Small Business Answers

A small business with limited resources learns, after awhile, that small administrative tasks are a pain. Just little day-to-day activities, clearing out the inbox, can eat up day after day. If you own a small business, and you even have an inbox to start with, you’re already in trouble. Dealing with minor, petty tasks is something that somebody else should be handling, while you devote your time to making the big decisions. The captain of the ship belongs at the mast giving out orders, not mopping out the cabins.

This is where a virtual assistant can come in handy. After all, you outsource your other tasks like your accounting and advertising. You can also outsource your clerical and administrative support tasks to a virtual assistant. A virtual assistant (also called a VA) is an independent contractor who works from his or her own home or office space. Soft of a “freelance middle manager”, a virtual assistant works through technology like email, telephone, fax machines, postal mail and courier services. They can work for you on an hourly basis, project basis or on a monthly retainer basis.

Now, this isn’t to say that everybody’s going to need one. For example, the notorious scam politician, Ron Paul, ruined his own campaign with a bevy of virtual assistants. His minions spammed, flooded, harassed, and threatened on every web site they could find in 2007, and he paid for it by not even getting the nomination. But a virtual assistant, if properly applied, can save you steps in your day-to-day business dealings.

Some of the reason various mid-sized businesses’ reasons for using a virtual assistant are that they save time, can pay only for work they need completed, can reduce costs by not keeping managers full-time, no need to train staff, and having backup emergency support.

VAs can work online through a web service. Anything that you can delegate online, a VA can handle it. In addition to other human-sourcing solutions such as a temp office worker or a secretary, a VA can act as one more important piece on the great chessboard of business.

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