Back in 2015 I made the decision to that I needed to find work that fitted around my family life, instead of the other way around, so I began looking into options to work from home when I came across the role of a Virtual Assistant (VA).
I spent a lot of time researching what a VA was and what they did before completing a VA training programme and subsequently setting up my own business at the end of 2016.
So what is a VA?
A VA (also known as a Virtual PA) is a self-employed professional who works on a remote basis on tasks and projects that small businesses are either too busy to do, don’t know how to do and don’t have the capacity to employ someone, or they just generally don’t enjoy doing, allowing them to free up their time to focus on the important job of running their business.
There are many different types of VA available offering specialist services such as website design, technical support and social media management, as well as traditional secretarial and administrative services.
What are the benefits of using a VA?
• VAs offer flexibility – they are often available outside of normal working hours and don’t need to have a fixed contract of how many hours a week they need to work.
• Using a VA allows you to use the same highly skilled individual every time you outsource a task instead of using a different temp or a pool of administrators.
• A VA gives you the freedom to focus on other tasks, leaving the day to day administration to someone else who enjoys doing it.
• VAs are self-employed so you don’t have to worry about recruitment, agency fees, tax, national insurance, pension, benefits, holiday or sick!
• You only pay for the time the VA is actually working. Having an employee means you are also paying for their coffee breaks, comfort stops and personal calls.
• A VA wants to build relationships and a good reputation so their attention to detail and service provided will be perfection.
• A VA will work closely with you to try to accommodate what you need so your clients won’t even know the work is being outsourced.
• VAs work from home so you don’t need to worry about a workspace for them or any equipment.
• VAs allow you to have a “one stop shop” approach having such a varied set of skills. However, if there is a particular skill that you require and they can’t offer, they will have an associate or a contact that can help you and alleviate the need to outsource to multiple companies.
• VAs run their own businesses so they can appreciate the stresses and strains that come with operating and growing a successful business.
What tasks can a VA do?
VAs have quite a wide skill set that compiling a full list of all services can be difficult. However, to give you an idea of some of the tasks you could ask for, I’ve created a list below of my top services that you could outsource and save you some time!
• Email and Diary Management
• Data Entry
• Copy Typing
• Social Media
• Lifestyle Management
• Online Research
• Booking and Arranging Meetings
• Booking Appointments
If you would like to discuss how I could help you and your business to free up some much-needed time and allow you to focus on running your business, give me a call on 07538 543421 or email me at mailto: info@petrinava.com.