Hiring Archives - Virtual Latinos

4Dec '20

Determining your staffing needs is a critical step in establishing a business. After all, one person is generally insufficient to address the many needs of a growing company. Including assistants to handle routine work and basic customer interactions is a great way to save money, freeing up the time and resources necessary to continue to expand. However, there are multiple options available to proceed in this direction. Some business owners end up working with independent contractors. These are freelance, project-based assistants who are paid for each individual assignment. Alternatively, other business owners choose to hire long-term virtual assistants. These are remotely located employees who provide continuous service. With that in mind, you might be wondering which option makes the most sense for you and your business.

The truth is that while both will ultimately be able to accomplish the same basic tasks, choosing to operate with a long-term virtual team offers unique benefits over hiring freelancers for specific project work. If you’re seeking to become a leader within your industry someday, then you’ll need dedicated, long-lasting relationships to get there. However, the advantages don’t stop there.

Affordability of Virtual Assistants vs. Independent Contractors

Both options are more cost-effective alternatives to in-house employees; however, working with virtual assistants is ultimately the more affordable option. With freelancers, prices are subject to negotiation with each assignment. As they work independently, they can opt to raise their rates at any time. When choosing to hire a virtual assistant through a long-term virtual team, you agree to a set pay scale based on hours of work.

Working with Virtual Latinos grants you access to even more affordable virtual assistants. Our assistants are in various South and Central American countries, which run on different living standards than the United States. For example, an equivalent amount of money is worth much more in Ecuador than in the US. This means that the same pay scale can be incredibly budget-friendly to employers, while still providing a sizable income to the assistants working remotely from Ecuador.

Effective Communication and Individualized Attention

A single company might employ many freelancers over the years, each with unique backgrounds, styles, work ethics, and skills. This makes it incredibly difficult to work on long-term projects and communicate effectively. When working with a virtual team, you have the peace of mind granted by the nature of your relationship. Given their experience in working with you, team members will be much more familiar with your brand, making them able to provide a more authentic representation of your company in their work when creating content or communicating with clients. A dedicated virtual assistant can oversee initial research, present a detailed report, help develop a digital marketing strategy, and implement said strategy online. This consistency is key to preventing any mishaps or misunderstandings that could negatively impact your company.

The development of this working relationship also means that you have better control over any content generated on your behalf. The ease of communication allows for smooth back and forth interactions. This means that you can quickly access content before it’s published and make any changes or suggestions as you see fit. Virtual assistants aim to accommodate your needs and prioritize your assignments, instead of simply adding you to the bottom of a long list of freelance projects.

The Importance of Having a Professional Hierarchy to Streamline the Process

When you hire a freelancer, you are working directly with that individual, and any further issues or concerns are discussed with that same person. This can lead to uncomfortable situations when your needs aren’t being met, and the freelancer is resistant or unwilling to agree. Working with top virtual assistant companies such as Virtual Latinos provides the necessary structure to remove any ambiguity. Project managers can ensure that the appropriate information and feedback are passed down to the virtual assistant working on your project. If you have concerns about the project at any time, they can either speak to the assistant and resolve the issue or delegate the task to an assistant better suited for the job.

In either scenario, you are guaranteed a level of professionalism, quality, and timeliness that freelancers cannot provide.

Get Reliable, High-Quality Work With Virtual Latinos

While it’s certainly possible to have good results with freelancers, the issue is consistency. Vetting freelancers is a resource-intensive, time-consuming process, and even when you think you’ve found the ideal independent contractor for the job, you might still be displeased with the results and left with no further recourse. When working with Virtual Latinos, you have the peace of mind of knowing that regardless of which individual assistant you end up hiring, you’ll have a fully bilingual employee with extensive professional experience, quality education, and detailed insight into any industry. Whether your assistant is working from Peru or Costa Rica, they’ll be available during your business’ hours of operation, ready to take on any task you have in mind.

If you’re ready to start the process of hiring a virtual assistant and growing your company, reach out to Virtual Latinos today. You can contact us by email, phone, or fill out our online form. A dedicated representative will be in touch with you shortly.

How to Improve Your Online Presence by Hiring a Virtual Assistant

Virtual Latinos

Hiring

27Nov '20

We live in an extremely fast-paced society, where companies and businesses are expected to respond to current events and user-generated content within minutes. Online posts are often greatly delayed, giving the impression that those responsible for said content are entirely disconnected from their target base. However, monitoring various social media platforms and creating dynamic, engaging content is an extremely resource-intensive task, especially for small businesses with other priorities.

Hiring a virtual assistant from Virtual Latinos can be the perfect solution. They offer high-quality work and unique skills necessary to successfully maintain a vibrant online presence, which in turn frees up you and any other staff members to focus on the bigger picture. Working with our virtual assistants is also extremely affordable, allowing you to enjoy the benefits without overextending your budget.

Why Is a Strong Online Presence Important for Business Owners?

In an increasingly global society, establishing an online presence is an essential part of running a successful business. The high volume of online traffic means that promotional efforts online are often far more effective than in-person strategies. Online platforms also present you with a unique opportunity to build relationships with your clients. Over the past several years, brands that have made themselves more personable online have seen tremendous success in increasing their customer bases. By responding to trending topics and interacting with user-generated content, they appear more human and, as such, more trustworthy to potential consumers, improving people’s perception of your brand in a powerful way.

