Cost Savings For Your Small Business : Virtual Office Assistant
Virtual Office Assistant = Cost Savings For Your Small Business
By Gayle Buske, President and CEO, Team Double-Click®
In today’s economy small businesses are looking for new and innovative ways to cut costs yet still maintain their day to day business activities.
Many small businesses, self-employed individuals, and even large corporations are turning to a virtual office assistant to stay on top of administrative tasks while eliminating the need to fund a full-time staff. As USA Today wrote, “The savings come from being able to concentrate efforts on building the business instead of balancing the checkbook and typing envelopes.”
Your time and money are worth more when you are able to concentrate on what you do best and leave the rest to an assistant.
What exactly is a virtual office assistant?
Virtual Assistants (VAs) are independent entrepreneurs providing professional administrative, creative, managerial, technical, business office and/or personal support services. Virtual assistants use the most advanced means of communication, and the newest and most efficient and time-saving office products and work delivery, regardless of geographic boundaries. Virtual Assistants work from their own offices, on a contractual basis, and abide by an established Code of Ethics requiring integrity, honesty and due diligence.
~The Alliance for Virtual Business
What tasks can a virtual office assistant do for me?
Here are just a few tasks that a Virtual Office Assistant can handle for their clients:
How much money can I save by hiring a virtual office assistant vs. an employee?
Although exact dollar amounts will vary, you can expect to see a huge savings in the following areas:
Please visit us at www.teamdoubleclick.com to get your free consultation from one of our experienced Virtual Services Representatives. Let us help save you money today!
About the author:
Gayle Buske is the co-founder, president and CEO of Team Double-Click® and VirtualAssistingUSA. As the head of a virtual staffing agency with over 57,000 virtual professionals in its pool, Ms. Buske is uniquely qualified to aid small business owners in their growth and development through virtual outsourcing. Virtual Assistants across the globe look to Ms. Buske and her organizations for guidance, mentoring and motivation.
Team Double-Click®, the country’s foremost staffing agency for trained Virtual Assistants – Matching Top Virtual Workers with Top Companies! Visit www.teamdoubleclick.com or phone 888.827.9129 for a variety of full-service virtual staffing options.
VirtualAssistingUSA provides Virtual Assistants a place to upload their profile, advertise their services and get access to affordable training, marketing and billing assistance for their business. VirtualAssistingUSA gives small business owners direct access to our database of tens of thousands of virtual assistants – without the ongoing agency fees and gives them access to talent that is not available through other venues. Visit www.virtualassistingusa.com for more information.
Getting It All Done – A Virtual Guide to Multitasking
Getting It All Done – A Virtual Guide to Multitasking
By Gayle Buske, President and CEO, Team Double-Click® and VirtualAssistingUsA;
As I look around my office I have to wonder how I’m going to complete my task list today. In my efforts to cut costs to try and combat the economy that also means I have more work to do and less time to do it.
I used to hire my marketing done and had someone to assist me with things like answering phones and responding to emails. On a personal note I hired a service twice a month to do the heavy house keeping (since I work from home this was a nice luxury) and I hired a high school student to walk my dogs each evening. As the economy began to decline, however, all that changed. The first thing I did was cancel my dog walker. I need the exercise anyway. Next I cancelled the cleaning service. Like I said, it was a luxury and I decided I could do without it so I cut costs.
That started my journey on cutting costs but I soon learned it wasn’t enough. Next I had to get rid of my secretary. I began taking on my own marketing and PR tasks and I became my own project manager.
It didn’t take long before my business, my home and my health began to suffer as a result! There are only 24 hours in a day and one person just can’t do it all. That’s when I sat down and created a plan. Below are a few simple things that I did and that you can do too in order to cut costs and still get it all done!
