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I waited too long to hire my first virtual assistant.

I presumed I had to be making more than a full time income to be able to afford to pay someone else to join my team.

And then when I was making a full time income, the idea of finding the right person and then onboarding them into my business felt overwhelming. I was also embarrassed for them to see how messy my behind-the-scenes were.

Yet I knew there were many benefits of hiring a virtual assistant. I knew my business would grow faster with someone helping me. But I always had an excuse as to why now wasn’t the right time to hire a V.A!

Then one day I went to a business conference and there I met a virtual assistant Laura Dunn who was looking for more work. She was already working for one of my business friends which made me feel more confident bringing her into my business.

So I made the jump and hired my first virtual assistant and I can honestly say, I have no idea how I managed without!

I went away on a 3 week trip the month after hiring Laura and it just so happened to coincide with Black Friday week – historically my most lucrative week of the year. I did a lot of prep before I left but to say I was nervous leaving my business in someone else’s hands was an understatement.

But you know what happened?

I had my first $20K month thanks to Laura’s help!

It was then I realised how valuable having a VA was and I started to wish I had hired my first assistant earlier!

So I wanted to write this blog about the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant in the hope that it helps another solopreneur hop off the fence – I think you will be glad you did!

What is a virtual assistant?

A virtual assistant is someone who assists an online business owner remotely usually with time consuming tasks (like customer service, admin and data entry) that would otherwise distract the business owner from growing their business.

They are usually paid an hourly rate or a monthly retainer to carry out specified tasks. Having a virtual assistant can really benefit and help a business grow much faster.

What tasks can a virtual assistant help you with?

Some virtual assistants are generalist and will help you with a whole range of tasks. Others specialise in one area (such as email marketing, Pinterest management, tech automation etc) and as such, sometimes charge a little more per hour.

Common roles that a virtual assistant will take on are

• customer service and email management
• admin and data entry
• posting on social media
• managing online communities such as Facebook groups
• managing collaborations
• lead generation
• formatting and editing blog posts/emails/course lessons
• chasing missed payments
• liasing with affiliates
• online event management – e.g. hosting a bundle, giveaway or virtual assistant
• book keeping
• content writing
• website maintenance
• Transcribing audio/video content

Benefits of hiring a virtual assistant

1. Your time is better spent elsewhere

We all have tasks which we dread – tasks that are boring, time consuming or complicated. And chances are, if you dread them, you are not the best person to be doing them.

Whether it’s because it takes you longer to do a task than it would take a virtual assistant or because you dislike it so much that you’ll procrastinate all day to avoid it, your time is definitely better spent elsewhere.

Instead, spend your time on the tasks you love, that you are good at, that you can do efficiently.

It will end up costing you so much more to do those tasks yourself because you are not able to focus on the tasks that make you money and grow your business.

2. You can work with fewer distractions whilst your virtual assistant takes care of things for you

I don’t know about you but I find replying to customer service emails or commenting on social media posts super distracting. When I am working on a project, I need to give it my full focus.

But customer service isn’t something we can ignore until our projects are finished!

That’s why having a virtual assistant is such a huge benefit for your business as you can have the peace of mind knowing they are taking care of that whilst you focus distraction-free on creating new offers or content.

3. Things get done efficiently when you have an assistant.

When you are juggling all the balls, you are bound to drop some on occasion!

But when you are able to pass off some of these balls to a VA, you can relax knowing that the important things that sometimes get left (such as admin and book keeping) actually get done.

That’s a huge mental load off of your mind!

4. Having a virtual assistant keeps you accountable to someone

For me, knowing that I have a virtual assistant waiting on me to finish a task so they can proof read, edit, schedule the content for me helps to make sure that I stick to my to-do list and work efficiently to get the work done.

5. Work feels less lonely when you work alongside a virtual assistant.

Working online can be a lonely place. It’s easy to go days, weeks without seeing or speaking to anyone outside of your household.

That’s why working alongside a virtual assistant feels a lot less lonely. It might not be quite the same as working in the same office as someone else but it’s still someone that you can touch base with throughout the day.

6. A virtual assistant may be able to suggest improvements

Having someone to bounce ideas off, ask for feedback or invite to make suggestions can help you to improve your business in ways you may not have considered.

From improvements in efficiency to ideas for new offers, your new virtual assistant could benefit your business beyond helping you with admin!

7. A virtual assistant can help to protect your boundaries

When you are handling your customer service yourself, it’s easy to let your boundaries get a little blurred.

It’s also mentally draining to make decisions about policies constantly every time you are presented with an email.

Having a virtual assistant manage your inbox helps to reduce the mental load on you and helps to protect your boundaries. You decide on your policies once and they make sure they are stuck to.

