10 Signs You Need A Virtual Assistant Right Now

 

Signs You Need A Virtual Assistant Right Now

 

Sometimes as a business owner, it can be tricky to see the signs you need a virtual assistant, and you plough on regardless.

By keeping the same work habits, you become increasingly stressed, which means you don’t think constructively and miss all the signs you need a virtual assistant.

Hiring a virtual assistant to deal with time-consuming administrative tasks will help alleviate the additional stress you feel, which often spills over into your personal life.

An excellent virtual assistant will not only prove to be a good stress releaser, but they often enhance the overall productivity of your business.

This article points out ten things to look out for that are clear signs you need a virtual assistant.

10 Reasons To Make Your Life Easier

1 – Deadline Often Slip

As a small business owner, it is easy to get carried away with wanting to take care of every aspect of your business.

However, this is a slippery slope and will eventually have an adverse effect on your business. A particular stress level is good to get the adrenaline pumping, but as soon as you see deadlines slipping, it is time to take action.

Many business owners leave it too late to start delegating tasks which means they have already neglected their core business. Sometimes it is hard to get back on track when this happens.

Avoid spending countless hours organising files and even more of your hours dealing with social media accounts and other operational tasks.

When you hire a virtual assistant to do those much-valued but time-consuming routine tasks, missing deadlines can be avoided.

And virtual assistants can be responsible for scheduling meetings, so you will never miss deadlines or appointments.

2 – Admin Tasks Have Taken Over

The more clients your business has, the more administrative tasks you have to handle.

When you had just a few clients, you could make them feel important because you had the time to meet deadlines, spend a few hours on admin work, and enough hours to wine and dine your clients.

However, when you have more clients, the admin work can take priority over the client, which should never be the case.

Hiring a virtual assistant to deal with all the admin allows you to spend some of your valuable time entertaining your clients.

At some stage, all businesses must pay someone to take care of their admin work. So it shouldn’t be viewed as a negative.

3 – Major Time Consuming Work

Business owners wear many hats, so they don’t often notice when they spend time on specific tasks that a virtual assistant could quickly do.

As your business grows, so do the demands on your time.

It is time-consuming, not just the general admin work like email management. In addition, specific tasks involving your social media channels can eat away at your valuable time.

When you were a new start-up company, you had enough time to deal with your social media channels, but as your company grows, anything to do with social media could be dealt with by virtual assistants.

A whole range of other work is time-consuming, such as marketing, blog and podcast creation, and customer care.

Hiring a virtual assistant or executive assistant allows you to explore new opportunities to attract new customers while still looking after your existing ones.

4 – Missed New Client Opportunities

Entrepreneurs should always be spending time looking for new opportunities and looking at ways they attract new customers.

However, they focus so much time on the administration side of their business that they miss out on so many opportunities.

Once a business misses a potential customer due to not spending enough time explaining what their product or service can offer a customer, then your business slowly starts to lose credibility.

It doesn’t matter how big your business is. You can’t afford to miss too many opportunities to gain new customers.

The business owner can only handle specific tasks, like dealing with your biggest spending customer to make sure they feel valued. You will soon see negative results if you spend more hours on admin than on networking.

As an entrepreneur, you must always see the big picture concerning looking after your customers and ensuring they enjoy an outstanding level of service.

5 – Customers Are Leaving

One of the things you should dread most is customers leaving because they don’t feel valued and appreciated. Apart from the impact on sales, this has also impacted the overall credibility of your company.

Customers typically leave if they feel you are providing a poor product or service. It is therefore essential to look after your customers by delivering excellent after-sales care.

If you are constantly stressed, then you will not be spending too much time making sure your customers are satisfied.

When you hire a virtual assistant, you can make it one of their tasks to send out customer support emails to ensure they are happy.

Not doing this simple task can make the customer feel that they didn’t receive the level of support they were promised.

This could be enough for some customers not to return to your business.

6 – Client Referrals Have Dried Up

Positive word of mouth still plays a vital part in business. But, unfortunately, all the marketing campaigns your company does will still not prove as effective as a positive recommendation by an existing customer.

Human nature dictates that we like to get recommendations from people we know and trust. Therefore, if your customers are not happy to refer your business to their family, friends, and the wider community, you must be doing something wrong.

People often get annoyed when they can tell a level of customer service has dropped off each time they have used your business.

Customers enjoy feeling important, and if they don’t feel as important as when they were new customers, then there is no way they will give a positive referral of your service to their family and friends.

Sometimes it is the job of a full-time employee to make the customer feel special, but because they have so much admin work to do, they forget that the customer’s needs come first.

Virtual assistants can prove invaluable, as they can take the admin workload off your full-time employees and save time for them to deal with clients face-to-face.

7 – No Free Time For Hobbies

As an entrepreneur, it can be easy to fall into the trap of focusing too much on your business and not enough on yourself.

Trying to do everything yourself is a common problem that all business owners are guilty of, especially when they open their businesses.

Even when your business grows, allowing your staff to manage areas where they have the expertise can be challenging.

Not allowing your team to do the job you employ them to do will soon become a problem. Likewise, not allowing yourself free time to concentrate on your much-loved hobbies will have an adverse effect on you as a person, both in your business life and your personal life.

Having hobbies outside your working life is essential as it allows you to switch off and recharge in a positive way.

8 – Lack Of Family Work-Life Balance

If you start to notice you lack a work-life balance, you need to change the situation as soon as possible.

Hiring virtual assistants can help you improve your work-life balance, which allows you to spend more time with your family and friends.

You may find that you only need to hire a virtual assistant part-time to start with, but the hours you save will help you concentrate more on your family.

Running a successful business helps you provide for your family by having a lovely home, that car you have always dreamed of, and going on family holidays.

However, having all these things can prove pointless if you cannot fully enjoy the fruits of your labour, so it is essential to strike the right work-life balance.

9 – Health Issues Increase

Entrepreneurs are well known for having stress-related health issues that they ignore because, yes, you guessed it, they are too stressed to notice.

Every business owner wants success for their company, but that should never be at the expense of your general health and mental well-being.

If your family and friends notice the signs that you are letting your work life take over every minute of your day and you are becoming more agitated and snappy, then you need to listen to them.

For example, not going to the gym or the swimming pool because you are too busy with work will negatively impact your health.

It may sound a bit far-fetched, but when you decide to hire a virtual assistant, you could get them to schedule your appointments around your time in the pool or gym.

Allowing your virtual assistant to work your exercise time into your weekly calendar will keep you refreshed, and you will soon see health and business benefits.

10 – Constant Burn out

A common trend in all entrepreneurs is that they are in a constant state of stress. When you feel like this, you must realise it is time to offload some of that pressure onto your workforce.

A successful business has a workforce that works well together as a team. If you cannot manage to trust your team to look after aspects of your company, then don’t be shocked when you completely burn out.

Yes, money and success are great and something we all crave, but they should not come at the cost of your health, friendships, and family life.

True success is achieving a happy balance, so you can enjoy the benefits your hard work provides.

Call Us For A Free Consultation

As you can see, avoiding the many personal pitfalls you can sometimes ignore while running your business is paramount.

If you want your business to grow and have sustainable success, you need to hire correctly in the right areas to concentrate on your core business and family life.

Hiring a virtual assistant or executive assistant is the way forward. Call us today to get a free consultation on how we can help.

We will find you the perfect fit, hire, train and manage them if required.

Take your business to the next level today! ENQUIRE NOW

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