I often hear from people who are still wondering why hire a Virtual Assistant Agency in the Philippines, what the REAL benefits are, and why it is worth pursuing such cooperation. I am not surprised that such questions are asked. Working with a virtual assistant costs money. Everyone in business wants to optimize their activities to bring the most benefits with the minimum possible costs.
Client’s Story
But before I start listing all the benefits, let me tell you a short story about one of my first clients. Thanks to my help, she became more effective and stopped working in constant chaos.
The client contacted me some time ago. They were looking for support from a virtual assistant in the Philippines, but they couldn’t quite define their needs. It quickly turned out that in addition to the lack of time for the tasks, they had problems organizing their own activities. They worked all day, but often, the effects of their work were poor—the tasks were unfinished, which often blocked my work.
Due to her constant travels, they simply didn’t have time to properly plan her activities or implement many new tools in her working day. So we started by making small changes – step by step:
- We developed 4 types of most frequently performed activities in her business, and then in Asana I created the most detailed project templates. We wanted to divide the tasks into the smallest possible components so that they could be completed in about 10-15 minutes and so that they could access them even from her phone.
- We agreed on weekly 20-minute online meetings to discuss the tasks for the next week and discuss the performance of the tasks from the current week and make any necessary corrections.
- The client and I refined e-mail templates for sending to people interested in her services and to contractors. Additionally, I developed a system for managing the e-mail account (filtering messages, setting priorities, assigning messages to specific groups), thanks to which they did not have to waste time looking through her e-mail box.
After about a month, they began to notice the first positive changes resulting from our joint activities.
Today, more than half a year after the introduction of those changes, they have significantly developed her business. All thanks to small steps that were more likely to be achieved.
1. Daily operations support.
With the support of a virtual assistant in the Philippines, you can delegate some of your activities every day and you don’t have to worry about forgetting something. You can let go of tasks that are not a priority for you and don’t bring you money for your business.
It often happens that instead of preparing a new offer for a Client, or going to a networking meeting, or simply instead of searching for new Clients – you deal with a million smaller matters that are an essential part of everyday running a business. Because of this fragmentation, you can feel that you are not moving forward, but are constantly standing in one place, because there is always something. By working with a virtual assistant, you can delegate all of these “somethings” in your business every day and focus 100% on what is most important to you.
2. Relief of technical tasks.
This is a point that my clients absolutely love, and I’ll tell you why. If you’re an accountant, a veterinarian, or a restaurant manager, you don’t have to know everything. You’re great in your field because that’s what you know best. But as an entrepreneur, you have more responsibilities than just your core business.
Every now and then, you have to master some technical issues and learn something completely from scratch. It’s not so bad if you can grasp various technical issues in a flash and don’t have too much trouble with them. However, if you’re at odds with technology and every new thing gives you a headache – the help of a virtual assistant will be a bull’s eye!
Let’s be honest – I know very well that you often don’t have time to learn technical issues such as:
- Sending newsletter,
- Creating landing pages,
- Email automation,
- Making changes to the website,
- Adding blog entries or configuring bots.
Sometimes you don’t even have time to learn new rules in Excel or prepare slides. It’s in these areas that the support of a virtual assistant is invaluable.
3. Acquiring new customers.
Business is business and even the best idea and plan will not make sense if there are no paying customers. Attracting people is one thing, but converting them is another matter entirely.
Depending on the industry and the type of products and services offered, the process of acquiring a customer varies significantly. However, there is one common denominator that connects all businesses – time. To acquire customers, you need to have time to acquire them.
If you distract yourself and deal with matters that will not directly contribute to acquiring new customers – you may be on a slippery slope from which it will be very difficult to regain your balance. Therefore, with the support of a virtual assistant, you can relieve yourself of the burden of less important tasks. Focus on activities that will directly translate into your earnings.
4. Better work organization.
By giving some of your tasks to a virtual assistant, you can give away tasks that are a factor in your procrastination. And with a bit of determination, you can develop new work habits and become better organized.
It may turn out that a virtual assistant can check your email every morning, giving you tasks that are really necessary for you. The same goes for social media, or anything else that acts as a distraction and disrupts your work organization.
5. Greater prestige.
In certain circles and in a few industries, working with an assistant raises the company’s prestige. Especially when it is a small, one-person business that, for example, competes for orders with much larger companies.
It also happens that there is not enough work to hire a personal assistant in the office/reception or office, but support in this form would be useful. In such a case, a virtual assistant also increases the prestige of a given place.
6. Business development assistance.
If you run your own business, you know perfectly well that any help is worth its weight in gold, and time is not a thing, so you have to choose the tasks to do and focus on what earns money and brings real benefits to the business.