However, you must handle your online presence with care. Marketing mishaps online can often have long-lasting repercussions. If you’re going to make yourself available on the Internet, people will expect you to be fully available. Failing to be responsive, attentive, and consistent in creating additional content can easily lead to a lack of confidence from users, making them less likely to work with your brand in the future.

What Kinds of Tasks Can a Virtual Assistant Handle?

The primary purpose of adding a dedicated virtual assistant to your team is to improve your business by allocating your resources more efficiently. While the virtual assistant takes care of your online platforms, you can focus on expanding your business, developing new products, and building new partnerships. This arrangement works because virtual assistants are armed with the tools to accomplish what you need from them without constant monitoring or hand-holding. Top virtual assistant services encompass a wide variety of tasks to help make your life easier. These include:

Creating social media accounts and profiles
Researching the interests and preferences of your target audience
Generating regularly scheduled content
Addressing user-generated questions or comments
Revising existing content to ensure it remains relevant
Monitoring external content that references your brand
Tracking the results of your online efforts and help you adjust your social media strategy accordingly

Where to Find Affordable Virtual Assistants

Virtual assistants are an incredible resource, but not all virtual assistants are the same. At Virtual Latinos, we pride ourselves on providing our clients with the premier team of assistants available. Our staff has personally vetted every member of the team via a detailed system that looks at each individual’s education, work experience, and digital marketing skills. In addition to being highly qualified, the fact that our virtual assistants work remotely from Latin America offers unique benefits. All our assistants are fully bilingual, meaning that they can handle all the usual demands of your business while giving you increased access to any feedback from your Spanish-speaking customers.

Hailing from Mexico, Honduras, Colombia, and several other Latin American countries, our assistants can earn a comfortable income in their local currency while remaining extremely affordable to US employers. They are 40% to 75% less expensive to hire than virtual assistants in the US. Depending on your needs, you can hire a virtual assistant for as little as $5 per hour. This arrangement is so beneficial to both parties that becoming a virtual assistant with Virtual Latinos is a highly sought-after position. Furthermore, despite the distance, virtual assistants from Virtual Latinos work in the same time-zones as US employers, so they will always be available when you need them most.

If you’re prepared to make a splash on the digital stage and revitalize your online presence, look no further than hiring a virtual assistant from Virtual Latinos. Our assistants will work diligently alongside you to help develop a winning social media strategy to promote your brand successfully. Invest in yourself by investing in a virtual assistant and contact Virtual Latinos today to get started.

Here’s Why You Should Consider Hiring a Virtual Assistant to Grow Your Cleaning Services Company

Virtual Latinos

Hiring

13Nov '20

If you run a cleaning business, you have probably noticed that as your business grows, it becomes increasingly difficult to keep up with some of the details and menial tasks involved. You may be overwhelmed by tedious work that you don’t have the time for, work that’s necessary to keep things running smoothly. You have likely realized that you need more help, but hiring local help for these duties can be expensive and impractical. If you haven’t considered it before, it may be time to think about hiring a small business virtual assistant. These experienced professionals are a cost-effective choice that you can hire to perform part-time services to reduce the workload on your full-time staff. This increases your employee productivity, and in turn, improves your bottom line.

How Do You Know if You Need a Virtual Assistant?

When you are trying to decide if you should hire a virtual assistant, it is vital to look at the duties your assistant could take on to make your job easier and give your staff more time to focus on their priorities.

Look at the Duties a Virtual Assistant Can Perform

Answering phone calls and providing quality customer service, including special service requests, rescheduling, sales, quote callbacks, and handling complaints
Advertising your business on social media
Focusing on high-priority tasks
Answering customer questions on your website chatbox
Managing your accounts receivable, invoices, payments, emails, and following up with clients who are behind on payments
Managing your payroll
Checking with customers on their satisfaction and encouraging them to leave positive reviews, and in the case of poor reviews, working with the client to see how you can improve their experience
Sending customer surveys to gain additional feedback
Implementing new software programs and assisting with training staff on these systems
Assisting with your hiring process by listing open positions, collecting applications, and scheduling interviews
Scheduling customers next cleaning appointment
Ordering new cleaning supplies
Tracking cleaning supplies inventory
Scheduling cleaning staff
And more!

How Do You Train a Virtual Assistant to Meet Your Needs?

Every business is different, and it is vital to have a plan for preparing your virtual assistant for the tasks you expect them to perform so that they can help your business become more efficient and bring in more revenue.

