Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Assistant for Small Trade Business

Why do you need to hire a Virtual Assistant for your business?

Almost all businesses are doing their best to survive in these challenging times. Regardless of what industry, business owners have felt the impact of the pandemic; redundancy, store closures, supply shortages, and missed partnership opportunities, to name a few.

Trade businesses, although considered essential, have also felt the result of restrictions and changes in processes because of the ongoing pandemic.

“43% of businesses had temporarily closed, and nearly all of these closures were due to COVID-19. Respondents that had temporarily closed largely pointed to reductions in demand and employee health concerns as the reasons for the closure, with disruptions in the supply chain being less of a factor.

On average, the businesses reported having reduced their active employment by 39% since January. The decline was particularly sharp in the Mid-Atlantic region (which includes New York City), where 54% of firms were closed, and employment was down by 47%.” – The impact of COVID-19 on small business outcomes and expectations, The impact of COVID-19 on small business outcomes and expectations | PNAS

As business owners, it is devastating to have the fruit of your love and labor to be closed for cost and health reasons. There are some options you can try to keep your small business at least going amid these difficult times. One of which is hiring your very own Virtual Assistant.

What is a Virtual Assistant, you ask?

Virtual Assistance has been an ongoing service for quite some time but is becoming popular, especially nowadays, with almost everyone switching into a work-from-home (WFH) setup. However, many are still unaware of what it is, how the process is, and how it can help their trade business.

With all the information overload you can see on the Internet once you search for one, it is understandable that it can be daunting to delve into.

In simplest terms, a Virtual Assistant is someone you hire and work with remotely. Their expertise ranges from administrative services to business executive services. Hiring one and delegating tasks to a Virtual Assistant can help cut the costs and make your business and personal life much better.

Some of the common skills you can outsource from a Virtual Assistant are:

Handling phone calls

This is one of the tasks that take too much time in a trade business owner’s day. Having a Virtual Assistant to make and answer phone calls frees more time to focus on core responsibilities at hand.

Email management

There are roughly 200 emails a business owner receives every day; seeing this at the start of your day can already feel tiring. With a Virtual Assistant sorting through these emails, organizing them to the most important, you’ll have a stress-free time to respond.

Social Media Management

It is crucial for every business, even trade firm, to have their social media accounts. Being in one to improve your presence and reach out to potential customers requires 24/7 attention. A Virtual Assistant is your best bet to ensure that everything in your social media profiles runs smoothly.

Administrative Management.

Have you ever sat down in your office chair and looked helplessly at the pile of documents and folders you need to look into and organize? Having a Virtual Assistant can ease that feeling. Aside from making sure all your documents are digitally available, a Virtual Assistant can help you look into the papers, organize and work on the ones that do not directly need your attention.

Have You Ever Felt That You’re Juggling Too Many Hats in a Day?

Small business owners, especially those in the trade business, frequently find themselves juggling too many hats in a day. The business owners, administrative assistants, accountants, social media managers, and customer service representatives are all rolled into one.

There might have been a moment that you’ve felt you’re drowning from all these tasks, and you can’t focus on what you are good at. It can even affect your personal life; losing time with your loved ones, not doing your hobbies, traveling, or simply relaxing.

It is stressful to do all these and still have to strategize, analyze, and plan things for the growth of your trade business. This is one of the reasons why having a Virtual Assistant can be a great help for your business growth.

How Can You Benefit From Hiring a Virtual Assistant?

Having a Virtual Assistant as a part of your team can substantially impact your costs and efficiency.

Based on an article from Legit, hiring a Virtual Assistant can cut your operating costs up to 78% and add 13% productivity versus hiring an office-based employee. (5 Virtual Assistant Statistics Business Owners Need to Know | Legit Blog)

Here are some benefits of hiring a Virtual Assistant:

Having a Virtual Assistant can cut your operating costs.

You can hire Virtual Assistants for specific tasks only and compensate them based on the hour and result provided. You won’t be needing added office space for an employee nor pay for electricity or equipment costs.

Reduced workload.

You can delegate unwanted tasks to your Virtual Assistant and focus more on what you do best. No more juggling of hats!

More productivity.

