When your startup grows and reaches a level of success, the workload also increases. You’re suddenly managing clients, operations, and strategy, all at once. As a business owner and entrepreneur, you will be at a crossroads, and selecting your future strategy can make or break your success. Many smaller entrepreneurs are following the lead of larger international corporations. These global corporations include Unilever, Apple, Caterpillar, Whirlpool, and General Electric, all of which are outsourcing some of their tasks. In fact, Deloitte reports that 70% of businesses now outsource to reduce costs and increase efficiency.
Like these large players, smaller businesses are realizing the power of delegation. Small business owners outsource non-core tasks to virtual assistants like their larger counterparts. One popular remote assistant that companies are onboarding and hiring an office virtual assistant.
What Is a Virtual Office Assistant?
A virtual office assistant is an independent contract worker who works remotely, providing administrative, creative, or technical support. The worker’s location can be anywhere in the world; however, it is mainly in a similar time zone to the business, ensuring smooth communication and workflow.
In simple terms, a work-from-home virtual assistant works from their home office, accomplishing tasks for various businesses. They are your remote right hand. They take care of time-consuming operational tasks so you can focus on growing your company. According to Upwork’s 2024 Freelance Report, more than 36% of U.S. workers now freelance remotely, which means top-tier talent is accessible to small businesses globally, without the overheads of full-time employment.
A Virtual Office Assistant’s Main Tasks
What tasks can a virtual office assistant handle? A virtual assistant offering office support can complete various tasks. These virtual assistant tasks range from administrative and business support to technical support services.
Here are key tasks that a virtual office assistant can manage for you to ensure your operations operate smoothly:
Handle Travel Scheduling and Arrangements
A remote assistant can handle travel scheduling and arrangements: hotel bookings, flights, and transport arrangements such as car rentals, but also conference logistics.
As a business owner, this will save you the hassle and time these arrangements take. But your VA can organize these not just for you, but for your entire team.
However, the remote assistant does not need to be limited to making only your arrangements – a remote assistant can make any arrangements on behalf of the whole team.
Example: One tech startup in Singapore saved 12 hours per week after delegating travel bookings to their VA. That’s 624 hours a year; enough time to launch a new product line.
Complete Your Data Entry
Your virtual assistant can complete your data entry. Data entry is vital yet often neglected. This is a mundane process, yet a much-overlooked task.
A remote office assistant can easily accomplish this task. The amount of time you save will surprise you.
More so, such an assistant will cost you less in wages than any of your on-site team. These savings can then be reinvested into your business to scale it faster. According to Glassdoor, enterprises spend an average of 25% of admin time on manual data input. Offloading this to a VA means you and your in-house team can focus on strategy and client engagement instead of spreadsheets.
Undertake Your Bookkeeping
A remote office worker can undertake your bookkeeping. You could hire a remote worker to take on admin-related tasks to reduce your business overhead spending.
One of these is bookkeeping work. A skilled virtual bookkeeping assistant would save you from taking on the bookkeeping and would cost you less than paying an on-site worker. Forbes notes that small businesses can cut accounting costs by 40–60% through outsourcing. And because VAs are typically paid hourly or by project, you only pay for what you need.
Manage Follow-Ups
Virtual office assistants can manage follow-ups. Chasing people for replies is a time-consuming task. Whether clients, business partners, or suppliers, a remote assistant can contact them. You can remain on top of your essential functions while this labor-intensive task is not neglected.
In sales, 80% of conversions require five or more follow-ups (according to Brevet Group). A virtual assistant ensures no opportunity slips through the cracks.
Deal with Your Phone Calls and Customer Communications
Let a remote assistant handle your phone calls. A virtual assistant can also follow up with stakeholders.
This includes cold calling and other outreach calls to help you grow your business.
Ensure that you opt for native-English-speaking virtual assistants if the business language of your country is English. Opting for a native-English-speaking assistant ensures clear, confident communication. This can directly impact customer satisfaction and brand perception.
Such assistants will manage your customer service smoothly.
