As an entrepreneur or business owner, you might not be aware of just how much value a virtual secretary service can add to your business. Of course, you know firsthand just how many demands there are on your time every day – and when you’re bootstrapping a startup, that’s part of the deal. You understand that to make it through the critical early formation phase of a business, you need to hang tough. Resilience and perseverance are, afterall, essential qualities for entrepreneurial success.
But there comes a point – usually quite quickly – where it makes total sense to offload some of the frustrating and time-consuming admin tasks, and to elevate your business by engaging a virtual secretary service.
Why is a Virtual Secretary Service Such a Good Idea?
Getting a virtual secretary is about more than just having someone available to act as a friendly, customer-facing representative of your company. It’s about smart business strategy, because a virtual secretary is so much more than that.
Here are just some of the functions that a virtual secretary service can perform for your business:
- Taking and placing calls for you. This is an obvious one, but it relieves you of hours of unnecessary phone time every month. Customer queries, requests for appointments or information, following up on suppliers and deliveries, making bookings, and much more.
- Managing your calendar. Appointments, meetings, feedback sessions, even key birthdays, or events: these are all things that take up real estate in your brain when you’re trying to concentrate on growing your business.
- Basic bookkeeping. Expense records, capturing receipts, and ensuring nothing falls through the cracks. These are small and incidental daily tasks, but you know firsthand just how time-consuming they can be.
- Email screening (or even complete email management). Email is the #1 time and attention vampire in most businesses – and having someone who can reduce the load is priceless.
Versatile Talent
- Social media monitoring. Again, for most businesses (and especially startups), social media can be the lifeblood of your business. It’s a free marketing tool, it offers you fantastic visibility as you build up your customer base, and it gives you great analytics. But, of course, there’s also a downside: you’re in the public eye, and a careless or misplaced social media post could have disastrous consequences. And if you don’t have time to continually check in or handle constant customer activity, then perhaps it’s time to consider making use of a virtual secretary service.
- Handling & tracking documentation. A virtual secretary will be highly organized and is skilled at making those administrative and bureaucratic headaches a thing of the past.
- A common point of contact. You might be used to being the common point of contact for your business, and it’s not always fun and games. Customers demand your time, staff or colleagues demand your time, and business collaborators (investors, delivery services, that accountant, your website designer) demand your time. By having someone else as the point of contact, you get to decide how and when you’re available.
Why Not Just Hire a Regular Secretary?
You may be thinking of simply hiring a regular secretary, especially if you’re in a brick-and-mortar business. After all, at first glance, it would seem to make sense. You have someone right there, which surely means they’re easier to manage and to communicate with.
Take a moment, though, and think about it.
An Employee Costs More Than You Think
As tempting as it might be, it doesn’t always make sense to hire a fulltime employee. Here’s why:
- You’re paying someone for their time, and not necessarily for their skill. Which do you want?
- Unless you’re prepared to pay top dollar, you’re going to have to provide training. Training costs time, and time is money.
- Now, you’re going to have to attend to things like taxes, time off, office furniture and other expenses, payroll costs, and more.
If you’re a startup or a small business still gaining stability, these are factors that can be a drain on your business resources, rather than adding value.
Benefits of a Virtual Secretary Service
So, if a full-time employee might not be your best option, what are you getting with a virtual secretary? As it turns out, a lot more than you might think:
- An existing skill set. Someone in the virtual secretary space will already have a good grasp of the skills and functions required. And, if they’re sourced through a reputable Virtual Assistance agency like MYVA360, you can be absolutely assured your VA is the one most closely aligned with your type of business or industry.
- A virtual secretary has often had exposure to a range of different businesses and norms. And brings that experience and confidence to your business, too.
- Results-driven. A virtual secretary is focused on fulfilling tasks. They are not watching the clock, or being occupied with office politics and other distractions.
- Much lower cost to company. There’s no physical on boarding process, no registration for taxes and retirement schemes, no health insurance, no complex payroll issues, and no physical space or equipment to purchase.
- Self-motivation. A virtual secretary is always looking at opportunities to gain a higher level of skill and knowledge. Why? Because it’s a competitive marketplace, and a higher skill level means you’re in greater demand.
- Time fluidity. Depending on your situation and requirements, a virtual secretary service can accommodate fluctuations in demand. For example, accessibility for work during times where a normal employee may not be available to assist.
A Smart Solution To Scaling
If you’re an entrepreneur starting a new business venture, you’ll inevitably encounter the point at which you need more help. But might not have the financial resources to take on another full time employee. You might also be in a position where you’re still figuring out your leadership role and skills. This is where it may be more practical to have collaborative assistance.
Why is this important? Because in any business, a common obstacles to growth is a phenomenon known as founder dependence or owner dependence. In other words, your business relies entirely on your knowledge or activity to function. It’s serious enough that continued founder dependence can even reduce the value of your company.
Working with a virtual secretary service provides you with a great opportunity to create clear operating procedures. These should be easy to follow. And can then be replicated across the rest of your company as your business grows.
Ready to Delegate?
Making use of a virtual secretary service is one of the most effective ways of leveraging your time. As well as reducing your workload,to level up your business. Apart from providing your customers with a more positive and professional impression, it’s surprisingly affordable, too.
Book a discovery call with us today – and see how a virtual secretary service can add value to your business.