Prioritize
Decide what makes you the most money and what only you can do. If your business will only grow when you’re out networking and talking to clients then you absolutely MUST do these things!! Maybe it would be nice to have some extra flyers or a cool PowerPoint presentation on hand but those things can probably wait. Unless you’re really efficient and skilled at doing those things you’ll probably end up spending tons of time trying to make them look good. In the meantime you aren’t out doing the things you know will bring in more money for your business.
Use the right tools
There are a lot of simple, free tools available that you can use to get organized. Below are just a few that I highly recommend
Online Meeting Software – www.dimdim.com Need to schedule more time with potential clients but no time or money for travel? Dimdim is a free web conferencing software that allows you to deliver synchronized live presentations and share voice and video over the internet. Expand your network globally and meet with your clients at no cost to you!
Note Taking Software – www.jott.com Do you have post it notes and note pads all over your desk? Jott is a talk to text application that allows you to call a number, speak your notes or messages and have them automatically sent to the right people via email, text or web updates. This can save a ton of time, help keep you organized and is absolutely free!
Project Management – www.project2manage.com Project2Manage is a free project management solution that allows you to keep projects organized, assign tasks, post messages and manage to-do lists. It’s easy to use, free and an absolute must have for any virtual office!
Ask for Help
This is the hardest for me to do. I don’t like admitting when I can’t do something. I don’t like admitting I’m not superwoman. The reality is, however, that if I want to accomplish the thousands of tasks I’ve set out for myself then I need some assistance. To be perfectly honest, there are some things that I shouldn’t be doing at all. Some things I’m just not good at and if I insist on doing them myself then they won’t get done well and in many cases they won’t get done at all.
Hiring a good virtual assistant is one of the easiest and most cost effective ways to get the help you need and still come in under budget. A virtual assistant will allow you to hire an expert in graphic design, marketing, sales or general assistance and keep you on track with your deadlines.
If your multi-tasking has gotten out of control then it’s time to take action. Prioritize, get the right tools in place and hire a virtual assistant to save you money and get things done.
About the author:
Gayle Buske is the co-founder, president and CEO of Team Double-Click® and VirtualAssistingUSA. As the head of a virtual staffing agency with over 57,000 virtual professionals in its pool, Ms. Buske is uniquely qualified to aid small business owners in their growth and development through virtual outsourcing. Virtual Assistants across the globe look to Ms. Buske and her organizations for guidance, mentoring and motivation.
Team Double-Click®, the country’s foremost staffing agency for trained Virtual Assistants – Matching Top Virtual Workers with Top Companies! Visit www.teamdoubleclick.com or phone 888.827.9129 for a variety of full-service virtual staffing options.
VirtualAssistingUSA provides Virtual Assistants a place to upload their profile, advertise their services and get access to affordable training, marketing and billing assistance for their business. VirtualAssistingUSA gives small business owners direct access to our database of tens of thousands of virtual assistants – without the ongoing agency fees and gives them access to talent that is not available through other venues. Visit www.virtualassistingusa.com for more information
Finally Business Process Outsourcing For The Small- to Mid-Sized Business
Finally, Business Process Outsourcing For The Small- to Mid-Sized Business
By Gayle Buske, President and CEO, Team Double-Click® and VirtualAssistingUSA;
For years the big guys have known how to cut costs and have known about business process outsourcing or BPO. Now, even small businesses can take advantage of what is essentially business process outsourcing. Virtual assistants are BPO for small businesses! The big guys have been talking about and doing business process outsourcing to save money and grow even bigger for nearly three decades. Isn’t it time your small business gained the same advantages of business process outsourcing by utilizing virtual assistants to their fullest potential?
According to Wikipedia, Business Process Outsourcing is “a form of outsourcing which involves the contracting of the operations and responsibilities of a specific business function to a third-party service provider”. That is exactly what virtual assistants and virtual staffing agencies do for the small and/or home-based business. Virtual staffing agencies, like Team Double-Click®, work with the client to assess their staff needs, and match the right virtual assistant(s) for the job(s).
