Everything You Should Know About Outsourcing to Virtual Assistants
There are several factors that create success for your organization. You have different departments to manage, each with its own set of responsibilities. You must always keep your financial wellness in mind and look for ways to improve output while saving money. Even small companies need support and benefit from working with others to ensure success. However, managing and affording employees can be one of the biggest stress factors for employers and small business owners.
In today’s highly competitive corporatize world, many entrepreneurs have started to turn to outsourcing to remote assistants instead of hiring employees through traditional means. A virtual professional is a great way to outsource that can provide the same support and commitment as any other employee but doesn’t require the need to be on location and is often cost-effective. This provides the business owner the support they need with greater flexibility when it comes to staff and space.
What Is Outsourcing?
There are numerous important decisions to make as a small business owner. This includes whether you want to focus on insourcing, outsourcing, or utilizing a hybrid of both. Outsourcing means hiring a third party to complete certain projects, and services for a company. These are activities that could be done internally, but for various factors, it makes more sense to outsource. As opposed to insourcing, which is when you rely on your own internal personnel and resources to accomplish necessary tasks that support the success of the organization. Different forms of outsourcing include:
- Offshoring: This is the relocation of a business process from one country to another, commonly used in manufacturing or supporting processes.
- Nearshoring: This is similar to offshoring, though you choose to outsource to a nearby country.
- Subcontracting: This is when an individual or company signs a contract to perform obligations of another’s contract. This is often seen when a contractor hires specific service providers to aid in a build or remodel.
- BPOs: Business process outsourcing is when an organization contracts an external provider for an essential business function.
- Call centers: This type of outsourcing is commonly used to better address the needs and concerns of customers. Call centers can be used to provide support in scheduling appointments, addressing concerns, and problem-solving.
- Agencies: A business owner can hire different agencies with their own sets of employees to accomplish necessary tasks.
- Virtual assistants: This form of outsourcing provides numerous benefits for entrepreneurs who need important tasks completed to support the success of their companies.
Outsourcing provides a reliable way to cover all the necessary aspects, and functions of a company without having to significantly expand your on-site staff and resources. Investing in an outsourcing option such as remote professionals is a great option for small businesses that are just starting to build the foundations of their company. Outsourcing can cover necessary tasks including administrative, marketing, and sales tasks.
What Are the Benefits of Outsourcing Compared to Insourcing?
With greater access to a large digital market, staying competitive and growing your company in 2022 is not an easy function. To offset the burden of the variety of tasks that need to be accomplished, many entrepreneurs are investing in remote assistant options that provide numerous benefits when compared to insourcing.
Benefits include the ability to hire fewer employees while still ensuring every task and function of your company is properly covered. You also have greater access to a larger talent pool versus having to search in your local area. When outsourcing, you have fewer labor costs and overhead to worry about. This allows you greater freedom with your financial budget to invest in areas that will help you to expand your company faster.
There has been a significant increase in demand for virtual professionals due to the cost savings associated with fewer employees, time saved interviewing, managing, and overseeing staff, and the practicality of allowing other professionals to handle certain aspects of your business who already have the knowledge and experience you need.
Utilizing virtual assistants provides a better means of delegating specific tasks that affect your company revenue. You can determine how best to split low-priority and high-priority tasks. Using a remote professional helps to streamline assignments, which provides a faster, more reliable return.
One important decision an entrepreneur will need to make is determining what roles are best for hiring employees versus what roles are best to outsource. In general, almost all aspects of business activity can either be insourced or outsourced. Most organizations choose to outsource activities that aren’t part of the core company purposes such as IT support, marketing, manufacturing, and advertising. What a company chooses to outsource can also change over time.
For a small entrepreneur in the process of growth, it may make more financial sense to rely on outsourcing for the majority of tasks your company needs to accomplish. When deciding what should be outsourced, you should factor in your resources, your timeline, and your scalability.
What Do Virtual Assistants Do?
Virtual Assistants can handle a wide variety of roles and responsibilities for your company to grow and succeed. General tasks may include:
- Personal assistant tasks
- Customer service
- Bookkeeping
- Calendar management
- Project management
- Email marketing
- Social media marketing
- Content and blog management
- Cold calling
- Upselling to clients
- Lead generation
- SEO
Virtual assistants are also highly experienced and trained to perform tasks that are specific to different industries such as:
- Legal
- Property management
- Healthcare
- Digital marketing
- Real estate
- And more
The benefits of outsourcing provide any size organization the ability to have a variety of expertise right at their fingertips while maintaining a financial budget. As a company grows, you can choose to expand or reduce your reliance on outsourcing.
Outsourcing to a Virtual Assistant
Outsourcing to a virtual assistant is a great way to expand your company without having to hire a variety of employees. A remote professional will already be experienced and knowledgeable in your field. This reduces the time spent instructing a member of your staff. Since a remote assistant is contracted out, you also have reduced stress in handling the screening process yourself. A remote professional will complete the tasks you need in a reliable timeframe.