To develop your business faster than if you were to do it alone – it is worth hiring a virtual assistant. You can delegate tasks/projects or areas that you do not feel best in.
Depending on what your virtual assistant specializes in, you can use their skills and save yourself time and money on those skills. And despite the fact that you won’t be dealing with some areas of your business, it will constantly and steadily grow.
7. Possibility to choose a talented assistant.
We have a free market and the ability to choose the goods and services we want to use. The same is true when working with a virtual assistant. From among many candidates, you can choose the perfect one that meets all your requirements.
Virtual assistants are a young and dynamic industry. The desire to develop and provide the best quality services prevails. This is a great time for an entrepreneur who wants to choose a virtual assistant for themselves.
Why? As I mentioned, many assistants are constantly developing themselves, attending courses and training. Virtual assistants often have experience in office work or other specializations useful when running a small business. Additionally, they provide high quality services at an attractive rate in a package with experience that you won’t get anywhere else.
8. Saving time and money.
When running a business, there is often not enough time in the day to finish all the tasks on your to-do list. It doesn’t matter if you spend 2, 5 or 10 hours on them – there will always be something extra to do.
When you decide to cooperate with WA, you will save your time – by assigning tasks, the virtual assistant gives you her time to use.
Saving money – you only pay a virtual assistant for the tasks they perform or for the hours they work. This is a huge saving – if you were to hire a stationary assistant for the same job – you would have to pay her a daily rate regardless of whether she had the tasks to perform for an hour or 5.
9. Focus on action.
Knowing that you have support for your actions, you can focus 100% on what you are doing. You don’t have to do several things at once. Instead of constantly thinking about a hundred other things in the back of your mind, you can focus on the key areas of your business.
I’ll tell you something completely honestly – multitasking is overrated – seriously! You can’t be 100% effective and focused on the action if you’re doing five things at once.
True, there are tasks that can be grouped together and performed in the same time blocks, but it’s not like you can, for example, listen to podcasts, write texts, talk on the phone, cook dinner, and also serve customers at the same time.
10. Greater flexibility of operations.
A virtual assistant can adjust her working hours to your needs better than a stationary assistant. This is a very convenient solution, especially when, for example, you run afternoon/evening webinars or Facebook live shows.
If you need support, for example, on specific days of the week or at predetermined hours that differ from standard working hours (9-17), you can find a virtual assistant who will be available at a time specified by you.
Additionally, flexible working hours include, for example, working in the evening – then you can order changes to the website, links, newsletter subscription forms, etc.
11. Improving communication/visibility on social media.
When you have someone to help you, you can devote more time to marketing activities, including social media activities. You can focus on creating interesting, engaging content by having a virtual assistant prepare it, put it together, and schedule its publication.
While your assistant is performing other assigned tasks, you have time to establish bigger and better relationships with your potential clients.
12. Confidentiality guarantee.
At the beginning of the cooperation, the virtual assistant will sign a confidentiality agreement with you. Thanks to it, you will be sure that all activities will be carried out 100% confidentially. Remember to protect your business and sign, first of all, a cooperation agreement and then a confidentiality agreement.
You have no idea how often I hear that clients do not sign cooperation agreements with their assistants. Often, a confidentiality agreement will also be a point in the cooperation agreement, so it is worth paying attention to it.
13. Possibility to scale and automate your business.
By starting a collaboration with a virtual assistant, you buy time that you lack for various reasons. With support, you can, for example, start scaling your business and introduce new products to your offer.
If you have hired a virtual assistant to gain more time, you can automate some of your activities – newsletter subscriptions, email automation, automatic consultations, bots, online store, etc.
14. Professional customer service.
You can almost completely delegate customer service to your virtual assistant. To start, create email templates for frequently asked questions and give them to your assistant.
Develop a system that clearly defines how your virtual assistant should communicate with potential clients. Where they can look for answers to more specific questions asked by clients.
Determine in what situations you should deal with a potential client, and when it will be enough for a virtual assistant to handle the communication.
15. Strengthening weaker business areas.
You are an entrepreneur and you know a lot of things, but it is impossible for you to know everything. That is natural. A virtual assistant is also a specialist in their field, so she can support your activities in areas where you are not the best.
If there are areas of your business that aren’t working 100%, a virtual assistant can help you improve them. Many virtual assistants are also specialists in things like social media, customer service, marketing, WordPress, etc.
Summary
I’ve given you 15 reasons why hire a virtual assistant. I hope I’ve convinced you that it’s worth delegating responsibilities. Especially when you want to expand your business, you start working more and have more and more tasks to do. The day becomes shorter and the number of tasks constantly increases.
To have energy for activities that will bring new Clients to your business – focus on reasonable prioritization and delegating duties. This way, you will do what you do best, and the virtual assistant will take care of the rest.