How Can a Virtual Assistant Help to Make You More Money?

When discussing the benefits of hiring a Virtual Assistant, one of the most commonly mentioned advantages of a VA seems to be the fact that they can save businesses and entrepreneurs precious time, which could be better spent on other day-to-day duties. However, not many people recognise that whilst hiring a VA is a brilliant time-saving tool, they can also help you and your business become more profitable. In this blog, we discuss the ways in which your Virtual Assistant can help you and your business make more money in the long-term.

Longer Business Hours

If your business hours are set each day, or are shorter than your competitors, it may mean that you are missing out on important calls and potentially new clients or new business enquiries. In order to combat this, you do not need to ask your staff to work longer hours, you can simply hire a VA in order to cover those extra hours, should any enquiries come through. The beauty of hiring a VA over an in-house employee is that most VA’s charge by the hour and have flexibility with regards to the hours they work. Furthermore, as they are not an in-house employee who is required to be in the office, this means that your VA doesn’t even have to live within the same time-zone as you. Having a VA to man the phones, emails or website out of hours means that you will never miss a new business enquiry due to no one being available and clients are more likely to come to you than your competitors if you have out of hours support. More clients mean more money in the long run!

Cost Cutting

Have you ever wondered whether you could be using different suppliers, software, technology or even renting cheaper office space to save you money, but have not had the time to look into alternatives? This is where a VA can step in! A good Virtual Assistant will be able to review your monthly and annual outgoings to see what changes could be made in order to ensure you are saving as much money as possible. This could be by switching your company phones to a cheaper tariff, using a different travel agent for booking corporate travel, or even something as simple as sending invoices electronically rather than by posting them. You will be surprised how only a few small changes can potentially result in your company saving up to thousands of pounds a year!  

Touch Base With Old or Existing Clients

Regardless of the size of your business, as you grow and become busier, it gets more and more difficult to keep in touch with old or existing clients. However, this can be at the businesses’ detriment, as, although it is every businesses’ goal to gain more customers, it is also key that you continue to pay attention to and nurture those customers you already have. It costs more in marketing to attract new customers than it would to simply reach out to pre-existing clients, and, as we all know, it is far easier to sell products or services to existing customers than to someone you don’t have a relationship with. Furthermore, if you have succeeded in providing an excellent service to customers in the past, they are more likely and willing to buy off you again in the future. With this in mind, a VA can touch base with pre-existing clients every few months and, because this relationship is already in place, far less expensive selling and marketing will be required, leading to less money being spent and more money being saved!

After Sales Work

Following on from the above point, the customer journey should not stop as soon as a client purchases your product or service offering. A VA can help you map out how the customer journey should look once a client has bought into your business. For example, a VA can put together an automated email or message that can be sent out to clients 30 days after they have purchased your product or utilised your services asking how they are getting on and perhaps even to ask them to review your business online or write a testimonial. This can also be coupled with follow up messages at 3 months, 6 months or longer. Good customer service and showing that you care will hopefully result in clients leaving good reviews online, which will make your business look more appealing to prospective customers and may even lead to previous clients recommending your business to others in the future. Ensuring all your clients have an excellent customer journey both during the buying process and after will help to generate you more business and make you more money!

Increase Traffic On Your Website and Social Media Channels

It is key to get the word out about your business in order to attract interest and new clients, however, this can be a time consuming task that isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. There are many VA’s in the market who have years of experience with regards to updating your company website, writing and posting informative and engaging content on to social media and creating posts that will generate more visitors to your website. The more you post, the more likely it is that people will begin to take notice of your business, your brand and your offerings, which will not only increase the chances of them looking on your website to find out more about what you do, but may also lead to them remembering you when a specific need arises that you can assist with, or recommending you to peers who require your services. Hiring a VA with this type of experience can go along way in helping you to increase profits, without having to spend a huge amount of money bringing on-board an in-house marketing team or individual. Increased traffic on your website and social media will result in more business and more business means more money, it’s a no-brainer!

Help You Create More Engaging Pitches to Clients 

Many businesses are tasked with pitching their product or service offering in order to win business, which can be an extremely daunting and lengthy process. If you struggle to come up with ways in order to make your pitches or PowerPoint presentations look and sound the part, then this is where a VA can help you. As long as you are able to give your VA enough information with regards to what you want to get across to prospective clients and any specific content you want including, you can then leave them to think about ways to make it more engaging or interactive and how to ensure you stand out compared to your competitors. The more slick, professional, informative and interesting your presentation is, the more likely your client is to buy into your business and the product or services you provide. If you impress with your pitch and win business off the back of it then this is another way in which your VA can help make you more money.

Market Research

When you are busy doing what you do best as a business owner or senior figure within a business, who is undertaking market research with regards to who your target audience is, how best to market your product or offering, who your competition is or what other products or services you could or should be offering to set you apart from those competitors and better serve your clientele? Your VA can make a great deal of difference where market research is concerned and will able to take time to focus on where your efforts will be best spent. Although this is a longer process, undertaking market research to ensure your business, service, brand and offerings are up to date and eye-catching will hopefully, in the long term, lead to an increase in clients which will bring with it an increase in revenue.

Photo by Fabian Blank on Unsplash.