Have you ever heard the term Virtual Assistant, or VA?
Virtual Assistants provide support to businesses remotely and can be found for almost any business task.
You can engage a Virtual Assistant for everything from personal assistance, sales support, or customer service through to accounting and bookkeeping, graphic design, marketing or sales activity. In traditional recruitment, we would call these people temps and pre lockdown they would come on site to your business.
What is great about a VA is that geography isn’t an issue! Unlike traditional temps, a Virtual Assistant will have more flexibility with hours and can offer you as little as one or two hours per day/week or eight hours every day.
Virtual Assistants are growing in popularity, as more people not only need to work from home in the current lockdown situation, but who will prefer to work from home post lockdown.
No matter the size of your business, Virtual Assistants are a fantastic way to tap into the extra support and expertise you need, when you need it.
Here are some areas where a Virtual Assistant can provide that expertise:
Accounting & Finance
Bookkeeping, accounting or finance related tasks can be time consuming and may not be exactly where you, as a manager, wish to dedicate your time. Specialist accounting Virtual Assistants can add genuine value here, whether it be in setting up a new accounting system, undertaking complex reconciliations, managing credit control or day-to-day transactional accounting.
Business Development or Sales Support
There is a lot of legwork involved in Business Development – researching on LinkedIn and elsewhere online, working through databases, finding correct contact details and so on. A VA can help with this, getting everything ready so that you can focus on client contact, building relationships and identifying opportunities for your business.
Marketing & Communications
Keeping a presence to your customers is vital, especially during lockdown, so that you can reap the benefits on the other side! If marketing and communications is not your strength, then engaging a Virtual Assistant to manage your client email or newsletter communication, prepare articles or case studies, or to co-ordinate your online presence is an investment well made. Or it may be that you need a marketing strategy in place to prepare for the turnaround (there will be an upturn!). A virtual marketing assistant would be perfect for this!
Client/Customer Service
Are you in a business where you have extra enquiries coming through due to the lockdown and all of the complexities that it has generated? We’ve seen the workload skyrocket for our clients right across the essential services sector as well as in funds management and insurance over the last few weeks. A Virtual Assistant can help you keep ahead of the game, responding to clients in a timely manner without overloading your team, and keeping your customers happy.
General Operations & Administration
Any tasks that are too time-consuming, too frustrating or you just don’t like doing them, pass them to your VA! They can prepare and/or format reports or proposals, undertake graphic design, manage your digital/online filing, making sure everything is in the right folder under the right name, archive documents, proofread, or take notes from webinars to pass on to the team.
Remember, a Virtual Assistant will be an expert in their field – be it accounting, marketing, client service, sales support or administration – they will save you time and money with their expertise. Having someone to manage these types of functions frees up your valuable time and with clear communication you can quickly leave a whole myriad of tasks in the hands of an expert.
Talk to us about how a Virtual Assistant can come to your rescue!