Training Tips for Your Virtual Assistant

The first step in ensuring that your virtual assistant will handle the jobs you expect of them is to list the tasks you want them to perform. Create a task list and prioritize the more important items, so they know which items should be completed first. It may benefit you to choose the daily tasks that take up the most of your time that you could spend on more meaningful endeavors. Be sure to pace your training program so that your assistant doesn’t feel overwhelmed right off the bat.
Train your virtual assistant on the specifics of the way you like your phone answered, and prepare them with a list of commonly asked questions and the responses you wish them to provide to clients. It is easier to have this information in a well-organized folder than asking them to memorize responses right away.
Be sure that your virtual assistant knows what you expect of them in terms of phone call response time and how quickly you expect them to respond to emails, text messages, and other communications. Be careful not to set unrealistic expectations—your virtual assistant is human, so don’t expect more than you would from any other employee.
Take time in the first few weeks of working with your virtual assistant to get to know them and build a trusting employer/employee relationship. Have weekly meetings to check in and see how things are going with them. Monitor them from a distance so that they don’t feel that you are micromanaging, and be understanding if they make a few mistakes at first.

Call on Virtual Latinos to Help You

Once you see the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant for your cleaning business, doing so will help your business to grow. Virtual Latinos is one of the top virtual assistant services that can connect you with college-educated, bilingual virtual assistants from countries like Uruguay, Argentina, and Mexico. Our company has built a reputation for trustworthy, cost-effective virtual assistants that improve customer service, employee productivity, and help businesses grow. Call us today at (619) 317-1198 or visit our website to find out how we can help your cleaning business.

Physicians! Increase Your Bookings and Show-up Rates by Hiring a Latino Virtual Assistant

Virtual Latinos

Hiring

6Nov '20

Your priority as a physician is helping your patients get well, but you can only help them when they show up for appointments. On top of that, you have payroll and overhead costs to meet to keep your practice running. If you are not staying fully booked, there will be less money coming in to ensure the success of your office. There is a great, cost-effective solution, however, that can help improve your bookings and make sure your patients are there for their appointments. Latino virtual assistants from countries like Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, Bolivia, and Nicaragua are ready to help you succeed. These professionals are college-educated and bilingual, a huge plus in the United States, where nearly 17% of the population is of Latino descent. As you set out to find a virtual assistant, keep these details of how they can help in mind.

How Do Virtual Assistants Bring in More Patients?

There are various ways that Latino virtual assistants can help manage your medical practice and increase productivity effectively. Still, the most important benefit that they can bring to your office is increased bookings and show-up rates. Consider the ways that they can affect your patient schedule.

Satisfying Patients so They Come Back Again

Patient experience. If patients are not happy with their first visit to your office, chances are they will not return the next time they need medical attention. To make the doctor’s office visit more pleasant, virtual assistants can ease patients’ worries about seeing the doctor. Many people are anxious about medical appointments, and long periods in the waiting room only add to their fears and frustrations. Virtual assistants help streamline the scheduling and patient load from outside the office so that your waiting room is not full of people, and all necessary paperwork is taken care of before the appointment. When the clerical work is out of the way, and the schedule is not too busy, patients get more one-on-one time with the doctor and feel more at ease.

Increasing doctor-patient communication. When you only have time for a brief visit with your patients, it is difficult to gain a grasp of their unique circumstances and needs. This often makes patients feel that they are not getting the best care available. A virtual assistant can improve this experience for both doctor and patient by gathering information and documents beforehand, which allows you more time to get to know your patients and their specifics. When patients feel that you truly care about them, they are more likely to return to your office.

What Other Tasks Can Virtual Assistants Do?

When you are looking for the best virtual assistant, keep in mind that there are many ways they can benefit your daily operations. Many physicians find that they save a great deal of money by hiring virtual assistants to perform clerical work because they are typically part-time and offer affordable hourly rates. Look at some of the other tasks that a Latino virtual assistant can perform for your medical practice.

Online research
Live Interpreting & Translation
Data Entry & CRM/EMR management
Posting on social media
Organizing files and photos
Managing email accounts
Health Insurance Claims, Billing & Coordination
Patient tracking
Editing, writing blog posts
Creating presentations
Organizing spreadsheets

Virtual assistants have a wide range of skills and are often ready to jump in and help in any capacity. These are just a few of the many office tasks that they can handle when you are looking for an extra hand without hiring another in-house staff member. Best of all, virtual assistants are always on task. Since these assistants work remotely, they tend to be very focused while they are on the job. Without the distractions of the office environment, they are adept at getting a great deal of work done in the hours they put in.

Virtual Latinos Can Help

If you are wondering how to find a virtual assistant, Virtual Latinos is here for you. Visit our website or reach out to us at (619) 317-1198. From answering phone calls and scheduling daily tasks to manage data and billing, there are many ways our assistants can help your practice grow. Our virtual assistants are educated and experienced professionals who can increase your office productivity, get more bookings, and ensure that patients show up for their appointments. Call us today to find out what we can do for you.

Virtual Assistants: The Key to Customer Service Success

Virtual Latinos

Hiring

31Oct '20

The daily routine of running a business can be very overwhelming. When you don’t have the proper support to allow you to run things efficiently, you lose track of items in your inbox, end up late for meetings, and see your level of customer service fall below your standards. If you find that you are facing these issues, it is time to consider hiring a virtual assistant. You will see a difference right away in your productivity, but more importantly, your customers will be more satisfied.

How Can a Virtual Assistant Help You Improve Customer Service?

When you want to hire a virtual assistant to improve your customer service, it is essential to consider the skill set you are looking for in your virtual support professional. Virtual assistants are experienced professionals who can take care of tasks ranging from handling the phones to paralegal assistance and project management. Here are a few benefits our clients find when they hire a virtual assistant.

