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Virtual Assistance
Why Businesses Should Consider Outsourcing
If you own or manage a business, you’ll surely agree that the level of competition these days are greater than they’ve been before. Sure, you might have brilliant ideas and strategies in mind but it all comes down to how efficient you are in converting these plans to profit. The more time it takes you to get the job done, the more time your competition has to get ahead of you. He who gets in the most productive work done, while maintaining quality results, in the least amount of time, wins. The key here is efficiency. Whoever gets it right can easily drive their business forward, leaving others playing the game of catch-up.
But let’s face it: being in business is far from easy. As simple as it sounds, there’s actually a lot of work that goes in the day-to-day process just to keep the business running. From operations and logistics, to production and admin work, to sales and marketing, there’s already a handful of areas to oversee and things could easily get overwhelming. Whatever the nature of your business is, maintaining balance while getting optimal results from each are will always be a challenge.
If you find yourself in this situation then outsourcing could be the answer you’re looking for.
What is outsourcing?
Outsourcing is the process of hiring people outside your company to do projects or activities for you. Not only is outsourcing faster, better, and efficient, it’s also strategic because it takes the workload off of you so you can focus on more important and urgent business matters, giving you an edge over your competitors.
It isn’t actually new; in fact there are a lot of things people outsource that are not just limited to business matters, and you may already be doing a few of these too. From household chores and food prep, to paying your bills or cleaning your car—this is all outsourcing. If you’re a busy person, outsourcing could certainly give you extra time you need for more important aspects of your life. If this could work for your personal life, imagine what it could do to your business.
Benefits of outsourcing business processes
Aside from the competitive advantage outsourcing gives by having people carry out processes that aren’t necessarily the core function of the business, it also helps you:
Reduce cost. One of the main reasons companies still considers outsourcing because it keeps administrative and HR expenses under control and lower expenses on fixed and variable costs through process improvements and use of technology. This allows your company to keep lower rates while providing better service and save a lot of money in doing so!
Focus on what matters. The more time you spend doing trivial and necessary, but non-core activities, the lesser time you have left for to work on areas that you are actually good at, those that actually require your skills and expertise, the stuff that drives your business forward. Turning over basic tasks and functions that are time-consuming to someone else will allow you to focus on what really matters.
Maximize productivity. Finding help from people or companies (like BPOs) that have a wide-range of talent and expertise to deliver the outputs you need with the same level, or better quality enables your company to tap-in maximum productivity.
One of the most common things business outsource today is assistance. In recent years, assistance has evolved so much from the traditional “paperwork and administrative tasks” type of assistance we were used to. The digital age certainly paved the way for upgrades. For instance, virtual assistance. Virtual assistants are part of a large segment of the business process outsource (BPO) industry and they most definitely play a huge role in the success of businesses today.
3 areas where virtual assistants can help your business grow
Virtual Assistants offer a wide range of services that can help you reach your business’s full potential.
Pexels.com photo by Christina Morillo
Virtual assistants or VAs serve as an external service provider that executes functions and helps you accomplish various tasks each day so you can focus on more important and immediate matters of your business. Although VAs are commonly outsourced for administrative and personal assistant services, the wide range of expertise and talent pool present in the industry allow you to find ones with more specialized and technical skills that can help you optimize your business process. Let’s look at three specific areas virtual assistants can help you with:
- Digital marketing
One of the challenges most businesses face is developing and carrying out a successful marketing strategy. With the amount of work that goes in the process just to operate a business day-in and out, its no surprise that marketing is the first one to get kicked out the window. This has always been the case, but with the growth and impact of the digital and technology-driven era has in our lives you cannot simply leave out marketing anymore. Besides, marketing boosts sales. Surely that’s worth investing in, right?
The evolving landscape of digital marketing can leave you clueless and outdated if you don’t update your strategies or keep up with the trends. Having an expert in that field to create and execute marketing campaigns relevant to your business not only saves you time and money, but also the stress of having to go through the whole tedious process.
- Customer service
If marketing drives sales, customer services keeps it. How well you treat your potential clients and address the demands of your current customers speaks a lot about your brand. This is vital in turning first-time sales to repeat purchases and could be the key factor to success of your business. Having a Virtual assistant deal with customer relations like responding to calls, messages, and emails, replying to social media comments, and constantly being available through live-chat, not only keeps you at ease, it also keeps your customers happy; happy customers are sure to come back again and again.
- Content management
The success of a marketing campaign is determined by how good the content is and how well it is managed. Content shapes how your customers see you and is what separates you from others in your industry. Virtual assistants can help you create and curate what you put out for your audience. This ranges from text, graphics, images and video, to the specific channels they are posted in like social media, website, and etc. You can hire VAs to manage your content, from development all the way to distribution.
Conclusion
These are just a few examples of how virtual assistants can help your business grow. You’ll know from experience that managing a business is no walk in the park; it’s not a one-man show, and you’ll certainly need all the help you can get. Not only can outsourcing reduce your cost, give you time to focus on other important business matters, and maximize productivity, it also helps you reach your business potential and take it even higher.
He who gets in the most productive work done, while maintaining quality results, in the least amount of time, wins—and in this busy world of business, leveraging the advantages of virtual assistance may very well be the answer to unlocking business process efficiency. Find the right one for you, start delegating tasks, and watch your business grow more than ever.
