What VAs Do

Every so often, you may see a Facebook ad or receive a webinar invite from a VA, or perhaps hear a peer say “I LOVE my VA”, and, intrigued, you wonder:

• What the heck do VAs actually do?!

• Should I work with one?

• What value can they bring to my business?

Great questions!

The first thing to know is that, as demand increases and the popularity of remote work rises, the term ‘virtual assistant’ is moving from a job title to an industry title.

This is a positive development for our clients and the industry as a whole, since it means VAs will have vastly different and specialized focuses depending on their own unique skills, who their clients are and which services are in demand.

Here are a few of the more common niches found in the industry:

General VAs

Though the industry as a whole is trending towards specialties, there are still General VAs who perform tasks such as copying/pasting text and documents, data entry, transcriptions, basic email management, and admin tasks. They typically charge between $15 and $25 per hour for their services and are worth their weight in gold for helping you decimate your to-do list.

Technical Experts

No more spending your afternoon combing Google search results and support forums just to use a piece of software to write a web page or manage your marketing! For every software platform out there, there’s a technical wizard with expertise using it, from LeadPages to Infusionsoft, WordPress, and others. They’ll have your sales pages converting readers into customers, your marketing automated, your website launched or anything else you need faster than you can do it on your own, stress-free.

Social Media Managers and Content Strategists

Do you have social profiles but no time to feed them with fresh content? Social Media Managers (SMMs) and Content Strategists specialize in planning strategy behind the content, as well as reporting and analytics. Many also develop the content to be published. This way, you can focus on selling your product or service knowing you have an active, thriving social presence to grow your community, and bring the right audiences to your website, where you’ll offer them regularly updated, high quality content.

Launch Specialists

Hire these professionals to help you launch your new product, service or other project and ensure it gets the buy-in and recognition it deserves. They’ll work with you to learn about your offering, its value and your competitive advantage inside out, then plan every step of a launch strategy from pre-launch to post-launch.

Financial VAs

You know keeping your eye on your finances is vitally important to ensuring your business thrives, but you dread looking at numbers and get lost in all those spreadsheets. Financial VAs to the rescue! They’ll enter your financial data, create invoices, handle your collections process, deal with vendors and even set up an accounting system to help you get your financial house in order. Bonus: they may even liaison with your accountant, and document finance-related processes they implement so someone else can complete tasks, even if you don’t continue to work with the VA who implemented them.

Ad Managers

You know you need to advertise to your audience, but doing so through mass media (TV, magazine ads, etc) is expensive.. There are tons of other options, and Ad Managers are well-educated in online and social advertising tools such as Facebook ads, Google AdWords, and others.

A note about Online Business Managers

There are some important differences between OBMs and VAs, which we’ll get into in more depth in a future post. Essentially, an OBM partners with their clients to create custom-built strategies, and manages the overall business including your team and any projects you have in progress. A VA is more task-oriented and completes specific assigned tasks and projects to help clients achieve defined outcomes.

So how do you know you need a VA? Maybe you’re feeling overwhelmed with all the projects and tasks you need to complete, but don’t want to have employees, don’t need someone full time, or don’t need someone permanently. You know you need to get back to providing stellar service to your awesome clients without the stress.

Perhaps you’re at the point where disorganization is killing your business and you need some processes and procedures created and implemented to help you conquer the chaos. Or, you have a specific project, such as a course, to develop, and could use a VA’s skill.

If you know which specific projects you need completed, what your goals and requirements are, and the type of personality you work best with, you’re ready to start searching for a VA. Chances are, there are many VAs out there with the skill set you need, you just have to know how to find them.

There are many benefits to hiring one as well, such as saving time, increasing productivity, getting the help you desperately need, and others.

Did you know Any Old Task can help you find out what’s draining your productivity and develop customized solutions based on your needs? Let’s talk today.