What is virtual assistance all about?
What is virtual assistance all about?
Those who have read about the Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferris know it all, often referred as a VA Service.
A Virtual assistant is someone whom you can hire to work for you at a very low cost, usually based in a different country and does not necessarily work for you on a full time basis.
What can Virtual Assistants do?
Virtual assistants can virtually do any type of tasks that does not require physical presence in your office , e.g:
- Internet based research
- Article posting, spinning and bookmarking.
- Web Maintenance
- Customer Service via email or phone
- Document processing
- Audio Transcription
- Ghost Writing
- Recruitment
- Booking Appointments, flights, hotels
- Taking orders, processing orders
- Book keeping and accounts
These are just a few of the list which goes on…
What are the benefits of using Virtual Assistants?
The main reasons of using a Virtual Assistant is because it allows you to optimise your time doing what you do best and outsource the rest. You can leverage world class talents for 10 hours a week at half or a third of local costs and this at no contractual risks. You certainly do not want to waste your valuable time on repetitive boring tasks, you would rather outsource it.
If you employ a full time secretary in your office to basic tasks, you need to provide with a computer, internet connection, phone, pay for her tax benefits, cater for leaves etc.
A virtual assistant is someone that you hire on hourly rates and you pay only for the amount of hours they work. In a way you can have a whole Virtual Team working for you and helping you grow your business, this means less risks at the end of the month. You don’t have to worry about paying someone a fixed salary. So you can have a team member doing different things in different parts of the world, all bringing tremendous value to your business thus giving you time to grow and work on your core competenticies.
All that said, hiring virtual assistants will bring value to your business, minimize staff costs, expand your workforce and give you more time for yourself. Time waste is life waste and you want to spend most of your valuable time doing what you love doing, not boring, repetitive administrative tasks.
I personally started working as a virtual assistant doing web maintenance and now I work with a virtual assistance team based in Mauritius. We would be happy to help if you have any questions or just let me know if you want to try a couple hours of our services.
Wish you the best.
Rajeev
” Do what you do Best and Outsource the Rest “
2 comments
This article highlights some very good reasons for adding virtual assistants to your staffing. My only concerns are the number of overseas virtual assistants being hired and the bad name many are giving to our profession. On a personal level, many of us are already tired of calling customer service for major companies and being connected with someone in a 3rd World Country who is reading from a script and lacks the ability to comprehend and communicate successfully regarding our problem. Poor grammar in the following paragraph is a case in point:
“A Virtual assistant is someone whom you can hire to work for you at a very low cost, usually based in a different country and does not necessarily work for you on a full time basis.”
In the end, you get what you pay for. Paying $7-12 an hour will NEVER get you a highly skilled professional. By hiring a Virtual Assistant you already save money because you are not paying for benefits, you are not paying someone for a 40 hour work week when you may only need them for 5 hours a week, you are not paying for office space and equipment which you only need occasionally for a Temp, and you are avoiding the training time required to bring a Temp up to speed. If you deal with individual Virtual Assistants, rather than large overseas VA businesses, you deal with the same person each time you call. This is a great savings inasmuch as your VA is familiar with your business and work style.
Please keep these jobs in the U.S. And if a virtual assistant does not meet your expectations, look for one with more experience. As with any profession, there will always be those who try to piggyback into a profession without benefit of appropriate experience or training. Do your homework. Hire one who fits your needs. Pay the requisite fee and move on. In the end, you’ve still saved money.
K. Eckerle
http://www.cardinalpointva.com
Hi Karalyn
I appreciate your comments and would like to thank you for taking the time to do it.
I can see your point of view, you are clearly trying to keep the job in the US as you say, but I do understand that.
I will let other people comment on this, there are many angles of looking at this issue.
Many Thanks
Rajeev
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