External Communication Point

If you run into problems at the office or things become backed up to the point that you miss calls, a virtual assistant gives your customers another point of contact. Even if they are only able to leave a message, they will be happy to have gotten an answer.

Paperwork Organization

When you are forging new client relationships, there is always a great deal of documentation and paperwork such as contracts and proposals to track. A virtual assistant can distribute all your paperwork and gather it promptly to keep things running efficiently.

Invoicing

A virtual assistant can stay on top of your invoicing and reconciliations so that you can reach out to clients promptly and resolve any issues.

Client Relations

Virtual assistants can reach out to your clients when you are stuck in a meeting or running late, can reschedule appointments, even meet with your clients’ assistants to compare notes and ensure that you are on the same track with meetings and project plans. Your virtual assistant can also keep your client details up to date in your customer relationship management software (CRM).

Additional Point of Contact

When you hire a latino virtual assistant, you give your clientele another way to reach out with questions and concerns when you are busy. They can offer assistance with topics they are familiar with or get the client in contact with you if it is necessary. They are also able to keep track of your social media and email accounts so that urgent issues are addressed promptly.

Is a Virtual Assistant Necessary When Other Staff Can Do the Work?

Employers often don’t realize that their employees’ productivity is stifled because they feel overworked. As a business grows, many staff members take on additional hours to get their work done, but they have trouble focusing on their tasks because the overtime becomes overwhelming. The issue at hand is that most times, employees will not tell their employer that they feel overworked, so the cycle continues. Hiring a virtual assistant is a great way to stay ahead of the game, keep your employees happy, and help everyone be more productive. On top of that, you are more likely to keep your valued staff when they feel like their workload is less, and that is vital to keeping your business consistent and your customers happy.

What Is the First Step When You Hire a Virtual Assistant?

When you decide on a virtual assistant that you wish to hire, you should send them a letter that lays out what you expect from them and what their duties will be. They should sign off on the letter as an agreement to the conditions of their employment with your company. You can tailor the letter to your specific needs, but here are a few details you should be sure to include:

Note that they must be in a quiet place, free from distractions if they will be answering phone calls for your business.
Know the bandwidth necessary to access your internal systems, and inform them that they must have the internet strength to accommodate your systems.
Inform them that you must be able to contact them during the agreed time frame that they will be working each day.
Inform your new employee that work attendance is mandatory during their scheduled hours, and that missing work may result in a warning call.
Discuss the possibility that your virtual assistant’s power may go out, or they could lose internet access, and how this will be handled should it occur.

If you seek a virtual assistant to improve your company productivity, be sure to reach out to Virtual Latinos today at (610) 317-1198. Our virtual assistants from countries like Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala can be a great addition to your team.

10 Ways Virtual Assistants Can Help Property Managers Succeed

Virtual Latinos

Hiring

22Sep '20

Working as a property manager requires being capable of addressing a variety of issues at once. While one property faces requests for repairs to structural damage after a storm, another property may need trash removal scheduled, while a third is in need of routine maintenance after being vacated by the previous tenants.

With so many responsibilities to handle, a property manager can become overwhelmed by the more time-consuming, day-to-day tasks, interfering with their ability to do their job effectively. Hiring a virtual assistant can allow you to shift your focus from trivial, routine duties to those most worthy of your time.

How Virtual Latinos Can Help Your Property Management Company

Though working remotely, virtual assistants can handle the same workload as in-person assistants, without the need for office space. However, our virtual assistants go a step further. As one of the top virtual assistant companies, we take care to pre-screen all our applicants to ensure they are qualified for the position. Only 7-8% of our applicants make it into our Virtual Latinos community, and only 2-3% become agency certified. Those selected are educated professionals, tested, and ready to help you get a leg up in the business.

We are prepared to help you find a virtual assistant perfectly suited for your needs. However, you might be wondering how adding an assistant to the team can actively help you improve your business.

What Can A Virtual Assistant Do For A Property Manager?

Our assistants are skilled and flexible and can be placed in a variety of positions to help streamline your operation. Here are just a few of the things one of our assistants could do for you:

1. Handle phone calls
Spend less time answering phone calls. Our assistants live in countries like Nicaragua or Mexico, with very minimal time difference from the US and can handle minor questions, prioritize important requests, and schedule callbacks when necessary.

2. Book property viewings
Keep your properties visible by allowing assistants to handle booking, ensuring you get as much exposure to potential tenants as possible.

3. Maintain a social media presence
Nowadays, prospective renters often turn to social media to find properties in their area, and they are far more likely to engage with an active site than one that is seldom updated. Assistants can keep your social media sites updated with fresh content.

4. Increase points of interaction
Employing a dedicated virtual assistant allows you to expand the ways in which someone can contact your company, such as through a live chat on your site or direct messages on social media pages.

5. Offer bilingual services
In an increasingly multicultural world, it is crucial to be able to effectively communicate in multiple languages. Our assistants are fully fluent in English and Spanish, and they can help clients navigate the intricacies of contract language in a renter’s agreement.