There are different ways that you can outsource your tasks to a virtual assistant. You first want to determine what tasks you want your remote professional to handle. This helps to ensure you are getting the best VA for your needs. You can start by listing the tasks that you need to be completed, as well as the timeframe. This helps your remote assistant to better understand the unique needs of your company. Clarity is key in ensuring that your remote professional can get the job done right the first time.
Hiring a virtual assistant can result in serious savings for you. The costs of on-site employees go beyond just their hourly wage. There are also the additional costs of having dedicated space and equipment for your employees, as well as providing health insurance, sick leave, vacation time, and other incentives to keep your employees happy and productive.
You can save both time and money by hiring a virtual assistant due to their different experience levels. You won’t have to invest the time and money necessary to train employees or hire a variety of employees to accomplish the tasks a remote assistant could do themselves. Experience levels include:
- Entry-level (Junior) VAs can provide entry-level support such as website maintenance, basic graphic design, marketing research, e-commerce store management, appointment scheduling, and customer service.
- Mid-level VAs can provide support such as email marketing, content creation, landing page design, and professional graphic design
- Expert-level (Senior) VAs can provide services such as search engine optimization, digital advertising, website design, and project management.
When Is Outsourcing the Best Option?
Deciding when outsourcing or insourcing is the best option largely depends on the needs of your unique business. This is a personal decision that should be made by weighing different important factors that could affect your company. There are many circumstances when outsourcing is your best possible option.
1: Outsourcing When You Need a Team for Specific Projects
Expanding your business relies on a variety of specific projects that can expand your brand awareness and digital presence, find customers, and more. These projects often require the necessity of developing a team who can tackle the different aspects of the project.
Projects such as website design and maintenance are both vital and time-consuming. Your company needs a quality website that will help you rank high in search engine results, raise brand awareness, and ensure consistent traffic to your site. When you work with a remote assistant, all aspects of website design and maintenance can be handled with ease. This includes design, content, and interactive elements.
When you have specific projects to tackle, a virtual assistant project manager is exactly who you need to ensure the project is completed. This ensures that tasks are handled by an experienced professional who will complete the project in a timely fashion.
A virtual assistant is also a great option for projects that require the ability to communicate with bilingual clients. Bilingual Account Management ensures that you have the right remote assistant to effectively communicate.
When it comes to team building and success, an expert virtual assistant can also take on the role of training your team. This can drastically reduce the time and energy spent on training, which means faster project completion.
2: Outsourcing When Starting a New Business or Startup
Starting a company can feel overwhelming. You have to juggle the time and financial commitment necessary to establish your organization and create an effective foundation. Hiring a virtual assistant can help you take care of the general tasks you need when first starting out. This allows you to focus on other important aspects of your company, allowing you to put employee screening, hiring, and spending on a temporary backburner. A remote assistant can handle:
- Basic administration tasks such as customer service, bookkeeping, and appointment keeping.
- Basis sales tasks such as lead generation, cold calling, and social media outreach.
- Basic marketing tasks such as content and blog management, email marketing, marketing research, and basic website maintenance.
3: Outsourcing to Expand on a Limited Budget
Understandably, you could be operating on a limited budget, especially if you are just starting up, or are a smaller business in general. There are several reasons why hiring your own remote professional is financially beneficial. With a VA, you can tackle larger projects for a lower budget. You can also accomplish urgent projects within a shorter deadline when outsourcing. It’s also easier to manage a virtual team that is committed to efficiency and has the qualified experience you need. A team of virtual professionals can be trained the same way an insourcing team would be. You can maintain your ideals and goals when outsourcing.
Virtual assistants can provide the same level of quality work as an employee. Like an employee, a virtual professional is going to operate according to your guidelines and expectations. Like an employee, they will uphold your deadlines, be trained by you for your company’s specific needs, and ensure that your organization is always shown in the best light possible.
Next Steps to Outsource Tasks to a Virtual Assistant
Once you’ve determined the ways your company can benefit from outsourcing, the next important step is finding the best possible company to outsource from. Virtual Latinos is the best solution for companies and organizations of all industries. Virtual Latinos provides the highest-quality, trustworthy, and pre-vetted virtual professionals possible to handle your necessary tasks. With Virtual Latinos, you can hire one person or a team that stays with you as a part of your team. Virtual Latinos encourage long-term relationships between businesses and their remote professionals. Our agency can provide bilingual remote professionals who can help entrepreneurs from the U.S. and Canada better expand their reach and positive influence.
You can register your company today or book a 15-minute call to learn more about how a remote assistant through Virtual Latinos can change the way you do business. Contact us to learn more.
