Once you’ve successfully surmounted the initial challenging months of starting a new business, you’re ready for the next step. It’s time to scale up and expand your operations as you enter the all-too-important growth phase.
Increasing your business reach is crucial to taking your business from a fledgling to a well-established firm with a strong market presence and steady cash flow. This requires you to set different goals and embrace new sets of objectives, all of which open you up to various risks while piling more work on your plate.
At this stage, you’re walking the tight rope that can make or break your business. There’s no room for error, and every decision you make must be purposeful and strategic, as one wrong move can lay all your efforts to waste. Rather than endure this anxiety-inducing situation, you can opt to outsource some of the lesser tasks to allow you to concentrate on the more crucial ones.
Enter: virtual assistants, who are skilled professionals with expertise that spans across all aspects of running a profitable business. They will help you with the most mundane of tasks like data entry to the more skilled undertakings such as SEO, digital marketing, web development, and crafting advertising campaigns.
Depending on the size of your operation, think about adding one or more skilled virtual assistants to your team. More than simply freeing up your calendar and clearing your in-tray, hiring a virtual assistant comes with a bevy of benefits to help you scale to previously uncharted heights of success.
Save on Operational Costs
The ability to access world-class experts at a fraction of the market rate is one of the most rewarding features of hiring remote workers. Since they have lower overhead costs and may operate from a country with a lower cost of living, these contractors often charge a lower rate for their services.
As virtual assistants are independent contractors and not employees, there are no additional expenses such as paid time off and benefits. A lean payroll that doesn’t sacrifice expertise or productivity is a godsend for the budding entrepreneur, who is often not flush with cash.
Experts estimate that hiring remote workers can lower your business expenses by as much as 40%. You can channel these savings to other crucial aspects of your business, such as revamping your marketing effort or upgrading your production equipment.
Experts estimate that hiring remote workers can lower your business expenses by as much as 40%. You can channel these savings to other crucial aspects of your business #Youpreneur Click To TweetScale Your Business Operations
Once your business gains traction, you might have trouble keeping up with customer needs and product demands. Modern-day customers are short on patience and will readily cancel an order if you can’t deliver as promised or have unnecessarily long turnaround times. Onboarding a few skilled remote assistants lets you increase your production capacity without compromising on service delivery.
The additional help will let you keep up with the growing demand and scale your operations without breaking the bank. The last thing you want to do is impede your upward trajectory with inventory shortfalls or poor service. Remote workers let you increase your output while keeping your operational costs manageable.
Virtual assistants don’t have a set work schedule and can work from different time zones. That means you can have round-the-clock production without compromising on service delivery or spending a fortune in overtime pay. Better yet, you can onboard skilled individuals who can get the job done with minimal training and reduce the learning curve.
Since you engage virtual assistants contractually, you can hire and replace them on a rolling basis. You only need to streamline your hiring process to weed out the weaker applicants and hire the most suitable ones. You can also keep a shortlist of possible replacements so that you’re never caught flat-footed when you need additional help.
Organize Your Business Professionally
As a solopreneur, you likely have too much on your plate, and this will affect your ability to stay organized. A lack of organizational structure paves the way for inefficiency and lowered productivity. And that’s where virtual assistants become a tangible asset.
Hiring an expert can help you create an efficient work environment instead of letting the need to create business frameworks take a backseat. You can count on their skills and experience to create exceptional business frameworks and systems. That means you don’t need to be tech-savvy to create a seamless virtual workplace environment.
A seasoned remote assistant will help you streamline every aspect of running your business. From hiring to project management to the choice of communication systems to timekeeping and file sharing, they can help you address it all. A virtual workplace increases both efficiency and productivity because it lets you onboard freelancers, delegate tasks, track performance, and offer feedback. It allows you to eliminate crippling mistakes and oversights while getting more work done.
Handling Non-Essential Tasks
Business processes fall into two broad categories: essential and non-essential tasks. Essential business tasks focus on customer acquisition and revenue generation, i.e. all activities that help you grow your market share. Non-essential tasks are crucial to business success but tend to be repetitive and time-consuming.
Focusing too much on the non-essential tasks can hamper your ability to prioritize the core competencies that will make your business a raging success. Since you can’t afford to overlook the non-essential tasks, you’re better off outsourcing them to a remote assistant. While you might have the necessary skills to handle them, they aren’t the best use of your time.
Outsourcing to an able assistant lets you focus on growing your business without compromising on service delivery. A remote assistant will tackle a myriad of nonessential tasks, including:
- Fielding phone calls
- Managing your calendar and appointments
- Overseeing your social media accounts
- Handling sales inquiries
- Managing your emails
- Offering customer support
- Bookkeeping
- Processing payroll
By letting a virtual assistant handle these tasks, you can focus most of your effort on revenue-generating activities.
Capitalize on Specialization
The virtual assistant market has evolved from merely handling secretarial duties to include more specialized roles. The advent of high-speed internet makes it possible for various professionals to offer a broad spectrum of specialized and technical services from across the globe.
Now you can hire an expert to handle just about any aspect of your business that calls for specific expertise or knowledge. You can hire a skilled virtual assistant to handle some of these specialized roles:
- Search engine optimization
- Graphic design and web development
- Blogging and content generation
- Copywriting
- Digital marketing
- Inventory management
- Market research
- Keyword research
- Medical, legal, and audio transcription
You can hire skillful remote workers to handle some of these tasks that cover different areas of your business.
Build Strategic Partnerships
Successful companies strike strategic relationships with other businesses and their employees to foster growth and shrug off mounting competition. You can achieve this feat by building beneficial relationships with your virtual assistants.
With proper indoctrination, your remote workers can be more than hired guns who will move on soon after completing the assigned project. Most virtual assistants run freelance businesses and are just as keen to grow their enterprises as you. In most cases, they will go to great lengths to meet and exceed your expectations in order to maintain your account.
With proper training, remote workers can morph into strategic partners since both of you have the shared goal of growing your respective businesses. This shared interest affords you a chance to strike a strategic partnership and reap the benefits of collaborative efforts.
Allowing your virtual assistant to understand your business process and encouraging them to share ideas and offer advice gives you a decided edge. When parties in a business relationship are united in the pursuit of a common goal, they tend to achieve spectacular results.
Don’t Miss a Chance to Grow Your Business
If you’re careful with the hiring process, a virtual assistant can give you a much-needed business edge. They can be the ally you need to build a successful enterprise without resorting to hiring full-time employees or having a physical office space. You can harness the best talents from across the world while keeping your business overheads low and affordable.
These professionals will help address every aspect of making your business a runaway success. You can hire a remote worker to handle mundane tasks such as data entry and answer phone calls or take on more specialized roles like payroll preparation and bookkeeping. Remote workers are an asset that will lower your business costs without compromising on productivity or quality of service. Filling your ranks with skillful assistants is a guaranteed way to boost your business productivity exponentially.
Katrina McKinnon is the founder of Small Revolution, with over 20 years of experience in building and operating high performing businesses. On Small Revolution, she teaches eCommerce and online job skills. She aims to help graduates get an online job and flexible work opportunities.
