Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is a Virtual Assistant?
A: A virtual assistant is someone that supports a small business owner
without physically being located in the same office. A virtual
assistant provides administrative services while maintaining a
collaborative, long-term relationship with the small business owner.
Q: Why would a Virtual Assistant be good for
me?
A: A virtual assistant would be good for you and your business if you
need someone to handle your day-to-day administrative tasks, even though
they're not in the next room.
Q: Wouldn't it be better to hire a temporary
employee or just do the work myself?
A: You can hire a temporary worker if you do not need a partner to be
involved in your business. Temporary workers will still need your
office space and equipment to do the work.
Q: Isn't it more expensive than hiring an employee?
A: No. The cost savings is two-fold: financial and emotional.
When you hire an employee, you have the costs of salary, benefits, the cost to administer salary and benefits, the expense of buying or leasing equipment, furniture, etc, and you have to share space as well. Each Virtual Assistant sets his/her own fees which could be on a pay-as-you-go structure, or a retainer (set number of hours per month for a set fee). Your VA's time is 100% productive time -- you don't pay for a second of downtime or break-time.
Q: What kinds of work might my VA do?
A: The great thing about this work is that the only things that can't be
done are things which actually need to be touched in your office - such
as paper filing. Otherwise, you and your VA are only bound by
imagination , need, skills and desire.
Some things VAs are known to do:
- Handle email or US mail
- Make appointments, keep a schedule
- Make/receive phones calls/inquiries
- Fax/receive faxes
- Research of all sorts
- Plan meetings and events
- Plan events (business and personal)
- Writing
- Proofreading
- Desktop publishing
- Newsletter publishing
- Coordination of web design/hosting
- Mailing
- Buy gifts/cards for customers of clients
- the list goes on.....
It's not so important that your VA knows how to do it all. What's important is that she knows how to get it all done.
Q: How much can I really expect to pay?
A: VAs are in private practice, and they price their services according
to their skills, their desire to do certain kinds of work, their
experience and their reputation. You really need to speak with a
VA, share your ideas and the vision for your success, and ask what it
might cost to have him or her be a part of that.
Generally speaking, however, you can expect to pay $30-$70 plus, per hour. It depends on your needs, and the VA you partner with.
Q: That cost seems higher than hiring an
employee! I wouldn't pay an employee $30 per hour!
A: Not in straight time, perhaps. You are more likely to pay
someone with this level of skills between $17 and $20 per hour if there
were sitting in your office. However, when you add the cost of
administering payroll, your share of payroll taxes, having to pay
certain kinds of insurance like worker's compensation and extra
liability for having someone in your home or place of business, and the
cost of making sure that your location conforms to federal guidelines
such as OSHA, you absolutely *do* pay that much per hour. And the
more skilled and talented a worker, the more her time is worth and the
higher her fee.
Q: Does Virtual Assistance work better for
any particular type of person or professional?
A: The only people who really aren't in a good position to work with a
Virtual Assistant are:
- People who aren't online and who can't understand why this would work;
- People who live in the urgent:
If everything you do is last minute, if your style is to procrastinate and then rush to deadline, if you're not organized and centered, if you're in a high-pressure field where things run you instead of the other way around, if you want someone at your beck and call, you probably need an in-house assistant, not a VA.
- People who don't understand the power created in a relationship with a fantastic assistant;
- People who aren't open to learning new ways of working and communicating;
- People who aren't billing their own time at considerably more than $30/hour.
- People who can't shift to seeing a VA as an equal.
If you would like more information, please send a request to: info@executivesolutionsva.com.