6. Schedule routine maintenance
Though some maintenance operations may require more involvement, routine repairs can easily be handled by an assistant.

7. Handle bookkeeping
Assistants can provide basic accounting services to ensure your staff is taken care of.

8. Process bills and invoices
Get organized by allowing an assistant to keep track of the various contractor and maintenance worker invoices, and stay ahead of your payments.

9. Gather information
Given the nature of their work, virtual assistants can note trends in the types of questions and feedback received. This can, in turn, help you optimize your website or make changes to the information your company provides online.

10. Keep track of renters’ status
In addition to recording responses online, virtual assistants can also maintain a record of the various renters’ statuses, ensuring all rent and fees are paid on time, then sending out late payment notices when necessary.

Other Advantages Of Working With Virtual Latinos

Not only are our services top quality, but they are also extremely affordable. Because of the differences in the cost of living in various countries, a young professional living in Ecuador can earn a stable income at a much more affordable rate for US employers. In fact, our virtual assistant services are 40-75% less costly than those who do the same job in the US, and 30-50% less costly than US freelance marketers or in-house employees. The money saved can then be invested into rising property values.

Looking to save money and improve the quality of your services? We’d be more than happy to help you hire a virtual assistant today and give yourself the time you need to focus on what really matters.

Benefits Start-ups and Entrepreneurs Can Enjoy With a VA

Virtual Latinos

Hiring

29Aug '20

Why Hire a VA – Benefits for Start-Ups and Entrepreneurs

Budding small business owners have a lot on their plate and often manage every aspect of their business. If there is one area in which entrepreneurs and solopreneurs struggle, it is with the delegation of tasks and hiring of staff. With business constantly in flux, it can be difficult to know when to hire someone to take on a new role. When your business is still growing, scalability is essential, which is why more new small businesses are turning to virtual assistants.

What Is a Virtual Assistant?

A virtual assistant, or VA, is an external “hire” that can take on as few or as many business tasks as you require. Some hire VAs as independent contractors or freelancers, but business owners are increasingly turning to virtual assistant agencies for their hiring needs. With an agency, you pay a membership fee and have access to a database of fully vetted, experienced talent. If you don’t want to go through the hiring process yourself, an agency can help you find the perfect fit for your business.

As remote work increases in the United States and around the world, so does the popularity of virtual assistance. Entrepreneurs, in particular, can stand to save time and money with a virtual assistant. Find the help they need with a virtual assistance agency.

Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Assistant

A recent study found that, compared to hiring a full time employee with benefits, a virtual assistant can save entrepreneurs almost 80% on operating costs each year. The reasoning behind this is simple:

VAs are responsible for all their own operating costs, such as their workspace, equipment, and internet subscription.
VAs are scalable. You can hire them temporarily when you need their services or adjust hours per week based on demand.
Save money on training, recruitment, and retention. Hire a virtual assistant based on the skillset that you require. Also, hiring near-shore represents lower costs than hiring US-based VA’s

What Can a Virtual Assistant Do For Your Small Business?

A virtual assistant can help you tackle any business task, based on the skillset that you require. Some small business owners hire a dedicated virtual assistant to manage one aspect of their business, such as social media management or project management. Others hire VAs to take over repetitive or general business tasks such as stock tracking, order fulfillment, or customer service. Hiring a virtual assistant is not only scalable but means you are able to fulfill any task that you require. When you hire a virtual assistant through an agency, you have a hassle-free recruitment process, the agency helps you find and interview top applicants for you to decide which is the best fit for your business.

Ways a Virtual Assistant Can Help You Free Up Time In Your Workday

An affordable virtual assistant can not only help save your business money, but it can also free up more hours in your workday, allowing you to focus on innovation. Use a virtual assistant:

To collect data. Your customer relationship management (CRM) software, social media channels, and email produces a lot of data that can lead to insight about your customers. Your VA can help identify trends through data collection that helps your business thrive.
To manage your inbox. Answering emails 24/7 can be exhausting, especially when your business is in its infancy. Put a VA to the task of answering email inquiries on your behalf, while sending high importance or sensitive inquiries for your personal review.
To manage your calendar. Networking is essential for any new business owner. A virtual assistant can help you identify and enroll in networking activities and manage your itinerary along the way, from airfare and hotel to recommended restaurants.
To take over your social media. A consistent social media presence is essential to your business success, and a virtual assistant can help craft posts and bulk schedule their publication. Be sure to find a virtual assistant with specific experience with social media, content creation, and other relevant skills.
Creating newsletters or other forms of content creation. A virtual personal assistant can help you craft content for your email subscribers or even send out handwritten holiday cards.

Find a VA to Help Your Business

The point of a virtual assistant is to free up time in your workday. Hiring help virtually can be completely scalable and affordable – a must for budding businesses. If you are looking to expand your business but don’t want to commit to a full time hire, a virtual assistant can be the perfect solution. Find your perfect virtual assistant by skill set, certification, or any other qualifications you require. Going through an agency helps ensure that you have fully vetted, qualified talent whenever you need it. Our virtual assistants are fully trained, vetted, and ready to help from locations like Ecuador, Guatemala and the rest for Latin America. To learn more about how Virtual Latinos can help your business grow, contact us.

