9/28/2012

Can Virtual Assistants Really Drive Up Your Productivity?

NEW YORK-Whether you are a mobile worker, a busy entrepreneur or a corporate executive—if your schedule is packed from early morning until after the sun goes down—you could benefit from a virtual assistant. Indeed, you can drive up your productivity—and maybe your profits—if you aren’t burdened with mundane tasks.

Much like a smartphone, e-mail account, fax machine or old fashioned Rolodex, a virtual assistant, also known as a VA, virtual secretary, or virtual administrative assistant, is a weapon in your productivity arsenal that can help you do much more with much less.

Consider your day. When you leave your office, do you forward your calls to your mobile phone? You could and probably do, if you are productivity-minded, but do you really want to take calls in the middle of an important lunch meeting or when you are having dinner with your family? And do you really want to be unavailable when the next hot prospect calls? A virtual assistant can answer your calls for you while you are out of pocket, and also screen calls when you have your head down into a project.

It doesn’t matter what kind of office you work in—executive office suites, virtual office, home office, coworking office space—you can take advantage of the benefits of virtual assistants. No matter where you are, your virtual assistant can be the glue that holds it all together, handling business administration tasks, scheduling appointments, and even handling personal issues like booking your next, well-deserved vacation.

When you hire a virtual assistant, it also frees also up your job budget. Rather than hiring a full-time or part-time employee, you can use a virtual assistant on an on-demand basis. You can ramp up by adding hours as needed or scale back when business slows or when a special project is completed. The power is in your hands—and those two hands become four even more powerful hands when you hire a virtual assistant.