5 Signs Showing You Need to Hire a Virtual Assistant ASAP

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Wouldn’t it be great if you didn’t have to do everything to run a successful business? A lot of first-time entrepreneurs and small business owners believe that in order to successfully run a business, you need to manage everything yourself, like that famous line that states, “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.”

But as smart as that statement may be, it doesn’t always apply to business management. Sure, you can choose to do everything on your own; you can manage every single aspect of your business. However, let me ask you this: How many successful entrepreneurs can you find who can honestly say that they did it all on their own? I bet you dollars to doughnuts, you can’t.

Want to know the secret to running a successful business? Task delegation. You need to realize that you can’t do everything on your own. And you need to accept the fact that appointing the right people for the right job is half the journey toward entrepreneurial success.

So, do you think you have what it takes to share the responsibilities of running a business? Are you willing to give up some of your day-to-day tasks and delegate them to another individual?

The Value of Virtual Assistants

What is a virtual assistant and how useful can they be when it comes to running a business?

The Internet revolution brought about a lot of new concepts, from social media to video streaming services. But the advent of the World Wide Web didn’t just give us Facebook, YouTube, or Netflix; it also gave birth to a myriad of online services that cater to the business community, including the creation of the Virtual Assistant (VA) service.

But even with this great resource, a number of entrepreneurs and small business owners are still reluctant to hire a virtual assistant.

Some business owners refuse to take advantage of the service because they feel they’re not yet ready, some think that hiring a virtual assistant is an unnecessary expense that they can’t afford, while others believe they don’t need the help and they can run the business on their own.

But what is a VA, really? A VA, or a virtual assistant, is an individual who possesses a specific skill set that enables him or her to work remotely as an administrative or personal assistant for various clients. And contrary to what you might think when you hear the words “virtual assistant,” these professionals are more than just a secretary.

The fact is:

Depending on their field of experience, virtual assistants can be adept at graphic design, data gathering and analysis, web development and SEO, bookkeeping, social media marketing, and so on. The key is to find the right virtual assistant with the right skill set for the right job. Don’t hire a VA with web design skills just to have him or her do bookkeeping tasks.

Now that we have that sorted out, the next question you need to ask is, do I need a virtual assistant to help out with the day-to-day business processes? Here are several indicators that it’s time for you to hire a VA right this instant:

Five Clear Signs That It’s Time to Hire a Virtual Assistant

It’s time to assess your situation to figure out whether or not you’re in desperate need of a virtual assistant.

1. Instead of leading, you constantly find yourself dealing with even the most trivial aspects of your business.

As an entrepreneur or small business owner, your basic responsibility is to lead, to steer your business in the right direction. Towards progress and success. You are the captain of the ship, so to speak. But you can’t be a captain and an engineer at the same time. Engineers take care of the ship’s engine, making sure it runs smoothly and without a hitch.

The captain’s job is to make sure that every personnel under his or her command do their jobs properly, so that the ship moves forward in the right direction. Now, if you find yourself having to deal with every minute detail, every small aspect of your business that you no longer have the time to take care of your primary responsibilities as the business owner, then maybe you should start looking for a good VA.

2. You notice the day is much shorter and you barely even accomplished anything meaningful to improve your business progress.

Every successful business owner in history has had their fare share of seemingly shorter days. When you have a lot of things in your daily schedule that you have to cross out, it’s going to feel like the day is short. And if you do most of the business related tasks on your own no matter how long you stretch your work hours, it is always going to feel like you haven’t done enough.

The sad part about this is when a business owner goes in the habit of doing everything, thinking that he doesn’t need any help, nothing will ever be enough. You can work yourself to death, but you’ll still feel like you’ve accomplished very little.

So if you feel that your days are getting shorter and shorter for the amount of tasks that you still have to finish, it’s time to ask for help and hire yourself a virtual assistant.

3. You have a lot of ideas to improve your business, but you can’t seem to find the time to work on them or to even get started with one idea.

It takes more than just accomplishing day-to-day tasks to run a successful business. Being a successful entrepreneur means taking the time to find opportunities, to come up with great ideas to grow the business. You can’t do that if you barely even have the time to finish your daily business processes.

A lot of first-time business owners are so eager and full ideas. But once the work start to pile up and they are swamped with papers and administrative tasks, the spark that gives them the enthusiasm and the excitement to run their business slowly start to diminish. And pretty soon, the handful of ideas that they used to have slowly evaporates, never coming to fruition.

As I’ve said, successful entrepreneurs should lead their business, instead of managing it. But more so than that, they should also be able to dream and come up with workable ideas to help their business grow and move forward. However, it’s hard to lead and think up ideas if you’re constantly dealing with trivial tasks.

If you have great ideas you want to work on, but can’t because the bulk of your day is allotted to completing business processes, you may want to consider delegating those tasks to a virtual assistant.

4. You spend all your time in your business and nothing else.

Even God took a rest day after creating the world. It’s not healthy, nor is it reasonable to pour all your time into your business without taking a step back and spending some time with the other aspects of your life. You must have family, friends, and hobbies. Don’t you want to spend some quality time with the people you love and care about?

Sometimes people tend to pour all of their time and effort on something that they lose sight of what is important, why they’re doing it, or for whom they’re doing it for. Time is precious. Once you spend it, you can never get it back. So spend it wisely. Don’t lose yourself in your business.

If you find that you’re losing time and opportunity to spend on other things, consider getting help and hire a good virtual assistant to assist you with your daily tasks.

5. You start to feel stressed out and your health is beginning to suffer.

Here’s something that is a good indicator of how much you need help in managing your business. If you’re feeling stressed all the time, you constantly get migraines and you lose your temper quite a lot, it’s a sign that you’re overworked.

If you’re doing too much work with so little time, it’s inevitable to experience stress. And if you don’t do something about it, that stress can lead to other things namely health-related problems. And that’s the last thing you want.

This is why it’s important that you give yourself time to rest and relax, and not think about work. But of course, business operations must go on and tasks must be accomplished. This is where the true value of a good virtual assistant becomes evident. And why hiring one may just be what you need to help you avoid stress and potential health problems in the future.