A big step for many businesses is to hire a secretary or a full-time personal assistant. It means the business is growing and doing well. It means the business is growing and doing well. So much so that administrative help is no longer an appealing choice. It has to be done. But how do you know when you need a secretary full-time?

Do You Really Need a Full-time Secretary?

There are a lot of secretaries out there (over 3.7 million, in fact). This is just in the United States. These secretaries do things like manage schedules, enter data, do administrative tasks, make phone calls, and even keep books. That shows that there is a big need for services that can be done in person to help run an office. The Bureau of Labor Statistics says that a full-time secretary makes an average of well over $35,000 per year. A business that hires a secretary full-time will also have to pay for other things, like benefits. Time off is also important. When you add everything up, the cost to your business is a lot more than you might think. It’s definitely more than what it says on the salary.

Working with virtual secretaries who are independent contractors is a simple solution. It means you can hire someone part-time, pay them by the hour, and still get good work, skills, and experience. Do you really need a secretary who works full-time? Even if you don’t, hiring a virtual secretary part-time can be a great way to learn what it’s like to delegate.

What a Virtual Secretary Can Do for You

You might just have a rough understanding of what a secretary does, but you’re still not sure if you want to hire one. How can you tell if you need one?

Let’s look at some of the most common things a virtual secretary can do from afar:

• Bookkeeping. Tired of keeping track of your bills and receipts? If you add a virtual secretary to your accounting software, you’ll be amazed at how easy and fast the process can be. 
• Phone calls. A virtual secretary can not only take your phone calls and answer them for you, but they can also make calls for you. This is great for a wide range of things, from planning travel to setting up meetings and appointments.
• Managing social media. Don’t always have time to update Upwork or reach out to possible clients? Let a virtual assistant take care of it.
• Email management. The American Psychological Association says that the idea of “multitasking” is a little bit of a myth. Managing emails throughout the day, for example, is not as efficient as it could be from a psychological point of view. This means that every time you check your email, you lose more than just the time it takes to do so. You’re getting distracted. Hire a virtual secretary to handle your emails so you can focus on your work.
• Proofreading. Contracts, proposals, follow-ups, and other types of paperwork are common in any business. You won’t always have time to read everything. So instead of sleeping on it and forgetting to proofread before it’s time to send out your paperwork, it’s a good idea to just give it to a qualified virtual secretary.
• Real estate administrative tasks. Do you work in real estate? You might find it hard to follow up with people all the time, especially since real estate is often a “non-work” job. Even if it’s just you in the office, having a virtual secretary ready to answer the phone will make it look like you run a much bigger, more professional business.

All of these tasks are easy for a person who works on-site as an administrative assistant. But a great place to start is by hiring a virtual secretary. Especially if you’ve never been a “boss” before, it will help you learn how to handle the responsibilities of running a business better.

What are the Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Secretary?

In addition to doing the above tasks, we need to ask a very simple question: what are the benefits of hiring a virtual secretary? Why not hire a virtual secretary instead of just outsourcing your work? Why not any kind of virtual assistant?

First of all, it’s true that a virtual assistant can save up to 78% on operating costs each year. That is a very big drop. Too often, business owners and managers make the mistake of looking at a virtual assistant or virtual secretary’s hourly rate before hiring them. Then, they compare this to the hourly rate of a full-time employee who works on-site.

But, as we’ve seen, hiring a virtual secretary can be a lot cheaper, even if the employee benefits are expensive.

Let’s think beyond price. Why hire a virtual secretary if you need a secretary to help you grow your business?

• Efficiency. When it comes to tasks like those above, a virtual secretary who has done them before will be better at them. They might know how to proofread better and have the tools to do it on their first day of working from home. Or they might have a better way to keep track of the books. This makes them worth the money because not only do they take care of these tasks for you, but they also do them better than you would have.
• Flexibility. If you hire a remote worker who has done remote work before, the process may go much more smoothly than you thought. A remote worker has already done many of these tasks. They may need some time to get used to your system (we’ll talk more about that in a minute), but in the long run, their flexibility and ability to adapt will only help your business.
• Minimal Investment. In addition to the costs mentioned above, keep in mind that you can hire a virtual secretary part-time. That means you don’t have to make a full commitment before you start outsourcing your tasks. You can learn how to manage a secretary, how to bring on a new “employee” (in this case, an independent contractor), and how to make your business run more smoothly overall. You only have to pay the hourly rate for a part-time remote worker to get it all done.