Why Do Latino Professionals Choose to Work as Virtual Assistants?

Virtual Latinos

Hiring

6Aug '20

Why Being a Latino Virtual Assistant Is So Sought After in Latin America, and Why The Hiring Rates Are So High

Virtual assistants in Latin America are on the rise – and for good reason. As more and more people turn to work remotely, it should come as no surprise that this trend is swelling throughout Latin America, as well. Working in relative geographic and cultural proximity to the United States, Latino virtual assistants already have a leg up on virtual assistants from overseas; they already know how to navigate adeptly between languages and cultures.

What are some other reasons professionals in Latin America are choosing work as virtual assistants for US-based companies?

Pay scales in the United States are much higher than those found throughout most of Latin America. This means, for example, that a college graduate located in Quito, Ecuador can make up to 300% more than they would in-country. Working remotely is simply a smart professional decision for many.
Working remotely saves time, every day, by cutting down on daily commutes. In congested cities across the world, commuting can take hours out of a day. Imagine having to navigate traffic in a city of 22 million people, like Mexico City. It makes sense that so many would opt-out of this in favor of working remotely.
Being paid in US dollars means that their income’s currency is stable and won’t fluctuate as much in value. Rapid inflation and currency devaluation in parts of Latin America are real issues for many. If you could choose a paycheck in the more stable USD, rather than in Venezuelan bolivars, wouldn’t you? Again, it’s the smart choice.
Being a virtual assistant allows for an opportunity to use their English skills on a daily basis and to develop professional contacts in the US.
Professionals working remotely also get the added benefit of being able to provide more stability for their families and spend more quality time together as they’ve cut out lengthy daily commutes.
Latino professionals choose to work as virtual assistants for US-based companies because they are able to learn and develop new skills that are not always available in their home country. Examples include utilizing certain software programs, apps, and tools. It’s often a welcome challenge for Latino professionals to expand their knowledge.

How hiring a virtual assistant can ease your everyday business burdens

When you hire virtual assistants, you’re hiring a top-quality assistant whose literal job is to make yours easier. In essence, virtual assistants can help with anything in your business that can be done remotely. Every business’s needs are unique and a little different, but the scope of things a virtual assistant can do for you are wide and adaptable to your specific needs.

Consider some of what they can do for you:

Virtual assistants can answer client calls and respond to questions the clients may have. They can also act as a receptionist, making sure you get only the most important calls. This ensures your time is used more efficiently, as you won’t be dealing with simple questions like business hours or whether you have a certain product in stock.
Virtual assistants can make any outgoing calls you need placing to current clients or to potential customers who may require your services. They can confirm appointments, place orders, or even organize catering over the phone.
Managing social media posts, comments, and questions are tasks that most small business owners realize takes a lot of time and energy. Rather than have an in-house staff member (or yourself) glued to social media seven days a week, a virtual assistant can easily manage those tasks for you remotely at a fraction of the cost of hiring an in-house team.
Virtual assistants can take over the logistics of scheduling and appointment booking. This leaves you more time to focus on your services themselves. Many small business owners know how much of a major time-sink these necessary activities can be, sometimes occupying hours within a single day.
If you hire a virtual assistant, they can also relieve you of the burden of sending out and responding to emails. This could include handling invoices, receipts, sending out your digital newsletters, or responding to any customer inquiries that may arrive in your inbox.
A virtual assistant can also compile research for you, whether that be general market research, competitor research, or anything else.
Hiring a virtual assistant also means never having to conduct website maintenance yourself again. Whether or not you’re tech-savvy, simple website updates shouldn’t be occupying your or your in-house staff’s time. Let a virtual assistant take care of that for you.
A virtual assistant can also easily manage projects and help coordinate the many moving parts and people that go into each one. Remote team coordination is just one of the many things a virtual assistant can do.
Most digital assistants are also well-versed in digital marketing, and a high proportion of them have university degrees in that area. Let an experienced professional take this off your marketing team’s plate for a reasonable rate.

Virtual Latinos is the first and leading virtual assistant company dedicated to offering hand-picked virtual assistants from Latin America. Let us help you connect with a professional virtual assistant today.

Our In-House Expert’s Advice: Use These Five Steps to Hire a Virtual Assistant

Virtual Latinos

Hiring

15Jul '20

Latino Virtual Assistants: the Affordable Approach to Hiring a Virtual Assistant

If you’re reading this guide, you’ve likely found – as many business owners eventually do – that you just don’t have enough time in your day to accomplish all the tasks essential to running and growing your business. While you could easily decide to shift your focus from business growth to simply staying above water with your daily operations, this isn’t a long-term solution. In fact, many business owners agree; last year, nearly 40% of small businesses already outsourced at least one business process and over 52% planned to do so by year’s end.
For many of those businesses, outsourcing means hiring virtual assistants – individuals who supply administrative, customer support, tech support, accounting, or other services remotely from a home office. Delegating tasks to an outsourced virtual assistant means you can take some of the administrative, creative, or menial responsibilities off your own plate so you can focus on the essential endeavors that can grow your business. The key is choosing the right virtual assistant, a process our in-house expert has learned well over his years in business.

