How a Virtual Assistant can Save You Time and Make You Money

One of the first giant steps forward is bring on your first employee so it is important to learn how a Virtual Assistant can save you time and make you money.

It’s no surprise that with our increasingly technological based society even our colleagues and employees have become virtual.  

This is How a Virtual Assistant can Save You Time and Make You Money.

How a Virtual Assistant Can Save You Time And Make You Money

As a busy blogger, and mother, when life gets chaotic I take the chance to step back and see where I can downsize.

There are always parts of business that we do not enjoy, or are not particularly good at.

This is where a virtual assistant may be beneficial.

 

What Exactly is a Virtual Assistant?

It is exactly as it sounds. According to Wikipedia:

A virtual assistant (typically abbreviated to VA, also called a virtual office assistant)[1] is generally self-employed and provides professional administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients remotely from a home office.

In the world of blogging there are several types of VAs. For us here at TOTS, we occasionally use a Social Media VA.

They can help share blog posts, engage on social media and improve the look and feel of your social media accounts.

VAs also can create blog posts, transcribe podcasts, maintain your books, improve SEO optimization or make extraordinary images.

With VAs who are experienced, they will likely have specialties and preferences of the types of work they do.

They will likely be able to do tasks in a fraction of the time it would take you to learn and complete.

 

How a Virtual Assistant can Save You Time and Make You Money

Being based entirely online, a VA is the only way to go for TOTS. Honestly, like many bloggers, I work from home, often at night and around my children’s schedules.

I don’t dress up, have a fancy office or have set hours. For these reasons, a ‘regular’ employee would not work for us.

Virtual assistants are often very much like bloggers, and may have a blog themselves. Communication is usually done online and occasionally on the phone.

My priority is my children and for this reason, online work is my favourite type.

There are a number of things to keep in mind when using a Virtual Assistant:

 

Ask for Referrals

Any experienced VA will be able to provide previous employers.

Be sure to ask the right questions when speaking to one of their current or former employers.

What was their best asset? How timely was their work? What is their biggest weakness?

It is important that you get to ‘know’ the person whom you will entrust with some very important tasks.

 

What is their Turnaround Time?

Personally, I need to have a VA that can turn something around in a matter of 1-2 days.

Other people might be okay with projects typically taking a week. Ask the VA to be upfront and realistic.

 

Asking for a Time Log is Always a Good Idea

When hiring, ask if they are willing to provide a time log. This is especially important for social media VAs.

You should monitor where they are spending their time and the subsequent results you are seeing.

 

Encourage them to use the Tools that You Use to Save Time

For us, we use Hootsuite to schedule some social media posting.

We also use Ahalogy for our pinning.

Make sure that they are comfortable with the tools you use. It is also important that interaction is real and genuine.

This is key to How a Virtual Assistant can Save You Time and Make You Money.

 

Give them Access

Virtual assistants will need access to your social media accounts.

For Facebook and WordPress this is simple as you can add them as an admin.

For Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram (along with others) you will need to give them your passwords.

So be sure to change the password to something you feel comfortable with sharing (and not the same one as your bank account).

 

Use Google Docs

We use Google Docs constantly. Post ideas, passwords, contracts and our business goals are all in there.

As a two owner and multi-author blog, it is essential that the right people are given access to the right information in order to complete their tasks.

We strongly encourage the use of the right virtual assistant for your small business or blog.

They are a time saver and can help you make more money by taking away some of the tasks that take up a lot of time, or you are not that comfortable with.

This is how How a Virtual Assistant can Save You Time and Make You Money.

 

Have you hired a VA before?

What was your experience?

  1. Check out these amazing resources for “Work at Home” inspiration.
    1. Work at Home Jobs with Freelance Sites
    2. The Top 13 Best Paying Work at Home Jobs
    3. Work at Home with Greeting Card Companies
    4. 6 Tips to Find a REAL Work at Home Job
    5. Work at Home Jobs as a Virtual Assistant
    6. Companies Hiring People to Work at Home
    7. List of Jobs where You Can Work at Home
    8. Working at Home Using Social Network Sites
    9. Everything you Need to Know about Becoming a Virtual Assistant
    10. 5 Jobs for Virtual Assistants
    11. How a Virtual Assistant can Save you Time and make you Money
    12. 1 Working at Home as a Writer – With Upfront Pay – Part 1
    13. 2 Working at Home as a Writer – With Upfront Pay – Part 2
    14. 3 Work at Home as a Writer – with Upfront Pay – Part 3
    15. 4 Work At Home As A Writer With Upfront Pay – Part 4
    16. 5 Work At Home As A Writer With Upfront Pay – Part 5
    17. FIVE Companies Hiring People to Work from Home
    18. Staying Healthy While Working At Home
    19. How to Survive Working from Home
    20. Setting Up An Ergonomic Workstation At Home
    21. 8 Ways to Make Money Online From Anywhere in the World

21 Comments

  1. Nikki @ Tikkido
    • Cat
  2. Alisha
  3. Katie @ Pick Any Two
  4. Tammy Doiel
    • Mary Wu
      • Tammy @ creativekkids
      • Cat
    • Cat
  5. Jeanine
    • Cat
  6. Kemya Scott
    • Cat
  7. Jennifer Watson McDonald
    • Cat
  8. Kathy Radigan
    • Cat
  9. Lynn Esteban
    • Cat
  10. Liz Mays
    • Katrina

Add Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

google.com, pub-8596903668708912, DIRECT, f08c47fec0942fa0
Verified by MonsterInsights