 years.

Surprisingly easy to combine with your company - if you choose the right one of course - is a virtual assistant.

 

What exactly does a virtual assistant do?

Advantages of a virtual assistant for businesses

A Virtual Assistant can provide professional support in areas such as administration, technical or creative. This covers anything from general admin duties to professional services to personal services.
As a business owner, you complete the necessary daily tasks which have to be done to keep your business running. By doing so, it means you’re unable to focus on the tasks that you’re good at or that will allow you to start scaling and growing your business, for example.

 

What to outsource to a virtual assistant

Lets look at what a virtual assistant does in greater detail.

General office admin duties

When we talk about general admin support, this covers diary management, travel planning and booking, event organising or bookkeeping. Chasing those late invoices that takes ages but has to be done to keep the business running.

Professional services

Professional services tasks are anything from day-to-day account management of your current clients. For example, sending a Christmas or Summer mail merge to your current clients to show you are thinking of them. A check in and a reminder you are still here goes a long way to building and strengthening the relationship. The stronger the relationship, the more loyal your clients are.

It could be developing, implementing and managing the full Customer Journey from the first time you speak to a prospect all the way through to them becoming a customer, working through implementation to renewal and long-term advocacy. Covering Customer Onboarding, Customer Success and the Customer Experience. Adding value throughout the process gives a positive experience which your customer will tell others about. Even for a one-man band with a handful of clients, this process is extremely important.

Professional services also covers IT management; managing current software in place, ensuring you (and your team if applicable) are utilising the software to its full potential to gain maximum ROI. You may need to bring in a tool and need someone to research the best match, negotiate the best deal and roll out the software to your business.

Finally, the third area in relation to professional services covers internal processes for onboarding and employee success. From creating a job description, screening, interviewing, follow ups all the way through to onboarding, employee success plans and 360 reviews.

Personal services to help with work-life balance

Personal life is the final area a virtual assistant can support you in. This part quite often gets overlooked but if you’re busy working a 9 to 5 job, running around after family, pets, friends, then perhaps this is the area you need some help. Covid permitting event planning and management, travel (hotels, restaurants, transport) researching and booking, childcare arrangements to household bills and sourcing maintenance suppliers. You may have been thinking you’d love to try out a new dietary lifestyle but have no idea where to start with buying ingredients.

By taking these tasks away, means you reduce your workload and in turn, increase efficiency.

Just think about three lists:

  1. Tasks you have on a to do list that are never ticked off
  2. Tasks you HATE doing each month
  3. And tasks you really can't be bothered to learn

Are Virtual Assistants real people?

Virtual Assistants are real people and they work remotely with all the standard technical equipment plus necessary insurance and are self-employed. There are therefore no holidays to take into account or sick days to pay for. You’re saving money straight away! It is flexible working in that you can agree timings before you sign a contract.

Depending on your task will depend on how often you require a Virtual Assistant. You might have a recurring monthly task. It might be a one off project. It might be a retainer (for example, 10 hours banked each month that can be used as and when you require them).

If you’re keen to find out more then contact Sarah Stocks at Virtually Here For You

Although not all virtual assistants provide all the services that we're mentioning in this article, it's worth noting that if you employ a freelance office manager or freelance personal assistant you should ask what virtual support services they can offer you and your business. In this case, Sarah Stocks who is a professional virtual assistant in the UK - offers something a bit special due to her background in SaaS software, software implementation, Customer Success, Customer Experience as well as creating and documenting the full Customer Journey from Onboarding through to loyal, long term customers..

Sarah works remotely, is based in London and strongly believes in meeting people face to face to strengthen relationships so situation dependent, you could meet for coffee or she can come to your offices.

So if you’re looking for support without having to take on another employee, to grow and scale your business, to improve business sanity and to enjoy a better work life balance, get in touch!

You can contact Sarah Stocks by emailing sarah@VirtuallyHereForYou.co.uk and she would be happy to schedule a discovery call to better understand your needs.

For more details about the services she offers and a little more about her, visit her website VirtuallyHereForYou.co.uk or connect to Sarah Stocks LinkedIn to view her professional background.