Speaking of virtual assistant (VA), I find that most people do not really clear what a virtual assistant is. A virtual assistant is an independent contractor that performs across-the-board administrative tasks as well as other tasks. VAs mainly communicate via phone, fax, and email with their clients.
Almost any business can benefit from a virtual assistant (both large and small companies) because they:
• Don’t take up space in your office
• Don’t require you to pay payroll taxes
• Don’t ask for benefits
• Don’t ask for a vacation
• Don’t waste time on interruptions, office gossip/politics, breaks, downtime, internet use etc
More than that, a virtual assistant also provides you with various business support services, but he or she is NOT your employee. You can pay them either on hourly or monthly retainer base.
However, lot of business owners still say that there is more versatility with what a virtual office assistant can do for them compare with a secretary.
Not to mention other micro and macro factors, which causes lots of changes in today’s business environment, just the annually cost increasing for providing health insurance, payroll taxes, holiday pay, vacation pay and equipment and the training costs can really tighten a company already limited financial budget and time constraint.
These taxes, benefits and other additional costs can make the wage of your employee more than two times higher than the initial wage.
As a secretary, most of the time, he or she works in business owner’s office, provides administrative tasks, focus on tasks-based projects, works with any clients, and doesn’t really need to understand the business in order to complete a task etc.
By hiring a virtual assistant, on the other hand, he or she works from a remote office, provides clients NOT ONLY the administrative tasks, also other various business support needs, which can be ranging from day-to-day administrative tasks to a website design, marketing, accommodation and meeting arrangements, call handling, event organizing and etc, and with internet technology they can also provide you with blogging, email management, content development, tweeting, managing and handling your social media marketing campaigns etc.
A VA works with a small group of select clients toward the long term needs for their business, collaborates with client to understand their business and charge per hour or monthly retainer, client DOES NOT pay payroll tax, sick leave pay, business leave pay, or holiday, vacation pay, client only pays for the time spent on project(s), and he or she provides business support on an “as-needed” basis.
Thus, incorporating a Virtual Assistant into your business model is a very effective way to manage your business, with a VA, you are cutting overhead and increasing productivity.
However, things to bear in mind is that if VAs fails to confirm that they are a solid match for the personality of a certain business owner, and then devastation could be left ahead.
About Ann Liu
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