How to Know If You’re Ready to Hire a Virtual Assistant
The beginning of the year is a great time for business owners to set goals because you’re planning out what you’re going to accomplish the rest of the year. You may have already set your 2023 goals or you’re currently working on those now.
Whatever goals you’re setting will likely require more work to be done, at a more efficient pace, bringing faster results.
But how will you accomplish this?
You only have so many hours in the day, so you might be ready to hire a virtual assistant (VA) to help you with your business.
Before we dive into how you’ll know you’re ready to hire a VA, let’s first clarify what a VA is.
What is a Virtual Assistant (VA)?
A virtual assistant (VA) is a remote helper for your business. VAs typically work remotely from a different location than yours and they can support you in almost any area of your business, including administrative tasks, marketing, social media, bookkeeping, copywriting, and booking travel, to name a few.
VAs can work in any industry and in any type of business, but are most beneficial for companies that already do work online, whether it’s just communicating via email with customers or running their entire business online.
How is a VA Different From An Employee?
The biggest difference between a VA and an employee is the level of flexibility you can receive with a VA. You can often choose how many hours you’d like them to work for you per week or per month. Some companies hire a VA for as little as 3-5 hours of work per week to take care of a few things.
VAs are contractors that don’t require you to pay them benefits such as paid time off and healthcare, which is great for businesses that can’t afford or aren’t ready for an employee yet.
This also means that VAs often work for more than one client, business, and even industry. You can find VAs with a wide variety of skills because they have such diverse experience.
How Do I Know If I’m Ready to Hire A VA?
Now that you understand what a VA is, you might be wondering if you’re ready to take the leap and hire a VA for your business.
Signs You Might Be Ready to Hire A VA
If you can answer yes to any of the following questions, you might be ready to hire a VA:
Do you perform repetitive tasks in your business that take up too much of your time?
Have you ever caught yourself saying or thinking “If I had more time, I’d love to do XYZ in my business?”
Do you spend a lot of time doing administrative tasks in your business?
Have you considered hiring an employee but aren’t sure if you have enough things to do for someone else to work 40 or even 20 hours a week?
Does your business constantly change and you wonder if you could find an employee that could perform all of the various tasks you need done?
Is your social media an afterthought in your business and you wish you had more time for it?
Do you have lofty business goals for this year and wonder how you’ll accomplish it all by yourself?
Are you unsure if your work can be completed by anyone else because you’ve always done everything on your own?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are likely ready to hire a VA! Contact us to see how Alpine Virtual can support your business! Our virtual assistants are best-in-class and have helped our customers get time back in their days and exceed their goals!
Signs You Might Not Be Ready to Hire A VA
If you answer yes to the following questions, A VA might not be the best solution for your business:
Do you need to hire someone with a specialized set of technical skills that might require a degree? Examples could include skills such as Salesforce administration, PHP coding, or electrical engineering.
Do you need someone to do work on-site in a certain location to perform their work? Examples could include a front desk greeter and a house painter, for instance.
A special note here is that if you do any work on a computer, especially in a cloud-based system, there’s a very good chance a VA can help you with those tasks so you have more time to be on site doing what you do best!
Does your work need to be completed during very specified hours during the day? For instance, you need someone to answer phone calls every day from 8AM - 5PM.
If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you might need someone else other than a VA to help you with your work. Consider working with a third party recruiting agency.
What If I’m Still Unsure?
If you still have questions about how to delegate tasks, what to delegate, or what kind of person you need to hire, contact us today! We can help you decide what might be best for your business based on your current situation or point you in the right direction if we can’t help you.