It’s much easier for a VA to say ‘ sorry we don’t offer refunds after the 7 day refund policy period’ than it is for you to say the same thing as there is that extra layer of bubble wrap between you and the client or customer.

8. A virtual assistant is fast

A good virtual assistant will be efficient and able to complete some tasks much faster than you can because it’s their bread and butter. They are so used to completing these tasks that they can do it in half the time you can.

Therefore freeing your time up and proving to be very cost effective.

Top Tip | Remember when weighing up if now is the right time to hire a virtual assistant, to ask yourself how much your time is worth! If you can make $100 in 1 hour by doing a coaching call and your VA is charging you $20 for 1 hour to do a task that would take you 2 hours, you are saving $170! (2 hours coaching income less 1 hours VA fee.)

9. You can get projects completed much faster with the right virtual assistant

If you are launching a new offer or hosting an event, it could feel overwhelming how much work there is to get done. And big projects like this can consume a lot of time, often distracting us from other tasks such as lead generation.

With the help of a virtual assistant, you will be able to complete these tasks much faster helping you to build momentum in your business.

10. A virtual assistant can help you to grow your online presence much faster

Whether it’s by reaching out to new leads, following up on queries on social media referring people to your courses, or liasing with other business owners to set up collaborations, your virtual assistant can help you to grow your audience much faster.

The more places you can be found, the faster your business will grow but being in all the places all at once is hard. Having your virtual assistant help you with social media and list growth will help you to grow your business much faster.

11. A virtual assistant can help you reply to customer service queries much faster than doing it alone

This is especially helpful during launches. You will want to reply to queries about your offer quickly before someone loses momentum deciding if they want your offer or not. Having a 2nd person keeping an eye on the inbox means that you will be able to reply much faster and save the sales!

12. A virtual assistant could help you to create reports and analyse what’s working and whats not

We all know we should be tracking what’s working and what’s not – otherwise how do we know where best to allocate our time?! However, knowing this and having the time to do this are two very different things!

Having a virtual assistant can be really helpful to help you track projects to see where you are best focussing your time.

For example…

• How many subscribers did you get from bundle A vs bundle B?
• How many of the people who saw you speak at a summit went on to buy an offer from you?
• Which lead magnet is converting best? Is it the same for all audiences?

13. A. virtual assistant will have a different skillset to you

Let’s face it, we can’t be good at everything! Some of us are great at teaching and delivering online courses, some have a knack for social media, some are data driven and great at finding productivity hacks!

When you hire a virtual assistant, chances are they will have a different skillset to you. So where you know your design skills might be lacking, you can set your VA to creating your image mockups and social media promotional designs!

If you are good at the creative side but suck at organisation, you can ask your VA to find ways to help you run your business more efficiently behind-the-scenes!

Top tip | Make sure you ask your VA where their best skills lie so that you know you are utilising them effectively!

14. A virtual assistant can help you to deliver live trainings

If you are trying to deliver live trainings on a zoom call, it can be really hard to juggle the questions and the chat at the same time as delivering your content!

So have your VA turn up live with you and make sure you are not losing the questions inside the chat – especially when you have a lot of attendee engagement!

15. Hiring a virtual assistant will help you to get a much better work-life balance

When you are working alone, it’s easy to over-work. There are things that can’t be left until tomorrow (like customer service) so you find yourself answering emails in the evening because you were busy with client work/coaching/ content creation during the day.

Having a VA take some of those necessary tasks off our hands means that we can clock off at a sensible time and enjoy some more work-life balance.

It also means that we can take time off and enjoy family times or holidays knowing our business is being looked after!

After all, one of the reasons you probably started an online business is so that you had better work-life balance, right?!

Are there any disadvantages to hiring a virtual assistant?

If you hire the right virtual assistant then I don’t think you’ll find many disadvantages!

Yes you might get some queries from your virtual assistant throughout the day but this will usually be less distracting than managing your inbox by yourself.

You can reduce the number of queries by anticipating what your virtual assistant will need and make sure you document your business policies, canned emails and record screen share SOP’s videos for them to watch when they need to know how to do a task.

If you want a template for providing your virtual assistant with everything they will need, then check out the Team Hub Template for Notion.

Hiring the wrong virtual assistant however, could cause additional stress, especially if they are managing your inbox as the way they reply reflects directly onto you and your business!

To avoid any issues like this, try to choose your virtual assistant from a personal recommendation, make sure you supply guidance and support and arrange to review progress at regular intervals.

When should I hire a virtual assistant?

It’s never too early to hire a virtual assistant unless

1. you are not sure yet if this is a hobby or a business
2. you are not earning any money AND you can’t afford to dip into your savings because you need to put food on the table/pay the bills.