By offloading those unwanted tasks to your Virtual Assistant, you get to have more time and focus on doing the things you love and do best, such as finding more opportunities to scale your trade business.

More time.

It can be stressful doing everything in your business. You can even lose time with your family and friends. Having a Virtual Assistant gives you more quality time to spend with them. Time is a valuable investment we should be spending with our loved ones.

Less Stress.

Having more valuable time in your hands gives you lesser stress. Not drowning over repetitive and non-core tasks and being able to know that a trusty Virtual Assistant is taking care of it for you can indeed be freeing.

Are you Ready to Live Free? – How To Hire A Virtual Assistant

Acknowledging and understanding your trade business needs and the benefits of having a Virtual Assistant in your team is vital in taking the next step to growth.

Before finding a Virtual Assistant, you need to list down the things you want to take off of your plate. More often than not, business owners feel guilty for having someone do something for their business; thinking it’s their job to be hands-on with everything.

Or they might be having trouble trusting somebody else to do non-core tasks, afraid that the quality of work will not be at par with their expectations. This all boils down to control.

It is daunting to hire someone, let alone remotely, and do tasks for your business. But remember that these non-core tasks that you’ve been slaving over are the ones keeping you from doing what you love and scaling your business.

If you are still feeling doubtful and unsure of what you want to offload and delegate, here is a quote to ponder on.

“Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do. “- Jessica Jackley, co-founder of Kiva.

Once you’ve decided on what tasks you’re willing to delegate, here are some of the next steps.

List down the tasks you would want to outsource and create a job description for the virtual assistant you are looking for.
Set your budget depending on the hours and the tasks you’d want to outsource to a Virtual Assistant.
Search for a Virtual Assistant agency that can help you find the best Virtual Assistant that fits your business needs. Utilizing the help and expertise of a Virtual Assistant Agency in finding your Virtual Assistant makes the process easier and quicker. This leaves you with more time to peruse the applicants’ resume and their skills.
Once you have found the best Virtual Assistant for you, create a workflow that can help you and your Virtual Assistant work quickly and efficiently. These include finding the right tools and applications to use in doing the tasks.

Live Free Virtual Services – your access to a pool of talented and expert Virtual Assistants

Now that you have your list of tasks to outsource and you’re ready to find the best Virtual Assistant to help you with them, it’s time to find the best Virtual Assistant Agency to help you with the recruitment and onboarding process.

Live Free Virtual Services understands how hard it is to be a small trade business owner and the usual difficulties of doing everything independently, not having enough time to finish everything within the day.

With our efficient and straightforward process of finding and recruiting the best Virtual Assistant for you, spending your valuable time with more important things is within your reach.

Get to know our 4-step Hiring Process and see how it works:

Learn About You. Get on Zoom with us for a one-on-one to learn more about who you are and what your company does.
Learn About the Business. Once you have decided that a Virtual Assistant is right for you, we get on a call to discuss your business needs.
Pick Your Perfect Match. This is the step wherein you interview the Virtual Assistant out of the 3-5 pre-selected candidates best suited for your business needs.
Get to Work. Once you’ve chosen the best Virtual Assistant fit for your business needs. They can now start with the onboarding process and work with the tasks you have delegated.

At Live Free Virtual Services, we elevate small trades business owners’ profitable growth by pairing them with a Rockstar Virtual Assistant (VA) that perfectly matches their needs.

Live Free Virtual Services specializes in the trades industry, which offers a portfolio of enterprise solutions and promises to achieve successful and scalable results. We endeavor a customer-centered approach that helps to develop a winning plan for the success of your business.

At its core, that is what Live Free Virtual Services is all about: we ensure your businesses achieve the desired outcome with the help of our specialized virtual Assistance.

Take it to the next level!

Written By: DIANE PECAOCO

Diane is a mother of 3 who juggles doing her passion and taking care of her kids. She loves challenges that can add to her quest to always learn more. Diane is a fan of reading and hoards physical and digital books, both fiction and nonfiction. As a Social Media Assistant, she believes and finds immense opportunities in helping businesses by the use of Social Media Marketing. With a bachelor’s degree in Communication, Diane is a believer that effective communication is one of the keys to success.