In today's business world, time is money. As a result, many entrepreneurs and busy professionals are looking for ways to delegate tasks and free up their time. One popular solution is to hire a virtual assistant.
Virtual assistants are freelancers who provide a variety of services, from handling customer inquiries to scheduling appointments. Before you decide to hire a virtual assistant, it's important to weigh the pros and cons to see if they're a good fit for your business. Virtual assistants can be a great asset for businesses that need extra help with tasks but don't have the budget to hire a full-time employee. They can also be a convenient way to get things done without having to leave your office. However, there are some potential downsides to consider as well. For example, if you're not careful about who you hire, you could end up working with someone who is unreliable or unprofessional. There's also the risk that your virtual assistant could end up becoming too involved in your business and taking on more work than they can handle.
Ultimately, the decision of whether or not to hire a virtual assistant depends on your specific needs and circumstances. If you do decide to go ahead with it, be sure to take the time to find a reputable and reliable provider.
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Atiba de Souza: Are virtual assistants good or bad for business? That is an excellent question that we are going to tackle here today on my channel.
Hey, everyone! I am Atiba De Souza and I manage teams of virtual assistants and I created this channel to kind of curate the best practices and answer some of the biggest questions about small businesses, hiring and managing virtual assistants.
So let's jump right into this question today. Are they good or bad? Are virtual assistants good or bad for your business? And let me tell you right off the bat, the answer is it depends.
Yeah, I know. You probably hate that answer. I would if I gave it to me too. You probably hate that answer, but it really does. It depends, guys. And here's what it depends on. It depends on how you plan to use them and why you're hiring them.
So let's dive into that and talk about, first, why are you hiring a virtual assistant? Okay. Well, let me put it through this, another way. Why does your small business need a virtual assistant? Now, there are tons of reasons why you may say you need a virtual assistant, but there's only one that matters. This is the only one that matters. And I'm telling you this because I've tried them all, okay? I've hired virtual assistants for tons of reasons. And it's only when I hired them for this particular purpose that it actually worked out. Only this one, here we go. It is for growth. Growth!
If you're hiring a virtual assistant because it's time for your small business to grow. If you're hiring them to do tasks that are going to ultimately help your small business grow, because they took things off of you or other team members, then that's the right reason. If you're hiring, I'm telling you this, because I've done this. If you're hiring a virtual assistant because there are tasks that you need to do, but you don't want to do. And so you're trying to just get them to do, get somebody else to do it for you? That's the wrong reason to hire a virtual assistant. If you're trying to hire a virtual assistant because there are tasks that you don't know how to do, okay? And you don't, you've never thought about it. You're just trying to hire someone and hope that they can figure it out? And you're not sure exactly what you want? Not the right reason.
However, if you're looking to hire a virtual assistant so that you can, can take some tasks, some things that your team is doing, and hand it over to someone, systemize it, give it to someone else to do so that you can focus on doing other things, mainly sales and marketing, that are going to help your business grow? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding! That's the right reason! That's why small businesses need VAs. That's why you should hire a VA. So that's number one. You want to know if they're good or bad? You gotta make sure that you're hiring them for the right reason.
Now with that, what are the pros and cons? What are the pros and cons of hiring a virtual assistant? What are the pros and cons and what are the things that they can do for you? Well, number one, if there are tedious tasks or administrative tasks or repeatable tasks, things that are repeated over and over and over again, in pretty much the same way, virtual assistants are great for that. Taking those tasks off of your plate so that you can then turn around and focus on growing your business. Or, as I said before, sales and marketing, okay? I want to make sure you understand what growing your business is. Sales and marketing. Or I should say it the other way, marketing and sales because you have to market first in order to make sales, okay? You don't give or hire a virtual assistant to do tasks for you or in your company so that you can then turn around and do more tasks. No. No, that's not going to work for you. That's not going to work, okay?
So a big con is if you're hiring them just to do that. Pros, if you're hiring them, and I know I keep harping on this, but if you're hiring them so that you can grow. So that you can free up your time to do more marketing and sales. Say it with me! Marketing and sales. That's when it makes more sense or that's when it makes sense to hire a virtual assistant, okay? And that's when you know you're doing it right. Other than that, the only thing you're doing is adding overhead to your bottom line. And if you're adding overhead to your bottom line, guys, the only thing you're doing is eating away at your profit.
Now you may feel good about it, and I'm telling you this because I've done it. You're going to hire a virtual assistant who's going to come in and do some mundane tasks for you or some tedious tasks that you don't want to do. They'll come in. They may do a fantastic job and you'll feel good cause you don't have to do those tasks anymore. But if you didn't take the time that you offload it to go focus more on sales and marketing, that person's going to become overhead to you. And that overhead is going to eat at your bottom line. And then you'll start to resent them. And your relationship will degrade. Guys, I don't want you to do that. I did that. I did that a bunch I'm telling you, don't do that.
Hire a virtual assistant who will take stuff off of your plate so that you can focus on marketing your brand and selling more of your product or service. That is how you know if a virtual assistant would be good for you, okay? That's what you, what you want. That's when you know that a virtual assistant will be good for your business.
Alright, everybody! I hope that this helped you today. I hope I made my point very, very clear to you today. Hire a virtual assistant. They will be good for your business when you focus on growth. Bad for your business if you hire them and you weren't focused on how your business would grow.
All right? I will see you on the next video. Bye!