How Can a VA Help You Grow Your Business?

When you start up a business – through necessity – you often find yourself having to wear many hats! It’s great in some ways, as it gives you a chance to get an overall look at the business and where you want it to go; but very quickly, due to an increase in demand, you reach your workload capacity. There is then a difficult decision to make: if you continue to expand your client base, you’re less likely to have time to dedicate to the back-office chores keeping your business afloat, but if you don’t, how are you supposed to grow your business?

Below, I’ve detailed a few points which I hope will help you to understand why hiring a VA can benefit you and, in turn, help you grow your business into the success you want it to be.

Turnover

When starting in business, it’s unlikely that there is an endless supply of cash (as much as we wish that there was!). To keep costs down, you have to don many different hats, marketeer, salesperson, bookkeeper, admin guru etc. Generally, these are the jobs that are needed to be done, but you don’t earn any money doing them. I’ve heard it many times from start-up business owners “We can’t afford to take on a VA”, but is that a reality?

For start-up businesses, it probably is. In the beginning, you’re more likely to have the time available to work on the back-office chores, but what about when your business starts to take off and your time is taken up more and more? You want to spend your time doing what you love and increase your turnover. Maybe this is the point where you consider investing in a VA? I ask the question; how much is your time worth? If, for example, you’re charging your clients £40 per hour for your services and you spend half a day each week (4 hours) keeping up to date on your admin, you are losing out on £160. If you employ a VA and pay them (the average) £25 per hour to do the same admin work during those 4 hours, you end up making £60 per week.

As a VA is self-employed – and often works remotely – you don’t have any tax, national insurance or pensions to pay for or office space to find. Plus, you only pay them when they are working for you. To begin with, you might only need a couple of hours per month. As your business grows, you can ask them if they can take on more hours for you. It works the other way around too. If you suddenly find yourself with a dip in business, you can look to decrease the hours (as long as you give them a warning). Looking at the finances like this, should the question be: can you afford not to take on a VA?

Productivity

As a start-up, you spend your time bringing in new clients. Once you have new clients, you spend your time fulfilling their needs. If we refer back to point one – and use the example of you spending 4 hours per week working on your admin, it’s 4 hours less you spend with your clients doing what you do best and enjoy. You may decide to catch up at night or weekends; this keeps the costs down, but it does make you tired, less productive and at risk of burnout.

Whatever the reason for starting your own business, I can bet that it wasn’t to do admin jobs that you don’t enjoy or spend less time with your family and friends? A good work-life balance is a priority, especially to help your productivity. Employing the services of a VA and outsourcing those tasks that you don’t personally enjoy doing allows you to spend your time more effectively within your business. A VA can also allow you to have the time to recharge your batteries, keeping you focused on what you do best.

Organisation

As your business grows, the need to keep on top of everything becomes more important. If you’re an organised person, that’s great – but as the business grows, even the most organised of people can run into problems. For example, when I started my business, my bookkeeping was exemplary. The invoices and receipts were recorded and filed, and the cashbook was kept up to date every month. The busier I became – and the more my focus moved to my clients, I soon found that my bookkeeping took a back seat. (For those wondering how I cope these days, I have a colleague who takes care of it, as well as helping with the clients).

Outsourcing to a VA often takes away the angst of juggling too many jobs at once – especially if the VA has a specialism. VA’s can specialise in social media, bookkeeping, proofreading, content writing and much more. The question isn’t what does a VA do? Rather, it’s what can’t a VA do? A good VA can be worth their weight in gold as they often work with many different clients requiring different needs. Good organisation is key to a VA maintaining its own successful business. In turn, a VA can help you free up your time, allowing you to organise how you want to grow your business – safe in the knowledge that your admin chores are in very capable hands.

Partnership

VAs often work with multiple clients from a variety of industries. This benefits your business as the VA has access to and knowledge of a variety of tools and apps to support your business. They may also be part of a wider networking circle which means they have access to a wealth of knowledge. Working with a VA to help you grow your business, you develop a strong working relationship – a partnership if you like. Your VA becomes invested in your business – after all, it’s in a VA’s interest for your business to succeed.

I became a VA as I wanted to help people. One of the best parts of the job is knowing a client is happy following the assistance I’ve provided. When I take on a new client, I make sure I learn about them and their business. This way, I hope to become a part of their team, and they certainly become a part of ours. By developing a partnership, I can use my knowledge and expertise – not just to ease the stress of the admin/finances that needs to be done – to look at how I might help them move forward and grow. My clients know they can rely on me to do my best for them; this has built trust between us, and in many cases, we’ve become a true partnership.

Conclusion

After reading this, some people will remain sceptical about hiring a VA. After all, the administration isn’t that hard – everyone can do it, right? Let’s look at that thought. On the one hand, it is true: we can all do some of our admin, bookkeeping, web design, marketing etc., but we’re not experts, and it will take us longer to complete. It’s a bit like when a washing machine breaks down: yes, we could probably google how to fix it, but if we do, it could take a day or more to get the machine working again. Whereas, if we call out the experts, it may take an hour or so, and at least you’ll know it should be right, and you even get some recall if it’s not.

Hiring a VA is just like that: we’re all experts in our field. Some VAs are more specialised in the services they offer, or, like the team here at Preston PA Services, we complement each other’s skill set, allowing us to offer a wider range of services. We care about our clients and their business. We help to take away the pressure of having to complete the essential admin – in turn, helping you grow your business.