#virtualassistantoutsourcing

[juliesoutsourcingblog]

Ever feel like there’s not enough hours in a day to do everything?

Or that you’re spending too much time on inane, routine tasks that you don’t have any left for core processes?

Then you might just need a virtual assistant!

Click here to reach Big Outsource, a premium outsourcing services provider with an excellent track record when it comes to providing businesses the personalized service they need: https://www.bigoutsource.com/contact-us/

[sdfsystems-blog]

How Virtual Assistant (VA) Can Double Your Productivity?

Productivity is very important in our personal as well as professional lives. As a business owner of a small or either large firm, it’s very important that you stay productive for your business to grow and succeed. There may be days in a year when you feel busy and there is so much to do, yet you have so little time. You might need a helping hand so you can accomplish more and more. Thus, it’s the best option for you to work with a virtual assistant (VA).

According to data gathered by some Business Trends, small business owners agree that delegation is the best step that improves productivity. You can assign work to a VA so you can focus on tasks that directly impact your business’ growth and success. Take a closer look at some of the ways you can achieve and double your productivity through hiring a virtual assistant:

Visualize your main Business Goals

Goal setting and visualization are key factors to increased productivity of your business. If you have a clear vision of your priorities and what you want to achieve, then it will be easier for you to work effectively and efficiently and produce more quality output. You can easily increase the power of visualization by creating and using a vision board.

Once you’ve listed all your goals and main tasks, you can ask your virtual assistant (VA) to help you create a digital vision board. While VA searches for elements that you want to include in your vision board, you can attend to other important tasks and your productivity will increase.

Schedule your High and Low Priority Tasks

Some people are less productive because they don’t prioritize their tasks but it helps if you make a daily, weekly, or monthly to-do lists and schedule your tasks in advance. This way, you’ll know what is important for you and needs to be done immediately and what you can put on hold for later.

To double your productivity, you and your VA can use an online calendar and some scheduling tools. After this, you can work on the high-priority tasks and let your VA handle the less crucial ones, such as data entry, data mining, research or email management. In this way, you’ll be able to accomplish more by doing less.

Stop Doing Multitasking

Multitasking is now considered an important skill. However, some market research has shown that it can hinder productivity. Therefore, it’s best if you block distractions and focus on a single task first. Once you’re done with that single task you can now move on to another task or project. In case if there are multiple tasks that need your attention at the same time, you can clear your vision and assign some of the tasks to your personal virtual assistant. With VA help, you can easily quit multitasking and become more productive.

Take Some Breaks

Taking a break may seem counterintuitive, but it actually helps to boost productivity. As much as you want to complete everything in your to-do-list right away, you are not invincible. You need to take regular breaks to improve your concentration and maintain a high level of performance. So while you go out for a break, your virtual assistant can continue working on your tasks. Regular breaks definitely help improve your mental health and increase productivity.

Work Offline

The internet is now an important part of our lives. You need to stay online to communicate regularly with your staff, connect with customers, and run your business. But you sometimes you may need to offline too. If you work with a virtual assistant, your operations will still run regularly and smoothly even if you work offline. VA can manage all your main tasks like managing social media, write an article for your blog, and much more. Your personal VA got your back.

Productivity is key to your business growth and success. Follow the tips SDF Systems, mentioned staying productive. Embrace the benefits of hiring virtual assistants from SDF Systems. With our VA help, you can boost your productivity and achieve your business goals in less time.

Boost your productivity by hiring a virtual assistant from SDF Systems. Contact usto find out more about our VA services and how we can work together.

#BESTVIRTUALASSISTANT#HIREVIRTUALASSISTANT#ONLINEVIRTUALASSISTANT#PERSONALVIRTUALASSISTANT#TOPVIRTUALASSISTANT #VA#VIRTUALASSISTANTAGENCY#VIRTUALASSISTANTFIRMS#VIRTUALASSISTANTOUTSOURCING#VIRTUALASSISTANTSERVICES#VIRTUALASSISTANTSUPPORT#VIRTUALPERSONALASSISTANT

[clarkoutsourcing-blog-blog]

Why should you hire a virtual assistant? You won't pay any overtime and yet you'll still keep your projects on schedule.

[juliesoutsourcingblog]

Virtual Assistants: Everything You Should Know About Them

 For the uninitiated, what exactly is a Virtual Assistant?

Well, for the most part, a virtual assistant provides a professional administrative, technical and creative assistance to individual clients and businesses from an off-site location. The specifics of their tasks, however, may vary wildly depending on the agreement with the employer. They may include the following:

Appointment scheduling

Call handling

Email filtering and responding

Travel arrangement

Data entry

Social media management

Online research

Presentation and report creation

Website maintenance

Digital marketing

Search engine optimization

Lead generation

Content creation

Attendance tracking

Client acquisition

Event planning

Customer service

Graphic design

Transcription

Blogging

Bookkeeping

Accounting

Bills payment

Purchasing and procurement

 Brief History

The exact date of the beginning to virtual assistants is unknown, although it is generally considered that they began offering their services sometime in the ‘90s, naturally stemming from the existing secretarial sector and the sudden rise to the technology that allowed employer and employee to communicate seamlessly despite being in different locations.

