A day comprises 24 hours – but do you sometimes feel like those 24 hours in a day aren’t enough? If you do, you’re not alone – a lot of small- and medium-sized business owners and entrepreneurs are feeling the brunt of their responsibilities every single day, and it seems as if it’s an upward struggle. But if you want to have more time and have more peace of mind, there’s a handy solution that has already been taken advantage of by many other entrepreneurs, executives, and businesspeople: a virtual assistant. A virtual assistant allows you to gain back your freedom whilst benefitting from an expert’s skill and knowledge at the same time. But why else should you consider hiring one? Here are the top three reasons why virtual assistants are in-demand today.
1. A range of skills
You may not even realise it, but specific tasks are better off delegated to another. These tasks can consume too much of your time, leaving you with hardly any time (or energy) to focus on other important matters. The skills of virtual assistants may vary, but you can rely on them for office administration, secretarial services, translation or transcription, data or spreadsheet entry, and the booking of appointments. Aside from this, a virtual assistant can also manage your database, respond to emails and messages on your behalf, and even provide you with IT, graphic design, photo-editing, SEO, and website management or design services. They can also manage your payroll and blog and take care of your social media channels and platforms.
2. Fewer labour expenses
Think about it – if you end up getting another employee, you will have to contend not just with their salary – you will also have to deal with their taxes, sick and holiday leaves, employee compensation, and medical and dental benefits. Meanwhile, with a virtual assistant, you are freed from all these responsibilities. You don’t have to deal with these because they work independently and take care of their own taxes, expenses, NI contributions, insurance, and the like.
All you do is hire their services to perform a task or job, and you will pay them only for the actual work they have done, nothing more, nothing less. This allows you to save on labour expenses, and since they are remote workers, you don’t have to deal with higher overhead costs.
3. Better productivity
Another prime reason why virtual assistants are more in-demand today is their productivity. To expound, the standard worker in the UK will only do, on average, about 3 hours of work or less each day. So this begs the question: why should you pay someone to chat with their colleagues or surf the net on your time?
On the other hand, a virtual assistant will have a different way of working. They can effectively focus on the tasks they need to do without any typical office distractions, and you will usually pay them for every hour of work they have done. In addition, since virtual assistants are self-employed individuals or work with a professional agency, they aren’t likely to ‘slack off’ and miss a deadline because this won’t be good for their reputation in the industry. This is just a straightforward reason why virtual assistants remain motivated, and they can pass on their motivation to your business as well.