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By Heather L. McMillan

Editor’s Note: I thought busting a few misconceptions about working with virtual assistants was a great way to round out this month’s topic.

1) I want to use a virtual assistant to save myself money, because they are cheaper per hour than employees.

This is the largest misconception businesses have about virtual assistants. If you compare hourly pay of your employees versus hourly pay of your virtual assistants, you will find the virtual assistants is generally MUCH higher. However, you are saving money in that you don’t pay for hardware, utilities, office space, payroll taxes, worker’s compensation, and benefits (insurance, vacation, sick days, etc.) for a virtual assistant. Sure you can find virtual assistants for $10.00 per hour and under. However, they are going to be from another country offering less than stellar communication and English grammar skills.
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By Lori Davis

Why is it so difficult to utter this one syllable word: Help! The Beatles sang about it, albeit in a very different context. If John, Paul, George and Ringo can shout out these 4 little letters, so can you!

I think some people feel asking for help makes them less of a person, and makes them think they’re not good enough. Do away with both notions right now. While you’re at it, also do away with this phrase, “I’ve got a stupid question.” Wrong answer, Sparky. I look at this statement in the following light: I’ve got information you need. Sometimes I’ll give away that information for free, and other times my bill will be in the mail. You’re not asking a stupid question; instead you’re asking a question the answer to which you’re about to find. You’re seeking to acquire knowledge. Is that stupid? Not in any language of which I’m aware!

Now, I know your entrepreneurial brain is in a knot and thinking, “But Lori, I’m really good at so many things,” or “Lori, I’m the only person who can do (fill in the blank).” I’ll agree with you on the first statement to a certain degree, and wholeheartedly disagree on the second. Yes, you are good at a variety of things. However, you’re focusing on just that, a “variety” of things, and not focusing on what you need to do to keep your business in business. You’re not making the money you want/need to make, you’re doing stuff you hate to do, and you’re drained senseless at the end of the work day.
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By Lee J. Green

EDITOR’S NOTE: I’m sorry this post is a day late — I started a 5-Day Detox on Friday and my brain has been fried. But, today’s the last day. Yeah!

It’s quite a challenge to carry out each activity of your business single-handedly. However, you need not grind yourself under the stone. Here’s help at hand.

Virtual Assistant Services Help You To:

• Increase productivity — by managing time consuming tasks efficiently, a virtual assistant lets you have the time to expand your business rather than divert your energy in the minutia of business. This has a positive effect on the productivity.
• Increase income — delegation of activities can assist you in focusing your attention on business promotion and other activities that develop your business. This brings in more cash flow.
• Save money — you need not spend on recruiting costs, office equipment and space, insurance, employee benefits, leaves, vacation pay, and other such things. This is because virtual assistant services are rendered by an independent worker who is NOT your employee.

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By Jonathan Hook

EDITOR’S NOTE: When you’re done with this article, check out Jonathan’s link. It leads to a resource that can help you find ways to outsource, even if you’re strapped for cash. It costs $49 and is NOT an affiliate link for me. I just thought it was a good resource.

You have to spend money to make money, this is the famous phrase that many business people say. This is exactly true, there is no golden way to have money always coming into you without spending a dime. Now the only question is, how much money do we have to spend? I am going to tell you on how much money should be right for spending to have a way so that you can make a lot of money without doing much work at all.

The first thing that we need to do, is to hire a virtual assistant. By hiring this virtual assistant, they can do all of the work for us. Remember, the goal of this is try and make as much money as possible without doing much work at all, so a virtual assistant is a great way to start. Virtual assistants can usually be cheap, especially if you hire one that is from a poor country, so you can be helping them a lot just by spending a few dollars out of your wallet. Now when you get this virtual assistant, you should assign them small jobs like finding a group of people to work for you and products for you to sell, or anything that you think will make you money.
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By Charlette Woodcock

Carma’s Comments:
This month, Women’s Business Gallery will be covering Virtual Assistants, also known as VAs. These intrepid individuals help a bevy of entrepreneurs and small business owners grow their businesses while never stepping foot in the main office. As soon as you can, you really need to start building your virtual support team. The articles I’ll be posting this month will help you learn more about VAs and how to find them. Today’s article, by Charlette Woodcock, discusses the basics of why you would want to hire a VA.

Small businesses make up 98% of the nation’s business industry. Outsourcing to virtual assistants, known as VAs, is gaining ground every day and becoming even more lucrative for small business owners. In order to understand why this is happening, let’s first look at what a Virtual Assistant is and what services they may offer a small business owner.

Virtual assistants provide various services to small business owners to help with the tasks that are needed. Each Virtual assistant should be able to provide some basic services for their clients. These basic services would include tasks like: email management, customer service duties, organizing files and typing documents, data entry, making appointments, and customer follow-ups. Some well-trained and more experienced VA’s may offer specialized skills like: Website Designing/Updating, Accounting/Bookkeeping, Desktop Publishing, Power Point Presentations, or Writing & Editing. The list of services an experienced VA may offer is not limited to the above examples.
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