Virtual staffing agencies have access to thousands of virtual assistants, which have been interviewed, skills-tested, and trained. From this pool of quality-tested virtual assistants, a virtual staffing agency can place as many or as few virtual assistants with the client as needed. This allows a small business owner to simultaneously obtain help in areas such as reception duties, online marketing, customer service, and accounting without hiring full-time employees for each position. The company pays only for the time used by each virtual assistant.
This allows small businesses all of the benefits of having an employee (or many employees) without having to hire actual employees, which come with added expenses like health care, worker’s compensation, sick time, maternity leave, FICA, Social Security, and vacation time. Hiring virtual assistants through a virtual staffing agency allows the business to avoid all of these extras and simply focus on the tasks that need to be done to grow the business.
Many small businesses are utilizing virtual staffing agencies and virtual assistants very strategically in order to grow their businesses while simultaneously saving thousands of dollars a year. As the business’ tasks grow beyond what the owner can reasonably manage themselves, the small business owner often brings on a single virtual assistant to answer phones or perform minor customer service tasks. As growth continues, the owner may bring on a virtual assistant to assist with research or even internet marketing. This pattern repeats with other strategic positions as the business gains more and more clients. The result is a full-fledged virtual staff without the overhead of a bricks-and-mortar staff or a bricks-and-mortar office.
Virtual staffing agencies can also help the small business become a much larger business. The virtual staffing agency acts as an outsourced human resources department for the small business. They don’t charge for their time managing the virtual assistants, nor do they charge for interviewing, testing, or matching those same virtual assistants to the business client. Rather, their profit is earned from the ongoing work performed by the virtual assistant. So all the small business owner need do is work with his or her representative at the virtual staffing agency to determine which positions they need to have filled and the virtual staffing agency goes to work locating the right candidate and making that match. This allows the business owner to focus all of his or her attention on growing the business.
Through the services of virtual staffing agencies, it is entirely possible for a small business to grow into a much larger company, even in tough economic times. In fact, in these tough economic times, virtual staffing agencies have access to even better talent than ever before due to mass layoffs by the big guys.
So why not save your company a significant amount of money and grow your business at the same time by hiring a virtual staffing agency to staff your business? Why not spit in the eye of recession and show the big guys that growth really is possible in this economy?
About the author:
Gayle Buske is the co-founder, president and CEO of Team Double-Click® and VirtualAssistingUSA. As the head of a virtual staffing agency with over 57,000 virtual professionals in its pool, Ms. Buske is uniquely qualified to aid small business owners in their growth and development through virtual outsourcing. Virtual Assistants across the globe look to Ms. Buske and her organizations for guidance, mentoring and motivation.
Team Double-Click®, the country’s foremost staffing agency for trained Virtual Assistants – Matching Top Virtual Workers with Top Companies! Visit www.teamdoubleclick.com or phone 888.827.9129 for a variety of full-service virtual staffing options.
VirtualAssistingUSA provides Virtual Assistants a place to upload their profile, advertise their services and get access to affordable training, marketing and billing assistance for their business. VirtualAssistingUSA gives small business owners direct access to our database of tens of thousands of virtual assistants – without the ongoing agency fees and gives them access to talent that is not available through other venues. Visit www.virtualassistingusa.com for more information
Want to know the top five business-growth tasks you should be focusing on to keep your business moving forward
Top Five Business-Growers
By Gayle Buske, President and CEO, Team Double-Click® and VirtualAssistingUSA;
You may not have the financial resources to hire a full-time administrative assistant, receptionist, or marketing assistant to join your staff, but that doesn’t mean growing your business is out of the question. Read on to learn how to grow your business this year utilizing Team Double-Click® pay-only-for-what-you-use virtual assistants.
Hiring a full-time assistant to join your staff may not be in the plan this year, but growing your business should be on your must-do list for 2009.