Obviously, these are just a few of the many reasons why hiring a virtual secretary is a good idea. If you hire the right virtual assistant, you might find that not all jobs are the same.

How to set up VA FLIX and consider hiring your first virtual secretary

You may be sold on the idea of hiring virtual assistants for your business at this point, but you may not know how to go about hiring one. We’ve decided to break it down into a few important steps:

• Fill out the VA FLIX Contact Form

• Work with a Staffing Manager. We are aware that the hiring process can initially seem intimidating, particularly if you are using a new website. A new platform, that. We designate a staffing manager to assist you in following the stages because of this. Simply let them know what they can do to help you, your objectives, and any prerequisite information. The rest of the journey will be guided by them.

• Select and Hire your Virtual Secretary. Sounds like a significant step, no? You can swiftly sort through the many alternatives if you work with your staffing managers. Take a look at the candidates’ skill sets and see who has experience working as an executive assistant, for instance. Try to match your work criteria with the qualifications of the prospective virtual secretaries on your list based on their expertise and background..

• Onboard. One of the most overlooked components of a new hire is onboarding. You can’t just expect someone to sit down and start working if you want them to properly integrate into your company. They need to be acquainted with your company’s requirements, existing systems, and more. Make an onboarding paper, or even ask your virtual secretary to assist by documenting each step of the onboarding process. In the event that you ever need to hire new virtual assistants on a full-time basis, this can be useful.

Sounds challenging? It isn’t. You are just a few steps away from making a hire that might completely transform your company.

VA FLIX Can Help You Grow Your Business and Cut Costs.

1. Meet your assistant

In order to match you with a virtual assistant and a backup assistant, we’ll ask you a few questions.

2. Create a workflow

With the help of our platform, you can design a workflow that works for you. You decide how to share files, manage time, and communicate with your assistant.

3. Start delegating

Your virtual assistant is available to you from 8 am to 5 pm, your local time. Start by assigning tasks, then expand as necessary.

FAQs About Virtual Secretaries

Still stuck? Here are some of the most frequently asked questions and their answers:

Why shouldn’t I hire a full-time secretary?

There’s no reason you can’t. However, you might be shocked to learn how much a virtual secretary can accomplish online. After all, we are living in the digital age. Even if they are not physically present in the workplace with you, fully remote secretaries can manage everything from phones to email.

How do I know if it’s time to hire a virtual secretary?

Employing a virtual secretary is a terrific method to start hiring help because it requires very little commitment. Therefore, there is flexibility in that you are not need to be aware of when it is appropriate to hire a virtual secretary. You may try it out right away, see if you receive your money’s worth, and do it swiftly and effortlessly. However, you should be aware that if you hire a virtual secretary, you’ll have work for them to perform. You can delegate work to a virtual secretary as long as you have a list of those that you no longer want to do yourself.

What if I want someone who’s in my office?

A virtual secretary clearly cannot be present if you require someone in your actual office. However, you should be aware of all a virtual secretary is capable of doing from a distance. They can perform all of the tasks you would perform when working from home, including managing projects and taking calls. Setting them up with the right accounts—for Slack, online storage, etc.—is all that is necessary.

What do I do next if I do want to hire a virtual secretary?

It’s simple: Fill out the VA FLIX Contact Form! This is a simple process, but if you find any portion of it difficult, one of our staffing managers will assist you in moving on to the next stage without difficulty.

What can’t a virtual secretary do?

The limitations of a virtual secretary are the same as those of any employee, with the apparent exception that they cannot perform any duties that they are physically incapable of performing. But given the status of modern technology, the quantity of work that cannot be done is getting smaller and smaller. Your virtual assistant may astound you with how much she can contribute if you give her some authority.