An Inside Look at Virtual Latinos

Perhaps no one knows the ins and outs of hiring a virtual assistant quite like Jaime Nacach, founder and CEO of Virtual Latinos, one of the top virtual assistant services in North America. After an extremely poor experience with a Philippines-based virtual assistant company when he was beginning his own marketing firm, Jaime learned a great deal about what it takes to hire the best virtual assistants. For Virtual Latinos, he puts a great deal of focus on the skills and proficiencies of potential applicants.

First and foremost, Virtual Latinos assistants must have an excellent grasp of the English language, both spoken and written. As such, most are already familiar with the United States and have either lived here or are generally familiar with the culture – this allows Virtual Latinos to perform tasks like sales calls, customer service, tech support, marketing, content writing and more with ease. To gather this elite pool of assistants, Virtual Latinos utilizes an extensive screening process, selecting only 7.5% of its applicants into its community of pre-vetted virtual assistants, 95% of whom have a college degree in a related field. According to Jaime, all hires must be organized, self-motivated, show technological proficiency, and continue to pass frequent English-language screenings.

Hiring Your Own Virtual Latino Assistant

So, how do you go about learning how to hire a virtual assistant from Virtual Latinos? Utilize these five steps, straight from our in-house expert:

1. Gauge your virtual assistant needs

What tasks do you want to outsource? What skills are non-negotiable when it comes to the responsibilities you’ll give your virtual assistant? Spend some time outlining the tasks you’ll need accomplished and the skills you expect before making the call to Virtual Latinos.

First timer’s hiring tip: The most important first step is for you to make a list of all your needs. Create a simple Google Doc with the 15-30 most common tasks you or your team do on a weekly basis, the rank them from low, medium to high importance.

2. Choose the Virtual Latinos Directory or Agency

Based on your needs and your VA search needs, you can choose between utilizing the Directory or the Agency. The Directory is suggested for individuals with VA hiring experience (Less than 10% of our clients), as you are responsible for locating, interviewing, and hiring an assistant from our broader directory of qualified assistants. For individuals or small businesses without hiring experience (90%+ of our clients), we recommend utilizing the Agency; the Agency’s hiring experts handle all recruitment work, providing you with the top 3% of candidates for your needs.

3. Get the BEST VA for your needs: Let’s get to know you, set up a client interview

After a brief initial call to discuss overall pricing and needs, Virtual Latinos will schedule a more lengthy conversation at your convenience – we call it the “Client interview”. This call really gives us the opportunity to truly get to know you, your needs, goals, and the type of team member virtual assistant that will be the perfect addition to your team.

Depending on your needs, Virtual Latinos’ hiring experts will discuss your ideal virtual assistant with you at length, including your listed qualifications and company needs. Jaime himself will give suggestions based on his extensive experience as the two of you work together to determine exactly the type of virtual assistant you need.

4. Conduct interviews

If you’re experienced at hiring virtual assistants, this is when you’ll utilize the Virtual Latino Directory to locate and interview an assistant. If you’ll hire through the Agency, Virtual Latinos will dedicate hours to interviewing up to ten individuals who meet your initial needs. At the end of this process, the field will be narrowed to two or three finalists.

5. Select your assistant

In this final step, our expert Jaime will again act as your guide and VA hiring consultant, assisting you in conducting your final interview with the finalists. He’ll suggest essential questions to ask, qualifications to highlight, and more. In the end, you’ll select the finalist who most aligns with your brand identity and needs.

Virtual Latinos Can Save You Valuable Time and Money

Whether you’re inexperienced in hiring a virtual assistant or have undertaken the task in the past, the Virtual Latinos process can help you learn how to find the best English-language virtual assistants possible. Better yet, our process is built to help save costs as well as the extensive time necessary to hunt down the right assistant yourself. Contact us today and see the difference a virtual assistant from locations like Costa Rica, Honduras and Cuba can really make for a business like yours.

A Guide on How to Hire and Manage Virtual Assistants

Virtual Latinos

Hiring

6Jul '20

Looking to hire a Virtual Assistant?

Hiring virtual assistants and managing them can be really difficult to handle if you don’t establish clear guides and steps to follow for making the process run at its best.

Sure, they are cost-effective which is very convenient for your business, but, what is it that makes it tricky to handle?

Well, let’s see a few reasons:

a) You’re hiring people with different works habits
b) You’re hiring people you’ll have to manage from a distance
c) You’re hiring people you haven’t met face to face

See what I mean? But don’t worry, luckily for you, in this guide, we’ll be sharing with you 5 main practices to hire and manage your newly hired virtual assistant or virtual assistants team.

1) Do I need a virtual assistant?

In order for you to answer that question, we give some ideas on what key points to consider:

* Why do you need a virtual assistant?
You have specific tasks that you know someone could help you with, or, you have specific tasks that you know you shouldn’t be doing yourself so you can have more time to focus on your core business functions.

*Do I have the budget?
By analyzing your finances you’ll help yourself to have a clear scenario on how your costs and expenses are and see if you can incorporate hiring a virtual assistant on your annual budget. It’s better to do it that way in order for you to understand your business costs in general rather than just defining a budget every time you hire a virtual assistant.