You can absolutely grow your business to the point that it makes a decent income without a virtual assistant – I am proof of that. BUT, you will grow your business much faster with a virtual assistant than you would without.

If you know you want to build a business and you can afford to pay someone for even just a few hours a week, then you can hire a virtual assistant as early in your business journey as you like – even from before you launch it! As long as you have a sound business plan then this is likely to be a savvy investment and will pay off in the long run.

Obviously if you are at a place where you need to spend every penny you earn on life’s necessities, then it is okay (and probably wise) to wait to hire your virtual assistant.

But if you have some savings and are willing and able to invest them into growing your business faster, you are unlikely to regret it!

If you have been successfully working as a solopreneur until now and are starting to feel overwhelmed and struggling to keep up then you definitely need to think about hiring a virtual assistant! You are likely to save more money than you spend and your work-life balance/stress levels will improve dramatically!

Who benefits most from having a virtual assistant?

Whilst every business owner is likely to benefit from having a virtual assistant, very streamlined businesses (usually single offer businesses,) may be able to cope without.

However the people who would benefit the most from having a virtual assistant are those multi-passionate business owners who sell multiple offers or have more than one income stream and have multiple growth strategies. There are an awful lot of balls to juggle with a business like this and having a virtual assistant is going to be a total game changer!

How much does a virtual assistant cost?

The price a virtual assistant charges can vary hugely depending on their experience, expertise, the cost of living where they are based, the services that they offer etc.

In my experience, most VA’s charge between $15-45/hour. With the more pricey VA’s being those who have a lot of experience and expertise in areas such as automation, lead generation, business management and copywriting.

Also when a virtual assistant is able to work autonomously, make decisions and suggestions for improvements, they are probably crossing further into the realm of ‘online business manager’ and therefore are likely to charge more than a new, inexperienced VA who may charge $15/20 for basic admin tasks where you are responsible for all decision making.

Which virtual assistant tasks provide greatest benefit to the client?

To get the full benefit out of having a virtual assistant, you need to think about where there time is best spent. Time is money so spend their time wisely!

These following tasks are the ones which I feel are most beneficial to my business and result in the most revenue being generated…

• Customer service and Facebook group management – leaving me able to work on creating new offers to sell distraction free.
• List growth strategies – pitching and setting things up for collaborations such as giveaways, virtual summits and bundles, creating pins for Pinterest
• Tech assistance – to help me to work distraction free and to assist me to get new offers out the door faster – e.g. by setting up Hello Audio for my courses, creating workbooks for new offers and proof reading lessons
• Event management – I anticipate I will need more support when hosting events such as giveaways and virtual summits to make them manageable for me as a busy Mum who is only able to work part-time!
• Affiliate program management – helping me to sell more of my offers by liasing with my affiliates and providing them with the resources they need to promote.

How to find a virtual assistant

Whilst you certainly can use VA agencies to hire your VA, this is probably not the most cost effective way – as the agency will take a big cut and probably charge more to cover this. (Or worse, they will pay their VA’s poorly to keep costs low.)

One of the best ways to hire a VA is via word of mouth. Ask other online business owners if they have recommendations. Try to network (online and in person) as much as you can. Post in a Facebook group with other business owners to ask if anyone can suggest a VA.

I like to create a form to ask potential VA’s to complete which helps me narrow down my options then hop on a Voxer call with anyone who makes the short list. You could even ask some theoretical questions such as ‘how would you reply to this email?’

How to get the most from working with a virtual assistant

To get the most out of working with a VA, you first need to decide which areas of your business are more lucrative and focus on those areas when assigning your VA tasks. For example, I know that contributing to giveaways helps me to grow my email list rapidly and so I have asked my VA to focus on finding and pitching for these.

Choose a method of communication that works for you both. I use Voxer for walkie-talkie style messaging which works well on the go as it only takes a few minutes to leave a voice message!

You will also need to make sure that you set your virtual assistant up for success by giving them access to everything they could need – from important links to SOP’s, business policies, email templates, product descriptions etc etc.

I have created a team hub for this purpose. It’s one central location hosted inside Notion where my VA can access everything they need, reducing the number of queries they send my way!

You can use my Team Hub Template to create your own team hub and help your virtual assistant work more productively!

Summary – do the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant make it worthwhile the cost?

Yes, absolutely! Hiring a virtual assistant – even for just a few hours here and there – can help you to save time, money and get more done whilst giving you peace of mind knowing that your customers and clients are being looked after, even when you take time off!

Looking for your first Virtual Assistant?

My current VA Angela may be looking for some more clients soon! So drop us an email at support@passiveincomesuperstars.com if you would like to get in touch with Angela to find out her availability!