A virtual assistant, or VA, can provide a vital support in enhancing your personal efficiency. This is particularly true if you work in an executive capacity, perhaps as a senior manager, sales director or as a consultant providing management or marketing services.
Virtual assistants are really effective when they support individuals who do not have a regular secretary or personal assistant. They can be a great help to people who work from home as freelance consultants, or who do project-based work, perhaps working for a period at a client’s offices or business premises.
The virtual assistant can complete a wide range of tasks to help. Many of these will be essential items that the executive is not naturally skilled at, and they may be items that get in the way of working on paid client project work. Such tasks will include organising business travel, booking trains and flight tickets, and hotel rooms.
Virtual assistants can organise invoicing, chase up on unpaid invoices and help their client manage their cashflow. This may include recording expenses incurred along the way, so that they are all recharged as they should be.
Many business tasks require some level of research, perhaps an internet search of prospects, rival businesses or similar information. Often, a virtual assistant is precisely the right person to give such a task to. Once briefed, they can be left to carry out the task, and will report back once it has been completed, with information collated and presented in the desired format, such as an Excel spreadsheet. And, should you need financial information to be collated, then your virtual assistant may well be able to draw up a spreadsheet for you, creating appropriate formulas to deliver the information you require.
Business presentations are another area where a virtual assistant can take on a task, and complete it for you. How often have you struggled to complete Powerpoint slides for an important presentation, but been unhappy with the time you have to get things right, or discovered you were not sure how to achieve particular effects in the slideshow? Your virtual assistant will probably be much more skilled with Powerpoint than you, so why not ask them to take care of preparing your presentation?
We all know that personal life can sometimes get in the way of business. And here a virtual assistant can be very helpful. Whether it is arranging a delivery of flowers for your partner’s birthday or an anniversary, booking tickets for the cinema or theatre, researching and arranging delivery of a new home appliance, such tasks can consume a lot of time, which may be better spent working on fee-producing tasks. A virtual assistant can be quickly briefed on your requirements, and then left to get on with arranging the details.
So why not give a virtual assistant a try? You only pay for what you need, so there’s nothing to lose, and plenty to gain. So get in touch today