*Where do I hire my virtual assistant from? Analyze the pros and cons to make the right decision

Here we provide just a few points to consider:

Pros – less expensive, flexible hours, you can hire them for a short amount of time if it’s just for a specific project.
Cons – different timezones, different cultural approaches, no quality of work.

After considering all of these points, you may be starting to realize why a Latino Virtual Assistant is the best option for you and what advantages a Latino Virtual Assistant has compared to other VAs from abroad.

2) What type of virtual assistant do I need?

This will be defined according to the type of tasks you want them to do. Here at Virtual Latinos, we can provide you with virtual assistants who perform many types of services.

* If you need help on tasks related to answering emails, booking trips or meetings, answering phone calls, inventories, placing orders, etc, then you’ll mostly need a General Virtual Assistant (Administrative/Executive Virtual Assistant, Customer Support virtual assistant).

* If you need help on tasks related to Digital Marketing, Video edition, Graphic Design, Sales, Real Estate, Property Management, etc, then you’ll need an Expert Virtual Assistant (Accountants/Bookkeepers, Community Managers, Digital Marketers, Content Creators (Bloggers, Copywriters), Traffickers,etc.)

3) Time to hire!

When you reach this point, this is the main question you have to ask to yourself now: Do I want to hire on my own and do all the work required to hire someone? or do I want someone else to do all the hiring process for me?

Well, that depends on many factors, but luckily for you, here at Virtual Latinos we got you covered and we offer you the two options to hire:

a) You do all the hiring process on your own by selecting and hiring the VAs from our Directory, or,
b) You can hire through our Virtual Latinos Agency and let us do all the process for you, helping you save a LOT of time with the guarantee of knowing you’ll get the best applicants for your business needs and goals.

4) Start working with your virtual assistant.

The following are the most important suggestions that we, as experts, consider are very important when starting to work with your new virtual assistant:

* Define tasks and provide training.
Now you have a new member of your team. You have to make sure they know why you hired them and what they need to do. For that, proper onboarding and training is the key. There you’ll fully explain your new VA about your project requirements, expectations, deadlines, tools you use daily for communication, time tracking, and task management among others.

* Organize / Document your Processes
In order to make things efficient, you must get used to the idea of creating documentation for your corresponding tasks’ procedures. This is done by creating SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures). SOPs gather all the information about the steps on each operation on your company that your new virtual assistant can have as a reference and part of his/her training. SOPs will help you ensure that if you or anyone in your company isn’t able to work, the company can still run as instructions are already built there for people to take over and also avoid miscommunications and failure to comply with determined procedures.

* Set up daily check-ins and a constant schedule for meetings with your virtual assistant.
This is a great tip that will make you keep your VA really in constant communication with you and from there, build, and achieve confidence and a strong work environment.

If you let your new virtual assistants know, from the beginning, that they have to communicate, then you’ll have a huge percentage of achieving a successful work routine. Our suggestion for daily communication is using an Instant Messaging tool such as Telegram or Whatsapp. In that way, you can establish that your VA checks with you when they start and when they finish their working hours and also give a brief summary of their daily progress.

Now, regarding the scheduling of meetings, we highly suggest to do them every two weeks, where you can catch up, talk about goals, strategies and also provide feedback for both of you on how you can improve. By doing this periodically, you’ll get to know your virtual assistant a lot better, both of you will get more comfortable working with each other and understanding the way you work better.

5) Make them feel valued and supported.

Besides letting your new virtual assistant know about your business, it’s time to also build trust, camaraderie, try to include them in your company’s culture just like your regular employees.

Show them that you care about their professional growth too by giving them quality projects, providing all the resources for them to perform at their best. Make payments on time. Be a trustworthy leader. Do constant follow-ups on their work so that they feel you care about how they’re doing and if you are being communicative and clear enough with what you want them to do.
Once you have done all of this, be sure that your virtual assistant will be working happy and will be willing to keep working with you and create a longterm lasting work relationship that will definitely benefit you both.

Conclusion

I know what you might be thinking right now, it might seem like a challenge to hire a virtual assistant in the beginning, right? especially if you haven’t done it before, but don’t worry, by achieving all of what we have suggested here, be sure you are all set and ready to feel confident in doing a good job on hiring and managing a virtual assistant. Just remember, everything starts with you:

Asking yourself, why do you need a virtual assistant? What are the key points to consider before hiring one?
After defining your budget for affording a virtual assistant, now you must know what type of virtual assistant you need. Remember to consider the tasks you want them to do for you.
Ok, you know what type of virtual assistant you’ll need, it’s time to hire!
You have hired your new VA, good! Now, it’s time to start working with them. Which first steps will help you start in a successful way?
Finally, now it’s time to know the person behind the desk, understand their needs, make them part of your company’s culture, make them feel included.

I, as the Customer / VA Success Manager here at Virtual Latinos, really see closely how everything that we’ve shared here has actually built successful work bonds while working virtually. Part of my job is to make sure you and your new VA work on this, together, make this a really growing and satisfying experience for you both. So, find out why choosing us is the best decision you can make for hiring a virtual assistant today!