As with any business decision you make, opting to work with a Virtual Assistant can feel like a bit of a risk, especially if you’ve never worked with one before. You may be concerned about costs and contracts or not being able to physically oversee the work being completed. You may even be worried about simple things like how to communicate with an assistant who isn’t in your office.
In the end, these anxieties will build, and you’ll find yourself thinking – is it really worth it?
Here at The Edwards Company, we understand these concerns. We’ve heard them from many a potential customer and therefore know just how difficult it can be to make the final decision, particularly if you’re plagued with doubts and queries that you don’t have answers to.
With this in mind, we’ve detailed the benefits working with a Virtual Assistant can provide not just for your business but for you personally so that you can make an informed decision when wondering if a Virtual Assistant is really worth it when it comes to your business.
A Virtual Assistant: Is it Really Worth It?
The Benefits
Save Time
The primary purpose of investing in a Virtual Assistant is to save yourself some time. An incredibly heavy workload and not enough time to complete it in can not only leave you feeling exhausted and overwhelmed, but it may also begin to have a knock-on effect on your business overall.
For example, when you’re pushed for time, some tasks tend to drop to the bottom of your to-do list. And, if you’re a busy business owner, you’ll know that reaching the bottom of your to-do list is a rarity.
But what happens if these tasks are vital to the smooth running of your business?
One of the tasks that our clients were frequently running out of time for was credit control. They knew it needed to be done, but they simply didn’t have enough hours in the day to send out payment reminder emails, make endless calls to chase late payers or check over their cash flow to ensure everything was as it should be. Before they knew it, aged debt had become a problem, and it was impacting their cash flow, meaning they had to adapt the way they worked to accommodate the change in financial situation. And, as with all issues, the longer they left it, the worse it got.
The same can be said for tasks like admin. If you’re struggling for time and frequently push admin tasks to the end of your to-do list, you run the risk of missing important deadlines or overlooking important paperwork that could cause further issues for you and your business.
Investing in a Virtual Assistant means that all the tasks you don’t have time for are taken care of. You can hand over vital tasks like credit control, admin, content creation or data entry that you know will cause issues later down the line if they’re consistently but on the backburner. Not only that, but it’ll also mean you’ve got plenty of extra hours in the day to focus on running and growing your business.
So, in terms of saving time, is it really worth it? Absolutely.
Remove Unenjoyable Tasks from you To-Do List
Everyone has tasks that they simply dislike doing. Even as Virtual Assistants, there are some tasks we don’t enjoy and find frustrating due to their time-consuming nature. Take our payroll for example – at one point, this was taking up a huge chunk of our working week, but we continued to push through because we felt like it was something we should be doing in-house.
Actually, there was no need to be doing it in-house at all. There are specialists out there who can handle tasks like payroll, so you don’t have to. We found a brilliant specialist who now manages our payroll and our Managing Director, Lisa, now has more time to follow up warm leads, take discovery calls, onboard new clients, network – all things things you could be doing if you outsourced some of those tasks you hate. We truly believe that the money we pay to outsource our payroll is more than worth the time we gain because of it.
Many of our clients have faced a similar issue with credit control. They felt they should be doing it in-house, but actually they found the whole process awkward and uncomfortable, and often found themselves feeling frustrated with late payers.
When clients decide to outsource to us, not only are they getting rid of a task they dislike doing, but they’re also ensuring that customer relationships are maintained as we are far less emotionally involved with the process than they are.
Don’t spend your time doing things you don’t want to do!
Save Money
One of the main points you’re likely to consider when considering the ‘is it really worth it?’ debate is money. For a long time, business growth has also meant team growth. As soon as workload increases, the go-to solution is to onboard extra staff to compensate. This costly option, however, is no longer the only way to grow your team.
Investing in a Virtual Assistant is more cost efficient than onboarding new, in-house staff members. Here at The Edwards Company, we already have our own premises and equipment, we pay for our own training and make our own contributions to HMRC. There’s no salary to consider, nor do you have to worry about sick pay or holiday pay. You also don’t have to be concerned about paying for a staff member you no longer need if workload decreases again.
Working with a Virtual Assistant means paying for the hours you need and nothing more. Here at The Edwards Company, for example, we have a range of support packages that allow you to pick and choose the hours we work for you per month. If you need more hours one month, you can pay for more. If you need less, no problem. We reduce the package and therefore the cost. It really is that simple.
With this in mind, Virtual Assistants are a great option for businesses just starting out. While you may be seeing growth and increase in workload, you may not yet be in a position to hire more in-house staff. A Virtual Assistant can step in to bridge the gap.
Business Growth
Some services offered by Virtual Assistants not only provide support for your business by saving you time and money but are also designed to aid business growth.
Take our content creation service, for example. Creating consistent content for your business is vital to boosting your exposure and generating leads online, but this opportunity passes you by if you don’t have time to keep on top of it.
Here at The Edwards Company, we provide copy that will ensure you’re making the most of opportunities for growth. Whether that’s creating new webpage content for your website that really speaks to your target customers or crafting copy for your business blog page to encourage conversions, this service aims to give your business as much exposure as possible.
If you’re still pondering ‘is it really worth it?, consider this – investing in a Virtual Assistant isn’t just about saving time and money; it’s about gaining benefits that will improve the success of your business overall.
Experts on Hand
Investing in a Virtual Assistant also ensures any tasks you want to delegate are being taken care of by experts who have extensive experience in that field.
Here at The Edwards Company, we specialise in the four services we offer. They’re all we do, so we’ve been able to give them our full attention and really focus on providing the best quality service possible. Take data entry, for example. While you’re more than capable of completing your own data tasks to a high standard, it may take you more time to do so than it would a data entry expert. All our Virtual Assistants at The Edwards Company are fully trained in their specialist area and have racked up years (sometimes decades!) of experience in providing Virtual Assistant support for a vast variety of clients.
You won’t have to provide us with any additional training, we won’t be learning on the job like a new in-house team member might be, and you won’t have to spend copious amounts of time checking that we’re doing the right thing. All our knowledge and skills are already in place, ready and waiting to support you as and when you need us to.
Our experience also means that we’re on hand to offer business advice when you need it. We’ve helped many a client improve their back-office systems just by pointing them in the right direction. With a Virtual Assistant, you’ll always have an expert on hand to turn to.
Peace of Mind
One of the most significant benefits our clients feel from investing in a Virtual Assistant is peace of mind. They no longer have to worry about running out of time for vital tasks or the consequences of doing so. They don’t have to push their budgets to fork out for extra staff when the workload becomes heavy, and they don’t have to worry that tasks aren’t being completed to a high enough standard. Instead, they can rest assured that the aspects of their business they’ve decided to delegate are in safe hands.
So, is it really worth it?
The purpose of a Virtual Assistant is to improve the way your business functions. Whether that’s through supporting you with credit control, helping you keep on top of data entry and admin or providing you with content to boost business exposure, the aim of the game is always to make things easier for you.
We may be biased, but we feel that the benefits of investing in a Virtual Assistant far outweigh the costs. If you feel the same, please get in touch to discuss your outsourcing options – we’re looking forward to supporting your business.