Home
>
Small Business
>
Why You Need A Virtual Assistant

Why You Need A Virtual Assistant

How much is your time really worth? Is it worth ?50 an hour or ?100 an hour? YOUR time is most valuable because it is your responsibility to generate new revenue for your business. Doing small and often trivial admin chores yourself does not really add value to your business and the sensible solution is to delegate those less profitable tasks by hiring someone more than capable of carrying them out, but who's hourly rate is somewhat less than your real financial worth. So what's stopping you?

You may have a multitude of reasons that prevent you from hiring a full time personal assistant. You may not need a full time, or even part time employee but just require someone for occasional or limited hours. Then there are the employers responsibilities, employees are entitled to sick pay, maternity leave and paid holiday and often seek generous benefits packages. It is estimated that the true cost of an employee is over double and often up to triple the cost of their annual salary in terms of benefits and liabilities.

Significant for some potential employers is also the loss of privacy and space - are you working from home or have limited office space? You may not want an employee working from your home or simply not have the room for an additional employee in your office or all the equipment they may need.

Wouldn't it be perfect if you had an assistant that was always ready to work for you, but only when you need them? Working from their own home or office, using their own equipment? Meet the Virtual Assistant (VA), an invaluable new work force that provides a practical solution for small businesses owners. A VA frees up your valuable time so you can concentrate on the important things that only you can do in your business.

There is no need to share office space or even for your VA to live in the same town or city. Work assignments are communicated through email; telephone, fax or post and Web-based tools such as instant messengers and online calendars and planners are also often used as a means of keeping in touch.

Because your VA is self-employed, and invoices you only for the actual hours worked or by tasks completed, and is dependent on referrals and steady work flow from existing clients, s/he can be the perfect solution for a busy small business or entrepreneur. When you hire a VA you get all the benefits of outsourcing - no employer liabilities, tax and benefits issues, coupled with the loyalty and steadiness of a company employee. With a VA, you have someone to whom you can delegate. Your VA can return telephone calls, answer e-mails, and draft letters for you. They can take your telephone calls, filter your email, deal with your post, book your doctors appointment and even remind you of your wife's or mothers birthday and source the perfect gift if necessary! VA's are already computer trained, and can assist with your specific needs from traditional office support services to highly specialised areas including Web page design. You can also equip your VA to go beyond administrative support to client development and marketing support.

You can easily justify a virtual assistant in terms of your greater productivity and your greater efficiency. You need to be the leader in your business and your VA will insure that you focus on what is important, rather than urgent. Your VA can also lend "size" to your company, which will impress potential clients.

As more and more businesses move their marketing and communications to the Internet, VA's are becoming the obvious solution to staffing issues. For an hourly fee often less than the cost of temps or the real cost of employees, businesses can take advantage of professional assistance and a variety of skills at the click of a mouse.

Justine Curtis is the founder of My Virtual Assistant, a virtual office service operating across the UK, providing virtual office support, personal assistance, secretarial services, administration and telephone answering services remotely from its UK based office. For more information about Virtual Assistants visit http://www.my-va.com

maide service in Glenview ...

In The News:

Ahold Delhaize's cybersecurity incident knocked online ordering and digital coupons offline at Stop & Shop, Food Lion, Hannaford and Giant Food stores.

The Fox News AI Newsletter covers the latest artificial intelligence technology advancements, including the challenges and opportunities AI presents now and for the future.

Amazon's About You feature includes personality details from your shopping history, and some shoppers are finding hilariously awkward results.

Identity theft recovery starts with securing bank accounts, freezing credit and enabling two-factor authentication within the first 24 hours.

Apple's $299 HomeView smart display uses facial recognition to personalize screens for up to six household members and show live security camera feeds.

Domonique DuBose spotted red flags when a man on Hinge with 85,000 followers and a blue checkmark claimed to be a San Francisco 49ers player.

Your phone's location data can expose visits to doctors, pharmacies and places of worship. The FTC took action against data brokers selling this data.

Hackers targeted Danfoss refrigerator controls across French supermarkets, forcing chains like Carrefour and Monoprix to discard massive food stocks.

iOS 27 finally lets iPhone Shared Albums store photos and videos at full resolution in iCloud, but new items count toward the owner's storage.

A fake Facebook Marketplace text scam uses your real name as the seller to trick you into replying, and Malwarebytes warns even one response helps.

The Pentagon data breach exposed 2.76 million Social Security numbers and military records, raising long-term identity theft concerns for veterans.

Kodiak AI plans to haul IKEA freight on Texas highways with no one in the cab, raising urgent cybersecurity and safety questions for drivers.

Apple Intelligence in iOS 27 adds Extend and Reframe tools to Photos, letting iPhones generate new background areas beyond your original borders.

Microsoft's X account was hijacked to promote a crypto pump-and-dump scheme, exposing its more than 13 million followers to a scam campaign.

Scammers can combine your name, phone number and address with data breach details to attempt SIM swaps, phishing and even identity theft schemes.

ChatGPT Work, Meta Muse and Gemini Spark can monitor flight prices, sort your email inbox and track important deadlines, but savvy users start small.

iPhone, Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel each hide a built-in tool that turns a video frame into a separate photo without any screenshot needed.

Operation KillSwitch dismantled KillSec's ransomware infrastructure, but investigators say a 16-year-old allegedly ran the entire cybercrime operation.

The Fox News Artificial Intelligence newsletter covers where voters will decide on AI data center ballot measures and Jeff Bezos' tech vision.

Apple's Impersonation Risk Detection in iOS 27 can flag suspicious activity inside apps, but the setting is off by default and must be enabled.

Federal Election Commission records can expose your name, address, employer and donation history once contributions exceed the $200 threshold.

Cybersecurity expert Morgan Wright says human skepticism remains the strongest defense against AI-driven phishing scams and voice cloning fraud schemes.

iPhone, Google Pixel and Samsung Galaxy each handle security updates differently, and one screen saying "up to date" may not tell the whole story.

Deborah Del Mastro heard what sounded like her daughter's terrified voice on the phone, launching a five-hour virtual kidnapping scam ordeal.

Hotel TV privacy risks go beyond forgotten passwords when you sign into Netflix or other streaming apps on shared devices you don't control.

Why You Need A Virtual Assistant

Small Business