There are around 25,000 virtual assistants all over the world and this number is set to rise. In fact, 49% of companies with more than 1,000 employees are hiring virtual assistants. Virtual assistants have become increasingly popular in recent years as businesses look for ways to streamline their operations and increase productivity. So, what are virtual assistant jobs?
Hiring a virtual assistant can cut business costs by up to 78%. Virtual assistants can help with various office administrative tasks, and more. As of recently, the most in-demand services are email marketing, project management, and social media management.
With their help, businesses can also save up to 40% of their time spent on executing administrative tasks and focus on how to grow their businesses instead. Small to medium-sized businesses such as startups and scaleups have created much demand for virtual assistants to scale their businesses.
With remote work here to stay, many companies are looking to outsource administrative tasks. Outsourcing is a powerful tool, and can add value to businesses since they allow businesses to focus time and energy on other priorities. The Philippines is home to 13% of the world’s virtual assistants. To date, hiring virtual assistants has increased by 41% too.
From staying up to date with accounting or finance tasks to dealing with paperwork and customers, there are a billion things to do when you are running a business – big or small. Want to save costs and time? Let’s explore who virtual assistants are and how they can help your business.
What Are Virtual Assistants?
Virtual assistants, or VAs, are office administration professionals who work from home or in their own office. A virtual assistant job is similar to that of an executive assistant, except all their work is completed online.
Many virtual assistants are freelancers or contractors who work independently and offer their services to multiple clients. Virtual assistant skills go beyond answering phone calls, data entry, and basic computer skills. Virtual assistant qualifications can include highly specialized skills.
To become a virtual assistant, many individuals take virtual assistant training courses. As a result, they can offer valuable help with simple tasks, such as managing calendars, scheduling appointments, and responding to emails. They also often have expertise in specific areas, such as social media management, content writing, or graphic design.
What Are the Duties of a Virtual Assistant and How Can They Help Your Business?
Virtual assistants can be incredibly versatile. Roles and responsibilities of virtual assistants can include:
Administrative Tasks
Virtual assistants can handle various administrative tasks, such as managing emails, scheduling appointments, completing paperwork, and organizing files. By doing this, they can help you to respond to important emails promptly and alert you of any urgent paperwork.
They can also keep appointments or task lists organized by sending invites or reminders on your behalf, highlighting key priorities, and making travel arrangements if your business requires this. From booking flights, preparing important travel documents, to accommodation, you can delegates these tasks to a virtual assistant and focus on what you need to do for your business before your work trip.
Other tasks include monitoring and updating business websites. Virtual assistants can help you keep information up to date. This is especially helpful for small business owners and frees up your time to focus on more important tasks. You also don’t have to check your emails while you are on holiday (nearly 60% of Americans do)! Stay organized and on top of administration with a virtual assistant.
Research and Reporting
If qualified, virtual assistants can conduct research on various topics, industry trends, gather data, and analyze it to provide insights and recommendations for your business. This can all be put in a weekly or monthly report, too, as part of their duties.
Virtual assistants can help to present all this data in a digestible way, so that you can show business partners or investors recent reports on how your business is doing or why you have made recent business decisions on the go. Furthermore, virtual assistants can help businesses keep up with trends and competitors in an organized way.
In addition to reports, they can also use website or social media analytics to guide businesses to areas of improvement, examine whether their strategies are working, increase revenue, and improve visibility. By staying up to date, business owners can make data-driven, informed, and strategic decisions to stay ahead of the competition.
Customer Support
Virtual assistants can provide customer support through various channels, such as email, live chat, or phone. They can handle inquiries, resolve issues, and provide a positive customer experience, at your customer’s earliest convenience!
A virtual assistant can help your business deliver an outstanding customer experience and ensure customer satisfaction. They can also coordinate and monitor deliveries or shipments. This helps your business reach delivery deadlines.
Since they work closely with customers, virtual assistants are assets when it comes to customer feedback about your business’ products or services. They can relay customer pain points and help improve your product or service which helps your business become better – and closer to being the customer’s first choice. These are some duties of a virtual assistant when it comes to customer support.
Bookkeeping
Another duty that virtual assistants may have is processing and managing expenses. Virtual assistants can help you regularly track receipts and submit expense reports. Depending on their qualification, they could do more than bookkeeping.
Virtual assistants can also help you prepare future projections and how to use your budget. This is great for coming up with financial plans for your business and helps your business allocate resources where they will be best used.
Sales & Marketing
This is the most in-demand duty for virtual assistants. Virtual assistants can create and execute sales and marketing strategies. These usually include creating social media posts, content writing, blog management, email marketing, project management and managing leads. If qualified, they can even help out with web design and development.
Virtual assistants can generate marketing material for your products, promotions, and curate content and company news for your social media accounts. They can help you maintain a consistent content schedule and ensure high-quality content. Virtual assistants with sales and marketing experience are knowledgeable about social media and scheduling tools to help your brand maintain and expand their online presence.
This could also generate leads that your business can nurture. Moreover, virtual assistants can assist with project management tasks, such as setting deadlines, assigning tasks, and tracking progress. They can help ensure that projects are completed on time and within budget. Overall, virtual assistants can help your company engage with the audience, ensure a strong brand presence, and increase revenue.
What Are the Costs of Hiring a Virtual Assistant?
According to a recent report, it costs about USD 400/month on average to hire a virtual assistant worldwide. In the US, however, a virtual assistant could earn as much as USD 4,000/month. Currently, virtual assistants are usually paid hourly at an average rate of USD 15 to USD 30. These costs should be kept in mind when you are deciding on hiring a virtual assistant – especially whether your business needs a virtual assistant at all.
