Many of us are all too familiar with the feeling that there are simply not enough hours in the day to get everything accomplished. If you are in the trenches running your own business or getting a start-up business off the ground, you know that work can pile up. The little things can get left behind, including your personal life and errands. To maximize the best use of your time and become as efficient as possible, it is common knowledge 
that hiring additional help would free you up for things that really matter. However, like many other things on your to-do list, finding an assistant may not be a top priority. You may not have enough work for a full-time employee or you may think you cannot afford the help.
Virtual Assistants are Readily Available
What you may not know is that hiring a virtual Executive Assistant (EA) is an increasingly popular way to get more work done and is less expensive than you may think. The number and qualifications of available cloud based assistants is growing rapidly. In 2012, oDesk, the popular freelance talent exchange platform, had just over 25,000 postings for virtual assistant jobs – that is a 1000% increase from their 2,500 postings in 2008.
In terms of gauging market size the truth is that oDesk represents just a fraction of the market of available virtual EA’s. Other large platforms like MyCrowd, Guru and Elance also have 1000’s of virtual assistants available for hire. In addition, there are many boutique agencies that only specialize in virtual assistants. Regardless of how you hire your EA, there are advantages to hiring through sites such as MyCrowd and oDesk, which offer multiple listings of virtual assistants with diverse skills and cost.
Hiring a Virtual Assistant is Faster and Less Hassle than a Traditional Assistant
Unlike traditional assistants, virtual EA’s will not require extensive training, medical insurance, office space or equipment. By going the virtual route when hiring a qualified assistant, you will eliminate overhead, minimize risk and implement a flexible on-demand scalable resource!
You can join a platform, create your job description and get several replies back from interested and qualified virtual assistants within as little as 5 minutes using services like MyCrowd. According to MyCrowd’s CEO Matthew Cordasco, “being able to quickly connect qualified workers with people looking to hire them changes the way people can utilize freelance talent. This aligns with both lean and agile methodologies and also opens up the door to using freelancers for time sensitive tasks.”
Virtual Assistants are Just as Effective as On-site Assistants
The fantastic part about a virtual EA is that almost all of the tasks that an on-site EA can accomplish can also be successfully accomplished by virtual EAs. This gives you tremendous flexibility and allows you to focus on high value tasks and projects! Virtual assistants can have a wide range of experience and thus can support your business in many ways including bookkeeping, research, managing contacts, scheduling, marketing tasks, email management, social media, etc.
Although you may have a growing list of items on your ‘to-do list’, how do you go about establishing what specifically you should and should not delegate to best maximize your time? Tim Ferriss, author of the popular book of “The Four Hour Work Week” and recently recognized by Fast Company as one of the Most Innovate Business People of 2007, has often praised the virtues of hiring a virtual EA. Ferriss stated in a recent blog post that he was able to rid himself of one of the most time consuming and unproductive tasks he could think of – checking his emails by hiring a virtual EA. He found that by delegating the necessary but dreaded tasks to a virtual EA, he was able to come up with a highly effective way to be abreast of what required his attention without having to check any of the thousands of emails he receives daily!
Other highly effective and easy ways to utilize virtual EA’s include screening calls and incoming mail, scheduling and confirming appointments and reservations, database creation & data entry, research, bookkeeping, creating travel itineraries, making calls, creating presentations, ordering supplies and composing documents.
Our recommendation is to seek out an assistant with a specific skill set that best complements your business
Virtual EA’s may be utilized for simple tasks and also for tasks that require more skill, such as translation, or working with excel spreadsheet formulas. Essentially, a virtual EA can be used for any task that does not require their physical presence, and that when handed off to a competent virtual assistant, will free you up for other important tasks.
As the demand for and number of virtual assistants is rapidly growing, their expertise is now also increasingly diverse. This makes it quite simple to find a virtual EA who compliments the specific needs of your organization, says Jaleh Bisharat, Vice President of marketing at oDesk.com.
Check Out this Video on How to Use Your Virtual Assistant Effectively
Using a Virtual Assistant Gives You More Control Over Payroll Expenses
By hiring virtual workers, you can match the complexity of the task to the required experience and hourly rate of the assistant you hire. You could use one lower cost resource for data entry and research and another higher cost EA for tasks like scheduling, social media posting and even basic account management duties. Typical rates for virtual assistants can range from as low as $5/hr to $60/hr for top quality executive assistants.
Virtual assistants can be hired for as much or little work as you need, and can also be used on a per-project or limited time basis. If you need someone full-time or part-time, it is wise to negotiate on a retainer basis or ask for a slight discount if you are purchasing a large chunk of their time in advance.
How Will You Know if Hiring a Virtual Assistant Will Increase Your Productivity?
There are essentially two ways to validate if an assistant is helping or hindering your productivity. You can first conduct an informal cost analysis. 
Create a list of the daily tasks that you feel are the worst use of your time, or that you hate doing. Save this list for your job description. Then create a list of all of the tasks and projects that you would do with that time. Calculate the revenue that these efforts would generate. Once you understand the potential revenue increase, calculate the cost of a virtual assistant by taking the time you spend on your daily task list and multiply that number by an average cost ($30/hr is a good average.) Subtract this cost from the revenue estimate and you will have a fairly good estimate of the revenue opportunity.
You can also do some informal testing by hiring assistants for smaller projects, or for a 1-2 week trial. Track your free time and what you accomplished with that time. Review your records at the end of the project. If you feel you are getting more accomplished then it clearly makes sense to make the hire permanent and/or bring someone on for more time.
After Hiring – Use Your Time to Create More Revenue
Focus on High Value Tasks – Delegate all your repetitive tasks that are not crucial to generating new business. This allows you to function as a business owner and not an admin.
Spend Time Developing New Products or Services – Grow your offerings, source and/or develop new products, go after new markets. These are just a few ways in which you can look to generate more revenue with your time.
Use Assistants to Power Lead Generation and Marketing – This is the correct way to become more effective. Use your assistant for income generating activities such as direct mailing, outbound email marketing, generating lists of prospects or putting together sales materials.
A virtual EA can assist you with numerous tasks to provide you with time and money saving support and collaboration!
The case for hiring a virtual assistant is pretty strong. If you are looking for a way to gain more momentum and boost your business’s productivity, then hiring a virtual assistant is something worth trying. Do you have any questions or a favorite task that you have delegated to your virtual freelance EA to improve your business productivity? We would love to hear about them in our comments section!
