The Real Reason You Need A Virtual Assistant: It’s Not What You Think
Most business owners hire a virtual assistant because they desperately need to relieve themselves from the demands of their daily operations so they can spend more time on business growth and development. During our discovery calls, we get requests from busy business owners who need virtual assistants that can help with social media management, scheduling, research, content creation, project management, onboarding, inbox management, customer outreach, file organization, billing, bookkeeping, blog writing, editing, CRM management, and the list goes on and on.
As Sparent grew, and we got busy satisfying those needs, clients started sharing with us some of the things they valued most about working with their Sparent virtual assistants. We were surprised to learn, that, more often than not, what they valued most about their virtual assistant had little to do with their initial reason for needing a Sparent virtual assistant. We now consider those once overlooked needs and hold these bonus benefits in high regard when hiring virtual assistants and onboarding new clients.
Seven Secret Benefits Of Working With A Virtual Assistant:
An Accountability Partner
Being a business owner is often a solo sport so being accountable to someone other than yourself can be exactly what you need to maintain momentum as you grow and develop your business. We recommend using a project management tool such as Trello or Asana so your virtual assistant can create timelines to track your business development projects and check in with you on a regular basis to keep you on task.
A Collaborator and Sounding Board
As business owners, we have a gazillion thoughts and ideas swirling around in our head at all times. Filtering those thoughts, getting those ideas out of our head, and discarding the rubbish can be a challenge without a collaborator who can listen, document, and distill your best ideas . A virtual assistant can act as your sounding board and collaborator as you are developing new offerings, creating systems, and brainstorming ideas. Your VA can also document these conversations and work with you to prioritize items, organize tasking, and help with implementation.
Urgency To Get SOPs In Place
Standard Operating Procedures are the backbone of a scalable business. However, even with all their business benefits, nobody likes writing them, and business owners tend to procrastinate on getting them done. Once you start delegating, the need for SOPs becomes more urgent because they will be needed for a smooth onboarding and training of your new team member. Your virtual assistant can also help document your SOPs if you create a screen share video of the task first. We use Loom at Sparent.
Someone To Call You Out On Bad Systems and Business Inefficiencies
As your virtual assistant gets entrenched in your business, and intimate with your systems, they will be able to recognize clunky systems and help you identify and fix inefficiencies in your business. Every business can improve upon their systems and doing so will make your business more efficient and profitable. It will also make sure your virtual assistant and other team members are spending their time on more impactful work.
A Gatekeeper & Boundary Guard
Business owners are often bottlenecked by their inbox and other communication channels. Your virtual assistant can be your gatekeeper for your communications by monitoring your communication channels, responding to routine questions and requests, and notifying you of anything urgent or important. This will free up valuable time and headspace and is most likely the one thing that keeps you from enjoying days off and vacations. We’ve had clients give access to their inbox and communication channels to their virtual assistant and sometimes it makes more sense to “white label” their virtual assistant by giving them their own company email address where communication is directed.
It is easy to create boundaries, but enforcing them is more difficult. By having a virtual assistant on the front lines of communications, you don’t have to get sucked into scheduling calls that turn into consultations, or be put in an uncomfortable position—you have someone skilled at guarding your professional boundaries now.
CEO Mindset & Leadership Development
As a solopreneur, it is easy to fall into the mindset of an employee. Your clients become your boss and you work to keep them happy while also juggling the day-to-day operations of your business. Since you are responsible for all aspects of your business, if you don’t delegate as you grow, you will find that you’ve DIY’d yourself a bad job, instead of a business.
Embracing your role as the CEO of your company begins with delegation because delegating allows you to free up your time to work on your business rather than IN it. Delegating to a virtual assistant exercises and develops your leadership skills as you build a successful team. Your team member is going to need training, feedback, empathy, honesty, and excellent communication. These skills will serve you well as you build a stellar team and a scalable company.
Falling Back In Love With Your Business
Business owners with growing businesses often find themselves enjoying their business less and less as their working hours continue to increase and the work they love gets crowded out by the administrative demands of their business. When we have a client that has lost the love for their business, we immediately pinpoint the tasks that they absolutely dread, and come up with a plan to delegate them to their virtual assistant immediately. Don’t dread it, delegate it!