The Small Business Dilemma

Entrepreneurs and small business owners envision spending their time on money generating activities – working with clients and cultivating new business. However, they often find themselves spending a disproportionate amount of their valuable time and energy on administrative tasks and other routine responsibilities, which leaves less time for increasing revenue and also cuts into well deserved opportunities for relaxing with family and friends.

While entrepreneurs and small business owners may one day have a revenue stream and volume of business that justifies a larger support-staff, they are so inundated with administrative issues that they are not even able to grow their business to this point. Hiring a virtual assistant (VA) is a cost effective solution.

When paperwork, logistical arrangements and an endless to-do list stymie the growth and progress of a small business, VAs provide a relatively low-cost and high efficiency support system.

The Benefit of Working Virtually

Whether your VA works around the corner from you or half-way around the world, you may never actually meet them face-to-face. While this can initially be daunting, it is not only viable in the 21st-Century business environment, but also has its perks. Here's why:

1. Through the use of a variety of Internet programs, your VA can perform many tasks as if they were sitting right outside your office. This isn’t limited to just calendar management and handling correspondences, it can include sending hand written notes to clients, helping manage their household and much more.

2. By having a VA who works remotely, you are not responsible for overhead costs, such as office expenses, as well as employment taxes, expenses, and other HR costs.

3. Your VA is there when you need them, but not there when you don’t. You don’t have to pay someone for hours you don’t need, nor do you have to deal with having someone around all the time. This can be particularly enticing for people who work from home.

4. Having someone in a different time zone can be beneficial. While there are certain hours of your work day that your VA may not be available, think about how great to it would be to wake up to an organized inbox and an email giving an overview of your schedule and important to do items for the day!

‘Assistant’ 2.0

While the role of an assistant has matured significantly over the years, virtual assistants take the role to even higher level. Being a VA isn’t only about remotely being able to respond to voicemail and email and schedule appointments. Depending on their skill and experience, your VA can manage your PR and marketing campaigns, Internet presence and more. They can also serve as a sounding board or partner in strategizing and implementing methods of growth and development. There is no end to the plethora of tasks a virtual assistant can handle, allowing you the time and flexibility to shift your focus to where you want it to be.

Training your VA

While quality VA companies train their VAs in best practices, no one automatically thinks and organizes themselves just like you. This is why communication is key. VAs are highly-skilled in adapting their client’s workflow and systems. By providing your VA with feedback often and early, your VA is best able to adapt your needs and style. Before you know it, the amount of feedback you need to provide will diminish. Additionally, depending on how many hours per week you have your VA work for you, weekly calls are essential for both you and your VA to stay current on outstanding items.

The End Result

Even at low-price points, the cost of a VA might seem burdensome to entrepreneurs and small business owners to whom every dollar counts, but ultimately a VA will help increase your revenue. For example, a consultant who charges $250 per hour looses a potential income of $1,000 because they spend four hours a week answering emails and scheduling appointments. By hiring a VA at $30 per hour the consultant will spend $120. With the newly-found free time, the consultant can perform 4 consultations. Hiring a VA has generated a net income of $880!

Once you have regained control of your time, the possibilities are endless. With your new-found freedom, you can further develop client relationships, expand your professional network, research and develop your growth strategy, and prioritize projects that are on the back burner. You can utilize more of your time to generate revenue or travel (for business or pleasure) with the knowledge that operations will function smoothly while you are gone. The simple knowledge that tasks are being accomplished by someone you trust can help jumpstart your energy and creativity in growing your business, leading you to achieve new levels of success.

MORE ABOUT JUSTIN

Justin is the Managing Director of Secretary in Israel. He formerly worked as an investment banker at JP Morgan and iStarr Financial, both in Manhattan. Justin is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and currently resides in Tel Aviv, Israel.

What do you mean you provide administrative support to someone you have never met? How does that even work?

One way I can explain the ease and success with which being a virtual executive assistant works is by telling people that it's exactly like supporting an executive while he or she is away on a business trip. The executive calls and checks in between his/her meetings, during which time I'm holding down the fort by taking care of his/her To Do's. When you think about it like that, coupled with amazing technology that is out there now, it doesn't seem all that far fetched, and it works for us!

With one of my clients, I help him stay on top of his work for his (yes!) 4 businesses. To do so, I utilize David Allen's Getting Things Done organizational methodology along with a master project list via a Google Spreadsheet, which my client and I review once weekly.

For each project, my client determines (and I document) what the next associated action item is. This helps my client quantify each project and break it down into a list of steps. If the first step (such as call someone, send an email, pay a bill, brainstorm, etc.) will take less than two minutes, the immediate decision is to DO IT. If the next actionable step will take longer than two minutes, there are two choices: DELEGATE IT (often to me!) or DEFER IT and put it on a list (on our master project spreadsheet) to complete at a later date.

By "emptying his head" of all the projects and "to do" items while on the phone with me each day, he is placing his trust in David Allen's Getting Things Done system, and in me to organize and maintain it. As a result of our system, my client's thoughts are therefore no longer preoccupied with maintaining and categorizing the ever-growing "to do list." Instead, when he is relaxing with his family or playing a round of golf, he can actually relax without worrying that things are slipping through the cracks. Or, he can focus on attracting more clients, which helps him to bring in additional revenue.