The 24 Hour Secretary (Please hyperlink, Anchor text: The 24 Hour Secretary, URL: www.the24hoursecretary.com/virtual-assistant-industry/) mentions its history, and the pioneers who broke the ground and paved the way for today’s thriving virtual assistant industry.

1981 ABSSI

Association of Business Support Services, International was formed, the first organization that supported work-at-home moms, USA.

1985 HOME SECRETARIES

Led by Ms. Linda Anderson. An organization of home-based secretaries, serving many communities, USA.

1995 CHRISTINE DURST

Ms. Christine Durst, co-founder of StaffCentrix, along with Michael Haaren, take credit for founding the Virtual Assistance industry in 1995, USA.

1996 A CLAYTON'S SECRETARY

Ms. Kathie Thomas founded the first Virtual Assistant Industry network in Australia, AU.

1998 GLOBAL ASSOCIATION OF VIRTUAL ASSISTANTS

Ms. Amy Sarai and Ms. Julie Hewitt are identified as the founders, UK.

ASSIST U

Ms. Stacey Brice takes credit for starting the industry and opened the 1st VA industry training program, USA.

 The Importance of Virtual Assistants

For business people, time is a commodity that is in many ways more important than money -- it’s valuable, and once lost, it cannot be earned back.

Now, what happens when you spend it working on inane repetitive tasks that could be offloaded to another person, instead of working on improving and marketing your business?

The answer is simple, really: you end up wasting it.

Virtual assistants help set you free from the constricting shackles of mundane chores, and enable you to focus on core functions.

Especially for startups and SMEs who cannot afford to spend inordinate amounts of resources for the acquisition and maintenance of in-house personnel, hiring virtual assistants instead are very advantageous. Since most virtual assistants are contractors, their employers are not obligated to shell out additional dollars for their employee-related taxes, insurances, retirement plans, benefits and other indirect expenses that most fulltime onsite employees are entitled to -- unless, of course, there is a different compensation agreement in the contract.

 Outstanding Virtual Assistants and Where to Find Them

Having a virtual assistant around to take care of things for you is an excellent idea -- given that you hire a good one, that is.

It goes without saying that the quality of output you can expect from an employee of any kind in any position depends heavily on that employee’s skills and values. There are certain criterion that must be met, and certain skills that must be present in the candidate to be truly considered an excellent virtual assistant.

A virtual assistant must at the very least be able to consistently provide efficient back-office, administrative and clerical assistance to the client. Because of the unusually extensive range of the tasks that are often required, a virtual assistant must also have superior organizational and multitasking abilities. An excellent technological know-how is vital, since there are numerous software and devices that a virtual assistant must work with on a daily basis.

The following values should be observed to be present as well:

·         Flexibility and adaptability

·         Loyalty

·         Strong work ethic

·         Responsibility

·         Attentiveness

·         Creativity

·         Honesty and credibility

·         Initiative

Having said all these, one question still remains: where exactly can you find your ideal virtual assistant?

The virtual assistant industry is part of the digital economy. It’s internet-reliant, so to speak. This means that to find virtual assistants, you would need to rely a lot on web-based hiring platforms. Here are some of them:

 Upwork

Upwork, formerly Elance-oDesk, is a global freelancing platform where businesses and independent professionals connect and collaborate remotely. In 2015, Elance-oDesk was rebranded as Upwork. It is based in Santa Clara and San Francisco, California. The full name is Upwork Global Inc.

 Fiverr

Fiver is a global intermediary that allows people to buy and sell products and services for as low as five dollars, hence the name. It’s an online marketplace for freelancers, founded in 2010 and based in Tel Aviv, Israel

 OnlineJobs

OnlineJobs is the largest remote job boards and resume database in the Philippines. The site is geared toward Western business owners looking to hire dedicated full or part-time remote staff.

 VA Networking

Like the previous three, VA Networking is the middle ground where employer meets with prospective employee. The biggest difference is that VA Networking caters exclusively to freelance virtual assistants.

 LinkedIn

LinkedIn is an American business and employment oriented service that operates via websites and mobile apps. Founded on December 28, 2002, and launched on May 5, 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking, including employers posting jobs and job seekers posting their CVs.

 The last and perhaps the most reliable place to look for the perfect virtual assistant are BPO companies

BPO, or Business Process Outsourcing companies provide business-to-business outsourcing services that could range anywhere from customer service to software development.

One of the main disadvantages of hiring a freelance home-based virtual assistant is the sheer difficulty in terms of monitoring activity. There are very limited ways to ensure that the hired VA is actuality working on the allotted tasks during the shift.

BPO companies, on the other hand, are guaranteed to have an organizational structure. Virtual assistants working under the supervision of a team leader or a project manager are almost guaranteed to produce better and more consistent results.

 Final Words

The virtual assistant concept is generally a very good one.

The world will always have a need for secretarial services, and the VA industry, with its ability to work closely and efficiently with existing technologies like VOIPs, its relative cheapness and overall convenience answered this need more than well enough.

However, just like with every kind of off-site employee working in a remote location, there are risks that come with hiring virtual assistants.

The good news is that there are also ways to mitigate these risks.

With proper screening and evaluation, finding a good, reliable virtual assistant to significantly reduce your workload should not be impossible.