Once you have decided that you need a virtual assistant, you need to decide whether you’d like to hire one internationally, and whether they’d be on a contract or full-time basis. If you are hiring a contractor, you need to make sure you have all your paperwork, tax forms, contracts, and payroll done compliantly. You should also check if contractors are entitled to benefits and paid vacation time.
Potential clients looking to hire virtual assistants should keep in mind the types of duties virtual assistants perform. They can help them determine a budget for a virtual assistant salary and prepare an accurate job posting.
While many virtual assistants are freelancers or contractors, you can always convert them into full-time employees if you want to. In fact, 59% of virtual assistants in the US are full-time employees.
Where to Find Virtual Assistants?
Here are some ways you can find virtual assistants worldwide:
1. Virtual Assistant Companies
Some virtual assistants work for companies that specialize in providing virtual assistant services, such as Belay (US only), WishUp or Global Office Works. These companies typically have a team of assistants with different skill sets, allowing them to offer a wider range of services. You would hire the virtual assistant directly through one of these companies.
When you are going down this route, check what kind of services are being offered by the company, and compare prices. You should also do some research to see if this company has qualified virtual assistants and how they communicate. Testimonials are a great place to look at to evaluate the quality of work and the virtual assistant company itself. You can also book an initial consultation with these companies.
2. Work Marketplaces
You can also find virtual assistants on work marketplaces such as Upwork. This route requires less paperwork and is typically quicker since these marketplaces tend to take care of most things, even payment. They do, however, take a cut of the transaction – most up to 10%. If you are in a rush to hire a virtual assistant, this is a great way to hire one quickly. These marketplaces also help you hire internationally, if you are looking to hire beyond North America. Be sure to look at reviews, the services they offer, and how responsive they are!
3. Networking Sites
Networking sites like LinkedIn are also a great place to look for virtual assistants. You could upload a job posting, or actively reach out to people whose profiles fit your requirements for a virtual assistant. Be sure to set up a structured interview to get to know candidates and decide who is the best person for the job. You might also be surprised by who you may find in your own network!
4. Freelance Marketplace
With freelancing on the rise, there are many freelance marketplaces where you can find virtual assistants too. To date, about 47% of the global workforce are looking for freelance opportunities. Freelancing allows people to embrace the freedom to work on what they want when they want, which isn’t possible in traditional employment.
Contra is a freelance work platform that allows you to hire professionals on a freelance basis. There are other work-specific freelance work platforms such as Superpath for content marketing. Similar to work marketplaces, these platforms tend to take a cut but keep your hiring costs low and help you hire quickly.
5. Slack or Discord Communities
Lastly, you can try Slack or Discord Communities. There are many people looking for part-time, contract, full-time, or freelance opportunities in work-specific Slack or Discord communities. For example, for marketing, Superpath is a great Slack community to hire a virtual assistant for all your marketing needs. This route certainly requires more work in researching, posting, and vetting the potential candidate for your virtual assistant role. While this is time-consuming, you can find amazing talent!
What are the Benefits of a Virtual Assistant?
More Time
Time is an invaluable resource.Time can also be used as a measure of progress. By hiring a virtual assistant, business owners can have more time to plan and network strategically.
From keeping a close eye on your competition to observing the latest trends in your industry, you have more time to focus on what matters. As we’ve mentioned, businesses can save up to 40% of their time spent on administrative tasks when they hire a virtual assistant – that’s an incredible amount of time that can be better used to steer your business towards your vision.
Self-Care
Many small to medium-sized business owners are busy growing and improving their business. Almost 80% of these businesses have no employees, so the business owners themselves have to do everything – from administrative tasks to marketing, and more. In fact, nearly 72% spend their time on administrative tasks, followed by 70% on customer support, and 62% on project management, according to a survey by VistaPrint.
While it’s great to be busy, it’s also important to prioritize self-care. Take breaks, spend time with family, and delegate tasks to a virtual assistant. By prioritizing self-care you can remain focused, make good decisions, and truly show up for your customers.
Save Costs
In addition to increased downtime, hiring a virtual assistant also helps you save on costs. Experienced virtual assistants can help you streamline your business processes and help your business become more efficient and productive, especially when they have extensive experience in your industry or a similar industry. These skills can help cut up to 70% of your business costs and are worth the investment.
Some virtual assistants are so experienced and well-trained that they even have access to tools to execute these tasks, since this is something they are specialized in. Moreover, you don’t have to provide too much training or hand-holding, which saves time.
Knowledge Exchange
When you hire experienced virtual assistants, you could also be the one learning! As we’ve mentioned – they could have access to tools and developed skills that you didn’t know your business needed. They can also offer insight into different business strategies from businesses they’ve supported before.
If you are hiring a freelance virtual assistant, they also have an entrepreneurial mindset to build demand for their service. This could translate into great marketing skills that you can learn from for your own business as well. If you’re a business owner with a growth mindset, this is certainly another benefit of hiring a virtual assistant. We’re all learning!
Hire a Virtual Assistant with Borderless
Virtual assistants can be valuable assets for businesses of all sizes. Whether you need help with administrative tasks, customer support, social media management, content creation, research, or project management, virtual assistants can provide the support you need to streamline your operations and increase productivity.
Consider hiring a virtual assistant to help your business thrive in today's fast-paced digital world with Borderless. We help businesses like yours manage global payroll, team hiring, and tackle international hiring tasks that empower your growth worldwide. Talk to Borderless today.
Disclaimer
Borderless does not provide legal services or legal advice to anyone. This includes customers, contractors, employees, partners, and the general public. We are not lawyers or paralegals. Please read our full disclaimer here.