Both of us have up to the minute access to the ever changing master projects document via Google Spreadsheets, and this way, there is never a communication breakdown on the progress of our projects.

As a result of using David Allen's system, my client is able to spend more time in his businesses with clients, which leads to higher revenue for him.

MORE ABOUT HILARY

Hilary most recently served as the Human Resources Manager at Trammell Crow, one of the largest commercial real estate firms in the US. She has extensive experience in research and writing, website design, recruitment, and employee relations. She graduated from the University of Wisconsin, Madison with a triple-major in International Relations, History, and Political Science.

For one of my clients, I have been working as his time manager:

1. I create his daily/weekly/monthly calendar,
2. I read his emails and create a priority list of what he needs to deal with, and
3. I take care of little tasks, such as returning phone calls for him.

The training I received when I started with Secretary in Israel, plus with my previous experience in managing my own time, has enabled my client and me to create a plan to keep him organized and to manage his time better.

VOICEMAIL

I manage my client's voicemail and return all of his calls. Since my client does not have a business that involves him sitting in his office most of the time, to answer the phone, every few hours I check his voicemail. I type up a summary of any messages for him and send them to him via email. This way he can just read the content of the information and does not need to try and listen and write it down himself.

CALENDAR

Since both my client and I are Mac users, we were able to set up access to each others email addresses, address books, and calendars through Entourage, the Microsoft office for Macs program that works similar to Outlook.

We use Entourage to manage my client's calendar.One cool thing we do is include pertinent information in the notes section of the appointment prior to the appointment. This way, my client can get hold of the information just by looking at it and does not have to search for it in his emails or written notes.

When my client completes an appointment he either types up himself or calls me to dictate the details of what was done at the appointment and what follow up steps need to be taken. I then put this information into the notes section of the client. I also put the person's contact information into his address book. This way, all of the information from every appointment is together in one place.

EMAILS

As I became more comfortable in understanding the work my client does, I slowly learned to help him prioritize what emails and messages needed to be responded to, and what could wait. Each day, every two hours, from 9 am to 6 pm EST, I check my client's emails and decide what is pertinent for my client to respond to immediately, what could be dealt with later, and what really does not need his attention at all.

When I am done I send him a summary email of his emails, messages, and tasks that need to be done. I only include the name of the person who the email or message is from and a one sentence summary of what the message is about. If something needs to be done right away, I make sure to emphasize it in some way, usually through a color change and bold font, so it sticks out from the other notes. This method allows my client to manage his time better, by not having to read each and every email that comes to him, and it allows him to see a priority list of what needs to get done.

Finally, there are some emails that I respond to for him. If anyone needs to set up an appointment, or needs a summary of the recent work he did for them, I don't even bother to let my client know about the email, I just respond to it myself. This way my client can focus his time on serving the needs of his client, while I take care of the little things.

MORE ABOUT NAOMI

Naomi graduated Cum Laude from the University of Maryland at College Park. She was also awarded the School of Health and Human Performance’s Fraley Award for most Outstanding Graduating Student.

How can I manage my client’s calendar and book his appointments when he lives in the US and I live in Israel? Thanks to Secretary in Israel’s method, it is really so simple!

My client and I share a Google Calendar, which is very easy to use. My client and I can both put in events, and both of us can see the events that the other has made.

When my client wants to schedule a meeting with someone, he either emails me what he has in mind or he emails the person ccing me, mentioning that I’ll be the one to work out the details. I take it over from that point on and reach out to his contact to schedule the appointment.

How do I know where my client wants to have meetings or on which days? How do I know how long to book the meetings? That’s part of the beauty of Secretary in Israel.

Before clients start working with me, Justin Karr, our Managing Director, meets with our clients and goes through a series of questions about exactly how our clients want their appointments scheduled. We’ve developed these questions from working with many clients over the past 2 years. Justin puts these questions into a Google doc that he then shares with me.

Sample questions Justin reviews with clients include:

• Which days does the client want to do in-person meetings and phone meetings?
• How long should meetings be?
• Where are the top 3 places the clients prefers to meet?
• What is the call-in # the client wants to use for conference call meetings?
• And so on…

To find all the information that I need in order to book my client's appointments, I just look in the Google doc and all the information is there.

To book an actual appointment, I’ll email my client's contact and ask her when she is free, suggesting a few times when my client is free.

When I hear back from her, I'll book the appointment in Google Calendar, writing the contact's name, phone #, and the location of the meeting.

One day prior to the meeting, I'll confirm with my client's client about the meeting. I will then change the appointment to: CONFIRMED - Name of Contact. This way, my client will know the appointment has been confirmed. I will also put into the event's description any information that my client should know before making that call, such as the background or objective of the call.

That's it! That's how I schedule appointments for my client, who is an entrepreneur in the US, while I'm here in Israel.

MORE ABOUT CARLY

Carly has been managing offices in the United States for the past 7 years. She is originally from Chicago, and she graduated with a BA from Thomas Edison State College. Carly loves helping small business owners build their companies, adding helpful and creative insights to help things run as efficiently as possible.