Want to know the top five business-growth tasks you should be focusing on to keep your business moving forward? We asked our most successful clients what they were doing to grow their businesses right now. Here are their top picks:
1. Cold calling
How do new clients and customers find you? If yours is like many companies, cold calling is a must to reach more and more people and more business. You have target markets and geographic regions which are preferred. But do you have the time (or the desire) to sit down and cold call all of those prospects in order to make the sales?
While we can’t speak for independent virtual assistants or other staffing agency’s virtual assistants, Team Double-Click’s virtual assistants are sent through a very thorough cold calling course. The cold calling course teaches them how to successfully get past gate keepers, how to effectively present products and services to the prospect, and how to gain the best advantage when it comes to making a sale.
Why not pass that icky cold calling task and your list of prospects on to a virtual assistant and watch your business grow?
2. Lead follow up
Your company’s quick follow up (or lack of) to new, inbound leads gives potential clients a glimpse into what working with your company will look like. Additionally, if you don’t follow up fast enough, experts agree that the potential client will quickly move on to someone who either answers their call on the first try or calls back quickly. Missed lead follow up results in lost sales. Period.
Make sure there is always time for quick lead follow up. If you don’t have time to personally follow up with leads, have your virtual assistant follow up for you. It’s quite simple to create a list of common FAQs to pass along to your virtual assistant so she can answer any question that comes along. It’s equally easy to educate your virtual assistant on your company’s product and service offerings so he or she can seamlessly follow up with and reel in new clients for you.
3. Social networking
These days, social networking on sites like Twitter, LinkedIn, Plaxo, and others is all the rage. And with good reason. They’re helping businesses connect with new prospects and new clients.
However, it’s hard to find the time to sit down in front of the computer long enough and consistently enough to get maximum value from the hundreds of social networking sites out there. With social networking, consistency is key. Your virtual assistant can efficiently and consistently use these social networking sites to drive new business your way.
4. Internet marketing
It goes without saying that if your business is on the internet in any manner, getting your internet marketing done and done well is a must. And again, consistency is the key to making internet marketing a success.
Again, while we can’t speak for independent virtual assistants or other staffing agency’s virtual assistants, Team Double-Click’s virtual assistants are sent through a very thorough internet marketing course. The course teaches them internet marketing trends, terms and principles, web analytics, affiliate marketing, search marketing, blogging, social media, email marketing, and digitally enhanced productivity strategies.
These virtual assistants can unleash those internet marketing talents on marketing your business on the internet and bringing new clients your way.
5. Customer service/reception
First impressions are often made when a client calls your company. Do your phones roll to voice mail? Or worse still, do they go nowhere when you’re out of the office? In economy like this, you can’t afford to miss an incoming phone call from either a current client or a prospective client.
Make sure your phones are always answered, your current customers taken care of, and potential clients get their questions answered and are shown how to become a new client by having a virtual assistant answer the phones for you. You gain instant “bigger company status” by not answering the phones yourself. And what’s more, if you are out of the office, your customers and potential customers still receive the assistance they need. Since virtual assistants only “clock in” when they’re performing your tasks, you don’t pay for unproductive standby time.
Talented virtual assistants are available for either ongoing work through Team Double-Click® or direct placement through our new Direct Placement Virtual Assistant Program. With ongoing work through Team Double-Click® you receive all of the benefits of working through an agency, such as ongoing virtual assistant coaching, we do the hiring and firing, we do the billing and payables, etc. With our new Direct Placement Virtual Assistant Program, for just a $495 one-time fee, we’ll expertly match you with one of our screened and trained virtual assistants and then you’re free to work directly together. Most clients enjoy savings of more than 50% without the ongoing agency fees, etc.
About the author:
Gayle Buske is the co-founder, president and CEO of Team Double-Click® and VirtualAssistingUSA. As the head of a virtual staffing agency with over 57,000 virtual professionals in its pool, Ms. Buske is uniquely qualified to aid small business owners in their growth and development through virtual outsourcing. Virtual Assistants across the globe look to Ms. Buske and her organizations for guidance, mentoring and motivation