Example: A U.K.-based agency saw its client retention improve by 27% after delegating customer calls to a trained virtual assistant.
Managing Office Supplies
A virtual assistant can source the best prices on office equipment and supplies, such as finding you a cheaper printing contractor, thus ensuring that your staff have what they need to do their work.
Significantly, this office worker will ensure that your team remains efficient and you do not waste money; you will save it. Even small savings compound: A 10% reduction in office supply costs can raise annual profits by 3–5%, according to the SBA (Small Business Administration).
Managing Spreadsheets and Presentations
Need a presentation ready for an important conference or sales pitch?
Your virtual assistant can prepare this for you. They can also format your spreadsheets and get other documents ready for you. With the average employee spending nearly 11 hours monthly preparing reports (Atlassian Research), this single delegation can free substantial time.
Email Inbox Management
Many business owners are swamped with emails. As a result, many emails are overlooked.
If you want to grow your business, you don’t want to miss crucial business opportunities. Your virtual assistant can help you manage your inbox.
This skilled person can sort out any clutter from what is essential, all in total confidentiality. Confidentiality agreements and secure systems like Google Workspace or Zoho Vault keep your data protected.
Still Not Convinced? Let’s Talk Benefits
If you aren’t convinced that a virtual assistant will be an asset for your business, consider all the benefits. Examine how these benefits can boost your success.
Lowering Costs
Higher business overheads mean less profit. As an entrepreneur and business owner, you want to reduce these costs to grow your company more quickly. This is also the main reason large corporations hire virtual assistants. Companies can save between 40% and 70% on costs. That is a saving of 40% and 70% on total staffing costs, according to Time Doctor.
A virtual assistant does not command benefits related to health care, retirement, travel, or the use of a company cellphone or laptop. Such a person is also not subject to local taxes. All this results in direct savings for the business.
Access to Great Talent
In many cases, hiring the best comes at a stiff price. However, by spreading your net a bit wider, you can hire a top-quality person who is highly skilled at what they do for less.
This means onboarding at any given time, those skills your company needs. It also means some form of flexibility: you can onboard the talent’s skills as your business develops. You can then remain agile when competing with your competitors.
“Talent has no borders. The smartest companies know this and build teams where skill, not location, leads.” — Harvard Business Review, 2023.
Boost Your Productivity
A knock-on effect of hiring a virtual assistant is increased productivity for the whole team. When a remote assistant takes over those time-consuming and repetitive tasks, you and your team members have more time to focus on your core tasks.
Nevertheless, all the work is still done behind the scenes. Your presentation is out on time, your files are always up to date, and your data is accessible when any of your team requires it.
More so, please think of the average on-site worker who is only productive for three hours daily, yet you hire them for eight. Five hours daily can be wasted and spent on tasks that someone else can perform for much less. Moreover, studies by Airtasker show remote workers are 47% more productive than in-office employees.
You will note that with the increased productivity, your team will have time to offer new innovative ideas to grow and expand your business. This is how you scale your business successfully with a virtual office assistant.
Are You Ready To Take the Next Step?
It would help if you had a good idea of what you want. However, if you have any doubts, don’t worry: Aristo Sourcing has supported companies in scaling their businesses effectively since 2014. As such, Aristo Sourcing has helped hundreds of companies scale faster and smarter through expert virtual support.
Our team of experts can help you make all the right choices. Such choices will lead to the success you are looking for. Book your free consultation call today.
You can also email us by visiting our ‘Contact Us’ page and completing the online form. Please note, we are here to help you grow.
3 Key Takeaways
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Virtual assistants can help small businesses grow by taking on time-consuming tasks such as travel arrangements, data entry, bookkeeping, follow-ups, phone calls, office supplies, and email management. This frees the business owner and their team to focus on core tasks that grow the business.
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Hiring virtual assistants can save businesses money. Virtual assistants typically cost less than on-site employees because they don’t require benefits and can be located anywhere worldwide.
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Virtual assistants give businesses access to a broader talent pool. Companies can find virtual assistants with the specific skills they need, regardless of location. This allows companies to be more agile and competitive.