By: Braveen Kumar
When you’re starting out with your business, you’re doing it all: fulfilling orders, responding to customers, managing your social media, and so much more.
But while we pursue entrepreneurship for many reasons, having less time in our lives isn’t one of them.
That’s why the first “employee” many ecommerce entrepreneurs hire is a virtual assistant: someone who can take on the daily tasks and processes that are important for running your business, but not necessarily focused on growing it.
A virtual assistant is like having an extra pair of hands without hiring an actual employee. If you’re experiencing stress and the other “good problems” that come with success, it might be time for you to consider hiring your own virtual assistant and get back some of those hours in your day.
What is a Virtual Assistant (VA)?
A virtual assistant (VA) is a remote assistant that handles mostly online tasks. They can operate anywhere in the world, have multiple clients, and can be hired to take on a variety of your day-to-day tasks.
A virtual assistant is a common "first hire" for many entrepreneurs, especially amongst online businesses, who don't have the budget for a full-time employee or the time to continue doing everything themselves.
The difference between a VA and a freelancer or a traditional employee is that VAs are resourceful generalists (sometimes competent in areas like marketing communications or design) who perform tasks or routines rather than owning an entire function of your business.
And while they aren't permanent employees, they offer an affordable way to get ongoing help running your business without any of the additional expenses of hiring a full-time person (plus their services as a contractor are often tax deductible).
A virtual assistant won’t build your entire website, but they might help you manage parts of your store. They probably won’t write and manage all your content, but they might help you with research. They shouldn't take on an entire function of your business, but rather own a specific process or part of the whole machine.
Giving up control can be hard for entrepreneurs, and so taking on a VA is the perfect way to practice the soft skills of managing, delegating, and hiring on a smaller scale—all of which are essential to being a good leader.
What Can You Outsource to a Virtual Assistant?
While virtual assistants often do a lot of administrative tasks, you can also hire them to perform roles ranging from sales to social media management (if you give them clear guidelines and instructions).
If it’s a repetitive routine, you can probably hand it off to a VA. If you can write down a tedious process on paper, you can probably teach your VA how to do it for you.
As long as the tasks or processes are something a reasonably intelligent and resourceful person can accomplish when given clear instructions, you can probably get a virtual assistant to take them on.
Read More >> https://www.shopify.com/blog/how-to-hire-virtual-assistant-services
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