Wondering whether you can afford one more employee? Why not consider a Virtual Assistant for those duties you need performed?
With the help from a writer I invited to share with my readers,
Let’s compare cost differences between the two…
Here you are the entrepreneur with a business that is nicely taking off with the grace of an eagle … Your dream is now a reality. Your agenda is now overflowing with meetings, you are working 50 hours PLUS per week, paperwork is piling up, and you’re about to lose your mind!
The amount of work you have at hand is not only keeping you up at night, but also prevent you from playing golf with the boys next weekend or getting your nails done with the girls. So congratulations, you have just posted your new “help wanted” ad for a full time administrative position.
So, what are your options? Well, you can hire full time help, outsource your work to a Virtual Assistant, or keep doing the administrative work yourself!
Making the decision to hire full/part time help is the traditional way, but does it mean that this is your best choice? Do you really know what you are paying for?
Based on surveys done by Salary.com and America Online, the average base salary for an administrative assistant in the United States is $39,795.00 per year, or $19.13 calculated on an 8 hour per workday.
Again, from these surveys, workers admit to wasting an average of 1.15 hours per workday, which adds up to $5,720 per year, per worker in wasted salary dollars. You could have re-invested that money into your business!
In other words, if you hire an assistant at $39,795.00 per year, you can expect to loose $5,720 per year on wasted time!
Your second option is outsourcing your administrative work to a Virtual Assistant.
Now, what is a Virtual assistant, and how can she or he help you?
First and foremost, a virtual assistant is NOT an employee, but rather a self-employed professional that offers administrative support services from her or his own home office.
A virtual assistant is a full time partner that has a vested interest in the growth of your business and will work in collaboration with you towards the success of your company!
When you outsource to a virtual assistant you only pay for the work contracted out and not for idle time frittered away at your expense! How much will that cost you? Rates usually vary between $20.00 and $45.00 per hour, depending on the expertise required and the project at hand.
In addition, because you are outsourcing your work, you are saving on the following: payments made to Medicare, workers comp, administrative costs, recruitment, base salary, benefits, office space and furnishings, equipment, etc.
On the other hand, if you would still rather do the administrative work yourself, let us examine if your rate of return is really worth it.
You contract your services at a price of $150.00 per hour, and, in this past week, you have spent 5 hours of your precious time doing routine work at the office.
In other words, you just lost $750.00 doing the work by yourself.
Now, if you would outsource your work to a Virtual Assistant, let’s say at a medium price of $35.00 per hour, your cost would be $175.00 and you would realize a savings of $575.00.
All and all the decision seems simple to me. Which would you rather do? Hire full time help, and pay for wasted time and equipment? Keep on doing the work yourself and lose money and marketing time for your business, or maybe take the proven and affordable route of outsourcing your work and hiring a Virtual Assistant.
Remember a Virtual Assistant is a professional that will work with you… A Virtual Assistant is a collaborative partner, and his or her success is measured by your success!
thanks for letting me use this article, Alba Figueroa
inpro-va.com
So, what CAN a Virtual Assistant do for YOU? Your Virtual Assistant can do any number of office tasks which can be sent to her or him via emails, uploaded to a web host, downloaded from your site / blog / webinar or other means and do it all from her or his home office.
Some of the duties that I can perform for you are:
Proofreading your document, book, report, sales message, email communication, web site or blog or any other item that you need checked for grammar and spelling and word usage errors.
Editing those errors and changing the word or phrase or spelling, etc. as needed to make your written item as perfect as possible.
Transcription which is a typed up document of your webinar, interview or any other spoken / audio file.
( with MY transcription service, you get FREE proofreading and editing thrown in! )
Data Back-Up so that in case of computer info loss due to crash, virus or other catastrophe or because you just want to have all of your important data stored on cd’s, dvd’s and/or stored on another computer, your important and valuable downloads, reports, files, etc. will be safely stored elsewhere for you.
Customer Support which can be your own help desk type set up or customer service, run by a virtual staff.
Social Networking Help to help you manage your growing social networks with maintenance and updates plus doing searches with your criteria on who and what you want to be networking with and for.
Blogging Maintenance for updating, proofreading and editing and other tasks to do with your blog and then making sure it is seen and the updates are announced in various mediums.
And various assorted duties that can be worked out between us by my asking you to email me to Schedule a Project or let me know what you are looking for in a Virtual Assistant.
Why not check out my rates and feel free to read my testimonials from happy clients and I am sure we can work something out!
To your success!
Jan Tallent
Tallent Agency Virtual Assistance
