Is a Virtual Assistant a luxury in a Recession?

In a recession when the knee jerk reaction is to cut back on employment wages and look at more economical ways of getting jobs done, a manager has 2 choices:
• Do the work him/herself
• Look for someone freelance to subcontract the work to

Having a Virtual Assistant in a recession can fall both ways of the argument.

On the plus side, it definitely saves money on employment, all those costs associated with sick, holiday, NI, pension contributions etc. plus providing them with office space and equipment.

A VA (Virtual Assistant) on an hourly rate gives you much more control of how much you spend per week or month, which can quite easily fluctuate from week to week.

You get a definitive idea on how long a job takes and costs, especially for jobs like populating a spreadsheet of new contact details or phone calling to follow up emails and mail shots – remember time is money…

On the other side, as an established Virtual Administrator I have the choice to take on a new client or not. I can make a decision as to whether a potential client would be better doing their own admin work if it only involves 1 hour’s support per month and they show no great ambition to grow their business.

But from the businesses perspective, by using the skills of a VA, this will free up time for them to concentrate on other areas of their marketing, selling and growing business strategy.

Having a VA in a recession really does boil down to these 2 facts:
• Can you afford to pay someone on an hourly rate to look after your admin functions?
• And do you think by freeing up your time to concentrate on other areas of your business will benefit you in the long term?

A VA working for small businesses can:
• Look after your appointments
• Reply to your emails on your behalf
• Populate your ever growing contact spreadsheet with business cards
• Type up reports, quotes and help with form filling and grant applications
• Sort out your invoices and chase up late payments
• Create articles, press releases, write ups on your business
• Update your website with fresh content and pictures
• Make sure your website comes high up when people search on Google

This gives you a good list of jobs that would tie down a person who really needs to get out to meetings, appointments and network events.