So many people seem to think that to run your own small business you need to do it all alone. It is virtually (no pun intended!) impossible to be an expert in every aspect of business – creative people are sometimes not great at dealing with their admin and those great at admin are sometimes not fantastic at creating marketing or promotions. It’s always best to have a network of support you can call upon when you need it. Using a Virtual Assistant is one way to help your business grow without the worry of having an employee who you have to pay every month, organise pension and National Insurance contributions and figure out holiday and sick pay. A VA is a great flexible alternative to look at and here are my top 5 reasons why you might need a VA in your life.

5 Reasons…

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Overwhelm – everyone gets to a stage where they feel overwhelmed by their business. Some of the clients I work with are very well established businesses, but they appreciate that there are times you have to look at your workload and realise that you can’t do it all alone. Rather than being overwhelmed by the amount you have to get through you can offload some of that on to a VA who could help you with social media scheduling or organising your inbox which then frees up your time to get on with everything else you have to do.

Skills shortage – sometimes you just don’t know how to do something. Maybe it is organising an email newsletter or automated campaign, yes, you could trawl the internet to find the answers and muddle your way through, but is that the best use of your time in reality?

Peaks and troughs – if you have a business where work comes in sudden peaks a VA is a great option to consider. The relationship with a VA has been likened to a tap – you can turn the supply on or off as you need it.

If you have specific projects that mean you are suddenly busier than normal, then having someone you can call on to help you cope with that rush is a lifesaver. This has been the case recently with the GDPR legislation – I have found people have called on me to help them out with updating mailing lists and getting everything in order, but now that those tasks are completed they can go back to managing their workload in house.

Time for a break? – working for yourself often means that you have to take work with you wherever you go. If you dread coming back from time off because your inbox will be bursting at the seams, (See recent blog Email overload) then delegating tasks to a VA in your absence could be a good option to look at. Last summer I had clients away on their holidays and one of the tasks I spent a lot of time doing in their absence was organising meetings so that when they returned from their jollies their diaries were full of meetings and events ready to go.  

Ongoing support – I am extremely lucky that I work with the majority of my clients on a retainer basis, meaning that each month I tend to do the same number of hours and they pay the same fee. The main difference between employing a member of staff and using a VA is that those hours don’t have to come in any particular pattern. There may be a week when only 30 minutes of support is needed to help write up a report then the next week they could need 3 hours or research and telephone calls done. The flexibility and range of services that a VA can provide is really the main selling point to clients. The nature of small businesses means that you could have the CEO undertaking marketing tasks as well as recruiting new members of staff all while fielding calls and emails from potential clients. If someone is brought in to offer support to the CEO then a more professional image is portrayed and there is more time available to concentrate on growing the business.

If you think a VA is something that would be beneficial to you and your business you can get in touch via this link.