7 Reasons to Hire a Specialized Virtual Assistant

As a business owner, you can’t do everything by yourself, but you can do more with extra help.

It’s common for newer business owners to start venturing into hiring a virtual assistant (VA). These VA’s also tend to be newer in their own business and/or do general administrative work. I’ve done that myself from time to time when I was new.

Then you get to a point in your business where one person isn’t enough anymore. You need someone to focus on specific areas of your business instead.

You’re finally making some consistent money with your business and ready to start handing off some tasks you don’t enjoy or don’t have time for. Congratulations! This is exciting and the next step to start growing your business.

Ideally, you want to hire a VA who has a specialized skill set, not someone who is a “jack of all trades, master of none.”

That’s when I recommend hiring specialized virtual assistants.

What is a Specialized Virtual Assistant?

A specialized virtual assistant focuses on a limited number of skill sets, called “niching down”. Instead of knowing a little about a lot of different topics, a specialist continues learning and stays up to date on their preferred skills to become an expert on that topic.

For example, a specialized VA could be an expert in social media management, content creation, email marketing, web design, or bookkeeping. They have specific knowledge and experience in these areas and can offer a higher level of expertise and efficiency than a general VA.

Although Virtual Assistants (VA) wouldn’t be a life or death situation, the point is,  if you want something done right the first time, who is passionate about what they do and are an expert at it, you’ll be much happier with the results.

Why Hire a Specialized Virtual Assistant (VA)?

The benefit of hiring a specialized VA is that you can get high-quality work in a specific area of your business. You don’t have to spend time and resources training them on the specific task because they already have the expertise. Plus, they can offer feedback and ideas you may not have known or thought of, which can help your business grow and improve.

Here are 7 Reasons why I recommend hiring a specialized Virtual Assist for your blog or business:

Cost-effective

Hands down the best way to start creating a team, without having employees.

Since a Virtual Assistant is basically a contractor who runs their own business, you don’t have to worry about the overhead of a typical employee. No insurance, no paid time off, they use their own office supplies and equipment, etc. Because you don’t have to worry about these expenses, this allows you to easily budget for an expert Virtual assistant who may charge more, but highly efficient and knows what they are doing and get it done right the first time.

You can work with the specialized VA as needed, whether it’s one time or on a recurring, part-time basis.

You’re not good at or have the time, to do specific tasks

Say you typically create your social media graphics and posts, then take the time to schedule them. You do it because you know you need to, but you’d prefer to not have to do this task.

This task may take anywhere from one to two hours to do this entire process. That is a lot of time you could be working on income-generating projects instead!

That is where a specialized VA comes in. From this example, you would want to hire a Social Media Manager who is great at not only doing the above tasks, but is an expert on the topic, stays up to date, and could do it much faster and better than you could.

See how hiring a specialized VA, in this case, would be very valuable for you?

Grow Your Business

As you take on more clients, add more products, do more writing, it becomes much harder to juggle everything on your own. You’re working long hours and burnout is inevitable.

Once you have some consistent income, it’s time to start growing your business or blog. To do this efficiently, it’s time to start building a team and hand off tasks that takes up too much of your time, or you don’t enjoy specific tasks in the first place.

Specialists for different tasks

The first team members many business owners hire are typically an Accountant, Bookkeeper, and Virtual Assistant. But there are VA’s for about every business task you can think of.

Before you hire a VA, ask yourself the following questions:

• What is my main goal in the next 90 days?
• What steps do I need to take to get there?
• What tasks do I want to continue doing myself? (Usually income projects or others you really enjoy) For example, I prefer to write all my marketing copy and blog posts.
• Which tasks do I dislike the most, or takes up too much of my time? For example, posting to social media takes too much time for me, and I just want to answer questions, comments, and network instead.
• What strengths do I want my VA to have to balance my weaknesses?
• What personality and values do I want my VA to have?

Go-to person for specific, repeat business/tasks

Once you’ve started working with your expert Virtual Assistant, you know who to go to, and refer to others, for ongoing tasks or on an as-needed basis. It’s a win-win for you both. And when we help each other, everyone is successful!

Reduce stress

Now that you and your Expert VA have started working together, you’ll be amazed at how much stress is taken off of you.

Just think, the task(s) you passed off to your VA, are being accomplished as you simultaneously work on projects you enjoy more. Your family notices you’re in a better mood, you enjoy your business more and it’s easier to handle problems as they pop up, all because you are in a better emotional state.

More focus

With less stress, you gain back time and more headspace, so it’s easier to focus on clients and money-making tasks. The easier it is to focus, the easier it is to stay motivated and the flow, easier to build your business, and easier to hand off more tasks, because your productivity had increased dramatically.

As you build your team for your blog or business, I hope these tips help you find the best Virtual Assistant(s) for you and your business needs.

___

Have you hired a specialized VA before? Share with us why you hired one, and what task(s) they helped you with, in the comments below.