As the economy becomes more globalized, many big businesses and individuals are outsourcing their responsibilities to virtual personal assistants. The virtual assistants (or VA) industry has seen an enormous boom in the precedent years, and can be a lucrative and gratifying way to use your managerial and computer proficiency right from your home office. With high-speed Internet access, you can quickly get started and provide excellent support and administrative services to anyone around the world, no matter where you are located.
A virtual assistant is an individual who performs business or personal tasks for a company from an off-site location. The virtual assistant may possibly be operational from the identical city or from the other side of the globe. By employing a virtual assistant, businesses can focus on more important tasks, while the assistant takes care of administrative duties, or helps with any special projects. The assistant acts as an independent contractor, paying her own self-employment taxes, which can save the firm thousands over hiring a traditional employee.
History
The introduction of the virtual assistant came with the development of the Internet during the 1990s. This new technology made it possible for people in other cities or countries to perform administrative duties as needed for clients worldwide. A virtual assistant is a natural extension of the “temp,” or temporary office worker. Like a virtual assistant, a temp is contracted as necessary to complete projects, and is not technically an employee of a company but rather a business-owner of their own. Today, the majority of virtual assistants are organized in staffing agencies, where clients can contact one organization and find a virtual assistant to suit a client’s needs.
Function
A virtual administrative assistant can serve many functions, from performing business tasks to completing online business errands. On the business end, a virtual assistant can serve as a secretarial assistant, email/call correspondence, making appointments and maintaining a schedule to a more advanced tasks include editing to basic programming services and creative services.
Virtual Assistants focus on taking care of some or all of your administrative burdens. They carry out the administrative labor that in general would take your time, energy and interest away from the work that builds you funds. The great thing about Virtual Assistants is that you are getting a higher caliber of administrative knowledge, expertise and service than you would generally find in a temp, or even an employee in many cases (our industry surveys of the past three years indicate that the majority of Virtual Assistants have an average of 20 years real-world experience and training before going into business for themselves, and most have at least one college degree).
The core service and true value of a Virtual Assistant is in the collaborative working relationship itself. Virtual Assistance isn’t about single, project-oriented tasks. It’s about a package of administrative support and management that might include any number of ongoing tasks, functions and roles delivered on an ongoing basis. We call this being supported systemically, rather than transactionally, because that’s how business owners achieve the kind of long-term results and stronger business foundation that working with a Virtual Assistant can bring them.
Professional fees will vary from one Virtual Assistant to the next, but according to our surveys of the past two years, the current average market range is between $35 – $70 per hour. Keep in mind that a Virtual Assistant’s support is strategic; you won’t be working with a Virtual Assistant for the same number of hours that you would a full-time or part-time employee. Typically, Virtual Assistants offer value-added packages of support for which you pay one simple monthly fee. Virtual Assistants represent a hugely convenient and cost-effective alternative to employees, and give clients access to a higher calibre skill level and knowledge base than they might ever be able to afford in an employee.
A common misconception among many business owners that we are working hard to dispel. Because Virtual Assistants are independent professionals with other clients to serve, and are not employees, there are going to be differences in how you work together and the kinds of things they do for you. A Virtual Assistant is not going to be instantly available to you eight hours a day, five days a week, in the way an employee who works for no one else but you would be. The nature of your relationship is one of client and professional—not employer to employee. Each Virtual Assistant has her or his own industry policies, principles and measures for functioning with clients and will let somebody know you of these upon discussion.
The services your Virtual Assistant provides are independent of your immediate day-to-day business operations. There are some tasks in particular that are typically not provided by Virtual Assistants:
Virtual Assistants are not receptionists. Their time is focused concentrating on client work and projects, and they have their own phone lines and businesses to take care of. If you have a need in this area and can’t afford an employee, what you want to look to instead is an answering or call center service, or a live Virtual Receptionist service such as Ruby Receptionists.
Virtual Assistants do not run errands. That is the role of a concierge service or P.A.. You may instead hire an intern for that matter.
Virtual Assistants do not work onsite. Virtual Assistants are not temps. They are business owners who work from their own offices. Their work is virtual and performed remotely from their own place of business just like the work and services performed by your printer, accountant or attorney.
Benefits
There are numerous benefits to contracting services to a virtual assistant in lieu of hiring a traditional employee. First, a virtual assistant is an independent contractor, and thus the company is not required to pay traditional employment taxes or Social Security benefits for this individual. Second, a virtual assistant is paid by the hour or per task, making the relationship much more cost-effective. Finally, with a virtual assistant working from her own home and using her own computers and phones, the company can save money by using smaller offices and less equipment.
Types
The level of services offered by a virtual assistant can vary wildly. Not only does scope of service differ from firm to firm, but level of competentcy does as well. Some firms or independent virtual assistants may perform only administrative tasks, while others may be capable of programming, design and other web services. Others focal point are personal errand services, while restrictive tobusiness tasks and not totally considered a Virtual Administrative Assistant. In addition, virtual assistants can range from a single person firm to a large pool of assistants who can help with all of your needs.
Considerations
The biggest thing to consider when hiring a virtual assistant is which person can best meet your needs. Find an associate that is competent of executing the services you require, and who has skills in this line of work. Confirm that she has the tools to communicate with you, whether it be by phone, email or fax, and that such is educationally equipt and reliable. Another consideration is language capability. A large number of virtual assistant firms are located in India and other countries where English isn’t the first language. Prior to hiring a virtual assistant, validate yourself and your Virtual Assistant that you both are able to efficiently communicate to get the tasks you need done.
The most important thing to remember is that Virtual Assistants are administrative experts. If you need marketing consulting, planning and advice, then you should be contacting a marketing expert. That’s their profession; they are the experts.
As far as outsourcing direct mail campaigns, doing mailings, telemarketing, that’s not really what Virtual Assistants are in the business to do. There are companies who do nothing but that kind of work. That’s all they do, it’s what they specialize in, and they can do those things for you much more quickly, efficiently and cheaply than a Virtual Assistant.
As administrative experts, Virtual Assistants can, however, assist you with the administrative execution and implementation of your marketing actions. For example, they don’t write your blog posts, but they can take your raw text, upload it to your blog and schedule posts for publication. Their expertise isn’t in coming up with your marketing plan, but they may be able to help you implement and take care of the administrative functions of your marketing plan. They don’t write your newsletter, but they can help you create simple formats, upload issues, set up and manage autoresponder systems. They don’t write your articles, but they may assist you with submitting them to article marketing sites. They may or may not post on your behalf, but they can help set up your social networking accounts and take advantage of all the various applications and tools that can automate and make those efforts much easier. Do you see the distinction?
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