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Getting Started: Why Hire a Virtual Assistant for Your Small Business?
Running a small business is no small endeavor. Especially in the first few years, there is a lot to be done and little budget to support you. Many small business owners end up doing most everything themselves and can easily encounter professional burnout, exhaustion, and increased stress as a result. One simple and affordable way to alleviate the pressure is to hire a virtual assistant. Virtual assistants can assist with many tasks that take up your precious time, freeing you up to run your business with a focused mind and a clearer schedule. In many cases, virtual assistants may hold skills necessary for tasks you would need to hire multiple full-time employees to complete, like social media management, data entry, administrative tasks and digital marketing. This means that you save money and have more valuable resources at your disposal.
Virtual assistant services can also help to keep you organized, ensure that you stay on task and guarantee nothing falls through the cracks or gets forgotten. The superior organization provided by your VA increases productivity, putting money back in your pocket. Best of all, you can tailor your executive assistant to your unique needs, giving you the maximum help with the least investment. However, many people don’t know how to find a virtual assistant, which is why we’ve outlined the steps necessary to make the process easier for a small business owner.
Step 1: Determine What Type of VA You Need
Not all virtual assistants are the same. When looking for small business assistance, it’s essential to be specific about what kind of help you are looking for and begin your search from there. Here are just a few examples of the types of virtual assistants we can provide:
- Admin. This category of assistants can help with many general administrative tasks essential to the operation of an office, such as bookkeeping, scheduling, research, CRM management, data entry and more.
- Marketing. A marketing VA is trained in basic marketing skills and can help with standard marketing tasks such as lead generation, social media management, and graphic design.
- Customer Service/Sales. These professionals can assist with cold calling, lead check-ins, generating leads, and upselling.
- Writing. You can delegate essential writing tasks to your VA, including blog management, copywriting, social media posting, and more.
- Web Design. A web design virtual assistant can create a new website, refresh your current page, add features, improve its layout, and perform other essential tasks.
- Project/Operations Management. Virtual assistants trained in project management can help you coordinate your current staff, manage your existing resources, design contracts, communicate with stakeholders, and much more.
Step 2: Determine Which Tasks You Need Help With
Next, it’s important to decide which of the above tasks you’ll benefit from delegating to your virtual assistant. Fortunately, there are virtual assistants trained in industry-specific applications of the above categories, including healthcare, law, property management, real estate, and more. No matter what area you need help in, there is a virtual assistant that can meet your needs. Highly trained assistants can provide essential services to your small business, freeing you to focus on your areas of expertise.
How a Virtual Assistant Company Can Help With Choosing VA Tasks
For some small businesses, a virtual assistant could be hired for several of the listed tasks. In these cases, working with a virtual assistant agency is a good idea. Pros of working with an agency include:
- Pre-vetted, professional assistants who are ready for the workforce
- Replacements or substitutes if you find your assistant doesn’t match your needs
- Verified training and schooling
- Long-term work relationship with your assistant
- No Ghosting guaranteed, VAs will show up on their work scheduled hours
Working with independent assistants means spending more time and resources trying to find the right person. With an agency like Virtual Latinos, you’ll find we have already recruited the best assistants in all fields and can provide you with several options that may fit your needs.
Step 3: Determine Your Budget
As a VA can comprise a portion of your overall entrepreneur budget, it is important to establish your budget goals before beginning your search. Fortunately, hiring a virtual assistant is likely more affordable than you realize. When working with Virtual Latinos, pricing is straightforward. If you’d like to work with our agency, we will handpick an assistant for you. We will handle the entire process and find the best options for the right match. Our fully-vetted professionals cost only $8/hour to hire. Alternatively, if you’d like to search our directory on your own and work directly with your chosen individuals rather than our agency, you will pay about $5 per hour. Take a look at your business’s finances and assess your options. Once you’ve set a budget, even if it’s a tight one, you will begin to feel more confident moving forward in the hiring process.
Step 4: Begin The Search
Once you’ve determined your needs and budget, it’s time to begin looking for your assistant. Working directly with virtual assistants is your first option. In this category, you are entirely responsible for searching job boards to find, interview, and hire your assistant. This option often costs a little bit less but requires much more work from you. About 7% of our customers utilize this option. The second option is to work with the Virtual Latinos agency throughout the process. In these circumstances, our professional agents assemble assistants that may fit your needs. We discuss your needs at length with you and present you with all the information available, including the pros and cons of each applicant, cost, training, and more. Approximately 93% of Virtual Latinos customers prefer this option.
Prepare For The Interview Process
Before you begin the search for a personal assistant who truly meets your needs, it’s important to know how to interview them. Asking the right questions and having the right conversations means that you will find someone on the first try. Here are some ways to ensure that you’re prepared to conduct interviews with potential assistants:
- Be specific about your needs. Spelling out your assistant’s future tasks in detail allows your interviewees to assess if they have the ability to work for you. If you are clear and detailed about your expectations from the beginning, there is no confusion later, and you will weed out assistants who would be a bad fit.
- Filter out resumes. At Virtual Latinos, we complete this step for you. However, if you are working alone, be sure to scan all applicants for red flags such as frequent job changes, non-specific experience, and resume typos.
- Prioritize communication. While you can certainly find an assistant who has the skills to work well with your company, keep in mind that every business is different. Know that you will still have to train your assistant to meet your specific needs.
Being comfortable interviewing is the first step to finding the right virtual assistant for your company. Once you master the process, it’s time to move forward.
Step 5: Begin The Interview Process
When you have a collection of potential assistants, it’s time to begin the interview process. It’s important to recall your interview preparation and make sure you stick to your needs. If you choose to use the Virtual Latinos agency for this process, we can help walk you through the interview process, so you feel more at ease and confident in your choice.
Depending on what you’re looking for, it may take a few interviews to find the right match. Be patient; it’s better to spend extra time upfront to find the right person than have to restart the interview process after hiring someone who ends up being a bad fit. If you are choosing between a few applicants, consider how you communicated with each of them. The ability to communicate can easily fill any gaps in knowledge through training and mentorship.
Why Virtual Latinos?
When it comes to the virtual assistant industry, no one has more qualified, professional options than Virtual Latinos. We pride ourselves on taking the time to thoroughly vet each and every one of our assistants, so you can rest assured your chosen VA will be a professional and knowledgeable addition to your business. While other agencies employ workers from the other side of the world, presenting numerous collaboration and communication issues, we hire our skilled virtual assistants from Mexico, Central American countries like Costa Rica and South American countries like Colombia and Argentina. For example, this means that Guatemalan virtual assistants will be in a time zone very close to your own. Similarly, virtual assistants from Peru can achieve seamless collaboration on day-to-day tasks.
Virtual Latinos’ prices are competitive compared to the cost of finding a virtual assistant on your own, and our service is unmatched. To begin the process of finding your perfect virtual assistant, reach out to the Virtual Latinos team. Fill out our online form today, and a representative will be in contact with you shortly.
