If you’re anything like the average interviewee, you get sweaty palms and can’t remember how to speak English when you’re asked about handling an angry customer who’s returning a television set. The days of sweaty palms and run-on sentences are over.
Thanks to advanced technology and the popular choice of working from home, employees are no longer needed to physically be in your presence when hired. Whether you run a multi-million dollar business or you’re just starting your small business, hiring an assistant can be helpful for your workload. Instead of scheduling interviews and wasting time meeting with people who are under qualified or asking for too high of a salary, a virtual assistant can be a great solution.
There, the question lies – why should you hire a virtual assistant?
Handling Extra Work
Running your own business will be fun, they said. Being your own boss is a dream come true, they said. What they forgot to mention is in the beginning process, you may end up ripping out your hair because you lost one receipt or can’t find where you filed a document you saw yesterday.
Hiring a virtual assistant can not only take care of some of the extra, unfinished work, but it can provide you with a little relief. Running a business is hard work, especially if your budget is extremely small and hiring employees almost seems like a different dream entirely.
A virtual assistant can take care of some of the extra details, assignments and filing that you may not have time to do yourself. This can also give you a few extra hours during the day to start working on other areas of your business that may have been neglected.
Using Freelance Websites
Freelance websites are probably the birthplace of virtual assistants. Thanks to these websites, you no longer have to have someone who you physically see every day. In fact, you may never know what this person looks like the entire time they work for you.
Websites such as elance.com or oDesk.com can be great tools to finding the perfect assistant. There are ways to view their experience and feedback from other clients without even having to sit through an interview.
Another reason freelance websites are a helpful tool in the hiring process is because finding an employee for cheaper than you may have imagined is actually possible. There are qualified individuals willing to work at a certain rate, for whatever reason, which may be in your price range.
Physical Contact
Again, hiring a virtual assistant requires absolutely no physical contact whatsoever. This is beneficial for a number of reasons:
- Relationships are strictly business only. Sometimes, a friendship is developed with your employees that make it harder for you to fire them if they’re not working hard enough or slacking off.
- They’re paid based on the work they do. Freelance websites often have time-trackers that show what they’ve done every time they log in. So, if they get up to go to the bathroom, they sign out so the time isn’t logged.
- You don’t have to worry about their commute to work or if they’ll be on time. Many assistants receive the workload and complete it by the deadline requested. If they work faster than others, there is no requirement to pay them for a full 8 hour day.
- Equipment is not a required purchase on your end. There is no need to find them an office or buy them a computer – everything they need is in their own home.
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