Why it makes sense to hire a professional
Some business people think it’s cheaper to hire a high school student to come into their office and do their email campaigns and other admin tasks. I’d like to present one example of why it sometimes can be a false economy.
I had a call this week from a lady who owns a little store who was totally panicked. She had hired high school students to do office work for her while she was out front selling. She trusted them to do their jobs and found out that her mail campaigns hadn’t been going out, that when they were sending messages, they were taking a very long time to send them out.
After a short conversation I was able to calm her down and offer her a solution to her problem. I gave her a service to sign up for an account to send email campaigns and when she gets her account set up, she’ll be forwarding me the information to import her list into the mail service and send out her email blast.
Sometimes it is more cost effective to pay a little more to someone who is experienced and professional versus an inexperienced high school student. This is one of them.
Some thoughts on Selecting a Virtual Assistant
I keep seeing blogs and articles in Google News Alerts about starting a virtual assistant business. They talk about how if you have a home computer, you can be a VA.
This concerns me, especially around areas of confidentiality. If you are looking for a virtual assistant, this should be one of your main questions to a prospective service provider, “what procedures do you take to ensure confidentiality of my data?”. The computer is a big one. Is the computer only used by the VA or is it a shared family computer in the kitchen or dining room? Do the Virtual Assistant’s children (and their friends) have access to it for games, surfing and Facebook activities?
For example, Prime Admin Solutions does the following:
- My computer is password protected and only I know the password.
- Our internet connection is protected by a firewall.
- I have a locked shredding box and only I know where the key is (many VAs like to say they are paperless, I readily admit that I am not, I don’t feel that you can proofread properly on screen, and when I receive instructions by email, I like to be able to print them off to check off and refer to while I’m working, saves time from switching between my email program and back to my work).
- My office is in a room of my house that is only used for my business.
- Only I have access to my computer.
- Does the VA take his/her laptop to a wireless hotspot to do your work or is it done at home?
Just a few things to consider when you are looking for a Virtual Assistant.
Is your recipe for success missing a key ingredient?
I love to cook. I know that if you add too much of one ingredient and not enough of another, a recipe will not turn out as expected. For example, if you make a loaf of bread and add too much flour and not enough yeast, you’ll end up with a lump of baked dough that didn’t rise well.
Compare your business to a loaf of bread. You spend lots of time on your document formatting reports, fancying up your PowerPoint presentations and even compiling the evaluation forms from a session you facilitated. That’s the flour. You get so caught up doing these things yourself that you miss out on networking and other business building opportunities or doing the more lucrative work that you excel at (and has a higher dollar value per hour). That’s the yeast.
Knowing when to delegate is another key ingredient to your business success. Everyone’s time has a value. Chances are, your time is worth more than the cost of outsourcing your admin tasks to a virtual assistant. You may even be able to build those costs into the rates you charge your clients. Writing a report and getting it typed up in the rough and then handing it off to a virtual assistant to polish for you also allows you to move on to other client work. You are able to satisfy two clients’ needs instead of just one. What could be better.
If you’d like to make Prime Admin Solutions one of the key ingredients for your business succes, contact me today.
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