9 Things a Virtual Assistant Can Do Better (and Cheaper) Than You

Virtual assistants can be incredibly helpful to small businesses. Oftentimes little things get
neglected, like thank you cards for incredible suppliers or new clients. Besides those little things though, there are quite a lot of other tasks that virtual assistants can take on to free up your schedule. Here are a few:

1. Bookkeeping: One of the basic tasks that virtual assistants can take off your hands is bookkeeping. They can keep track of bills, invoices, receipts, and lots of other things so that you never have to fall behind on payments.
   

2. Online Research: Though you may not be ready to hire a dedicated marketing or business analyst, you may find great value in having a virtual assistant doing some business research for you. They can look for information on competitors, look at new products in the industry, and even do background checks on applicants or other individuals coming into contact with your business.
   

3. Database Entry: Data entry is incredibly dull, but essential. Don’t let the mundane task of updating client information fill up your time. Simply let your virtual assistant know exactly what you need, and hurry off to your more pressing business meeting.
   

4. PowerPoint Presentations: Need a PowerPoint presentation for an important meeting? Have a virtual assistant transform your data into a beautiful, professional presentation.
   

5. Email Management: At times, email can be an incredible waste of time. A virtual assistant can filter your inbox, marking the ones that need immediate attention, the ones that can be dealt with later, and even deal with basic replies by themselves. Of course, this requires some trust and training, so spend some time with your virtual assistant before you have them take care of your email.
   

6. Social Tasks: Those little extra things do make a difference in professional relationships. Send out little thank you notes or gift baskets for major suppliers or clients with the help of a virtual assistant.
   

7. Travel Research: Got a business trip coming up? You don’t have to deal with managing your trip yourself. With a virtual assistant, you can simply have someone book your flight, your hotel, and even send you itineraries for your journey.
   

8. Meeting Management: Another big time waster is meeting management. A virtual assistant can schedule and manage your calendar for you, ensuring you don’t schedule anything on top of another obligation.
   

9. Industry Research: As a business owner, it’s important for you to stay on top of industry news and trends. However, it can be time consuming to look for and curate all the information yourself. You can hire a virtual assistant to keep track of those major industry changes for you, ensuring you never have to smile cluelessly when a client or another person brings it up.

Name one person that does everything themselves

Name one person that does everything themselves. Got that name? If so, how successful are they? Are they happy or frustrated? Thriving or surviving? Growing or plateauing?

Contrary to popular belief, a team of one can only accomplish so much. As the to-do list grows, so does the stress, time constraints, and the potential for error. Be intentional about creating a team that will support you and your endeavor. Cultivate that trust so you can share the load and operate at your highest potential.

Be intentional about creating a team that will support you and your endeavor. 

Your team doesn’t necessarily have to consist of many people. Take a hint from one of the greats, Batman. He relied heavily on his trusty butler, Alfred Pennyworth. But when he needed a little bit more, he knew he could rely on the entire Justice League, the team of superheroes who saved the world together.

It’s best not to do live on a deserted island. Whether it is one extra set of hands or a large team you need, you can trust My BTLR to be a support structure.

Allow us the pleasure of joining your team and running alongside you. Contact us today to find out how we can help you.

How a virtual assistant can save your start-up time and money

When you start a new business, it is easy to get overwhelmed by all the things you have to do. You’ve got to produce products or provide services, fill orders, ship packages, create content, and maybe even send out a weekly newsletter.

Chances are you’re trying to take care of everything by yourself and that's great for keeping costs down. Your business may be growing fast, but it isn’t quite at the point where you need to employ a couple more people full-time. Plus, when you hire a new person, you’ve got to train them. That’s going to take even more time. How are you going to find time with all the things you already have to do? You may be able to do it all, but chances are you’ll also burn out and feel overwhelmed by everything you have to do.

Don’t let your business suffer the consequences. A virtual assistant may be just what you need! These individuals can lift some of the burden off your shoulders by taking care of those boring, but necessary, administrative tasks so you can put your time and energy into really running your business.

How exactly does a virtual assistant help my business?

Client Relations

A virtual assistant can make the dreary task of getting back to clients a little bit easier. They can help you filter emails, voicemails, and other messages from clients and prioritize them. Any useless messages can be deleted, and the remainders can be sorted by urgency. That way, you’ll know which clients have important messages that need immediate replies, and which ones can wait for a better time. A virtual assistant can also help schedule meetings and keep you on top of any events you have scheduled for the week. Why plan yourself when they could do it for you?

Administrative Services

Virtual assistants do a lot more than schedule meetings. They can do lots of administrative work — document creation, file type conversion, travel arrangements, and other things that are too mundane for you to be doing yourself. It’s a great way to enjoy an organized business so you can spend your time focusing on the business’s core activities. Virtual assistants can also do research for your business, searching for cheaper suppliers or ways to streamline the production process.

Content Creation

If you’ve got social media for your business and a blog area on your website (which you should), a virtual assistant can aid you in creating content to publish. They can also properly format any content from external sources and write good captions for posts online. After content has been published a VA can also reply to comments and interact with your audience.

Social Media

Just about every business has social media accounts nowadays. It’s a great tool to reach and interact with customers. However, it takes a lot of time and effort to manage it. With a virtual assistant, you won’t have to worry about it. They can create content, schedule posts, and interact with your community online. They can also assess the effectiveness of each channel and help you determine which should receive your main focus.

Marketing

Marketing is an essential business activity for every company. You have to know how to present your goods and services to the audience you are trying to reach. Most virtual assistants are well-versed with different marketing tools — and they can help you market effectively. This may be through press releases, social media, influencers, and even newsletters.

Basic Website Help

If your business isn’t ready for a full-blown designer website, a virtual assistant may be able to help you set up something simple first. Most are knowledgeable about the basics of WordPress — web hosting, installing themes and plugins, posting content, and a lot of other things. He or she can help you develop a web design that is attractive and effective so your customers can have a great user experience on your site. Virtual assistants can also help you get started on SEO so you rank higher on search engine result pages, securing you a greater amount of traffic and therefore greater leads and sales.

Save Money With Part-time Help

Generally, virtual assistants don’t work full-time. Rather, they work when they are needed, so you won’t have to pay for a full-time employee (including wages, benefits, office equipment, deductions, etc.) if you aren’t even sure you have enough to keep them busy for the whole day. All you’ve got to pay for is the work they perform.