A person with this job can help an office run smoothly by doing a little bit of everything. But in the digital world of today, you can hire a virtual administrative assistant to do the same work. What do you think the process is? We’ve gathered all the information you need to hire your own virtual assistant:

The Types of Tasks You Can Handle with a Virtual Administrative Assistant

A good rule of thumb is that a virtual administrative assistant can do almost everything a real administrative assistant can do, even if they live on the other side of the country and work from home. In other words, they can’t pick up your dry cleaning, but they can do almost anything else that needs remote access.

Need more information? Let’s get into the details:

• Routine office tasks. You can give a dedicated virtual assistant your calendar, files, email inbox, and phone management system to help you run your daily life. A virtual assistant can help as long as you don’t need to do the office work in person.
• Making plans for travel and sticking to them. Need to book a conference in a few months? Outsource it to your virtual assistant. Need to remind a client that they missed a meeting? A virtual assistant can keep your schedule in mind. A virtual administrative assistant can help you get more done right away if you spend too much time looking through your own calendars.
• Taking care of an office from far away. Even though your virtual administrative assistant can’t be there to set up the conference room table, there are still a lot of things in the office that can be done remotely, like bookkeeping, invoices, expenses, and payroll. 
• Calls by phone A virtual assistant can be your ears and voice when you’d rather be doing productive, distraction-free work. They can do things like answer your phone calls and make calls on your behalf.

Where a Virtual Administrative Assistant Helps You Get Work Done

Making a list of some of the things a virtual administrative assistant can do to help you is one thing. But it’s even more important to show how this might work. Here are some ways that hiring a virtual assistant could change your life:

• Work without being stopped. Let’s say you want to work on a project for three hours straight in the morning. If you run an office, you’ll also have to answer calls, deal with problems, use social media, and do other administrative tasks. Not interested in any of that? You can focus on the most important work of the day if you give your administrative assistant the tasks you don’t want to do.
• It has more space. Let’s say you don’t think you need an administrative assistant right now, but clients are starting to call you too much. You still want to give your clients a personal touch that makes them feel important, but you’re not sure how you can do that and still get your work done. A virtual administrative assistant can take calls from anywhere and keep your clients up to date. 
• Some time off. You don’t just get more time to work when you hire a virtual administrative assistant. It’s also about giving yourself more time off. You don’t have to work through lunch to finish entering data for a project you’re working on. Instead, you can hire a virtual assistant to do it for you.

How to Tell When You Need a Virtual Assistant

You might think the ideas above are nice, but you’re still not sure. How can you tell if a virtual administrative assistant will be productive enough to make you feel like the money you spent was worth it? Here are some signs that you may already need one but didn’t realize it.

The Prohibitive Costs of Hiring Employees

If you’ve been pulling out your hair because you’re too busy and your company can’t meet the demand, you’ve probably thought about hiring more people. The problem is that it costs a lot to hire new people. very expensive.

A virtual administrative assistant is a great way to cut some of the costs. 

A virtual assistant can save up to 78% on operating costs over the course of a year. If you’re not sure you want your business to grow too quickly, but you know you need help, a virtual assistant can be a great “first step” toward making your business bigger.

Loss of Productivity

When you first started your business, you may have noticed how easy it was to put all your energy into the work itself. But as a business grows, the time it takes to do paperwork goes up by a factor of ten. It’s no wonder that big companies have armies of accountants and other office workers to help them.

It’s easy to fix, which is good news. Research shows that people who work from home are more productive because they have more control over their time and spend less time traveling to the office. This lets your business get back to what it was meant to do, which is to focus on the work.

Since 91% of workers say they are more productive at home, you may find that hiring a virtual executive assistant is better than hiring someone to work in the office.

Start growing your business and reducing overhead with VA FLIX

1. Meet your assistant

We’ll ask you a few questions to find you a virtual assistant and a backup virtual assistant.

2. Make a workflow

With the help of our platform, you can make a workflow that fits your life. You choose how to keep track of time, talk to your assistant, and share files.

3. Start delegating

In your own time zone, you can talk to your virtual assistant from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Start giving other people jobs to do, and you’ll grow as you need to.

FAQ for Virtual Administrative Assistants

Still have questions? No problem. We’ve answered some of the most-asked questions below:

What does a virtual assistant do all day?

That depends on what you do for a living. A part-time virtual assistant is possible. A virtual administrative assistant usually knows how to run an office, set up schedules, enter data, make phone calls, and do other office tasks like bookkeeping and expense reports. Anything that has to do with running an office and can be done from afar falls under their purview. The question is, “What do you want done?”

How do I “train” a virtual assistant to help me get started with my business?

There is a happy medium between relying on the virtual assistant’s experience and meeting the specific needs of your own business. We suggest that you make an onboarding document to help a virtual assistant learn how your business works. For some of your most important tasks, you might give them access to an employee handbook. In other situations, you might make something for a virtual assistant in particular.

What should I look for in a virtual administrative assistant?

Most businesses will expect a virtual administrative assistant to know the basics of how to run an office. Some of the most common administrative tasks are making schedules, taking phone calls, and entering data. Most of the time, the best way to choose a virtual administrative assistant is to look for someone with a lot of experience in your top priorities. For example, if you mostly need someone to answer your phone calls, an administrative assistant who already knows how to do that won’t have to learn as much.

What should I have my office manager do every day?

What you need will tell you! We can tell you that some of the most common tasks include communications (like managing emails and taking/making phone calls), administrative tasks (like bookkeeping and scheduling), and virtual office help (like handling expense reports and other administrative tasks). But you are the only one who really knows what your business needs most often.

What is a virtual administrative assistant not good for?

The obvious one is anything that needs a physical location. A virtual assistant can’t do things like pick up your dry cleaning or set up the table in the conference room. They can set up catering for an event from far away, but they can’t be there to help. Aside from this, though, an executive assistant can pretty much do the same job as another employee and handle administrative tasks with ease. They work from home, which is a disadvantage, but it’s one of the few disadvantages they’ll have.

What will happen if it is hard to train the virtual assistant?

This is the risk you take when you hire someone new for your business. And yet, we see that many businesses are always adding new people. So, it helps to be patient, especially if you’re adding help for the first time. In the beginning, a virtual executive assistant will need feedback on a regular basis so that they can adapt their processes to how your business works. Just like anyone else, a virtual assistant will do their best work when they get the feedback they need to do the job well.

How much experience will my helper have?

Like any new hire, that will be different. But it’s more important that you find a virtual administrative assistant with the right experience who can help your business with everyday administrative tasks. Look for someone who has done the tasks you need most. Then you’ll find that the assistant’s transition to your company is not only easier, but that they may even be able to make your processes better.

Who can use a virtual assistant the most?

C-level management. Small businesses owners. Executives. Freelancers. Entrepreneurs. Any busy professional who needs to spend less time at work but still needs to run a growing business. Does your office need to be run? Then you might need one that doesn’t take up all your time. It’s important to remember that no one will tell you it’s time to hire a virtual administrative assistant to help your business grow. You have to make that decision. If you’ve read this far, we’re willing to bet that you might need one too.