Without meaning to, a lot of business owners can accidentally become trapped in the day-to-day running of their firm until they are so busy working in the business that they no longer have any time to work on the business.
If this sounds like you, dont worry. With a little help, you can extract yourself from the onslaught of menial tasks and get back to your role as the leader of a growing company. The solution? A virtual assistant.
What is a virtual assistant?
A virtual assistant is a modern term we use to describe an assistant a person who helps in particular work who carries out, accesses and delivers their allotted work by means of a computer network.
In todays business environment, this might look like a group of highly-qualified young professionals in the Philippines performing administrative, accounting, HR, and customer service activities for a firm based in New Zealand, Australia or USA.
Due to differences between the countries economies, choosing to outsource these activities internationally can produce incredible savings compared to the cost of acquiring the same services within New Zealand/Australia/USA. While you can outsource to any country you choose, the Philippines has rapidly become the country of choice, as virtual assistants speak fluent English (often with an American accent), are highly qualified, and the beautiful Filipino culture offers happy, enthusiastic members for your team.
More about outsourcing in the Philippines
Do you need a virtual assistant?
If youre feeling overwhelmed with your current workload, outsourcing can change the way you run your business. Here are just a few signs you could use a virtual assistant:
- The inbox is out of control
- You have no time to work on the business because youre always working in the business
- Non-revenue-generating tasks are taking up everyones time
- You require broader or sharper skills within the business
Why outsource?
The benefits of employing a virtual assistant can be enormous, saving you time, money, and sanity.
By delegating tasks you can create the time you need to work on your business and not in it. By choosing a country such as the Philippines, you can also achieve cost savings while pursuing specialist help in many different areas.
But perhaps the greatest unsung benefit of outsourcing comes from pursuing freedom of the mind. Learning to delegate can allow you to stop being overwhelmed by administrative tasks and greatly reduce business-related stress. Without knowing it, business owners are often the one factor standing in the way of a companys growth. When you remove yourself as a bottleneck within your firm, you give your team the empowerment to grow and develop. If your personal input is no longer required in every little matter, the roadblocks and hold-ups are removed, and everything and everyone within your business will become more efficient and streamlined. The ability to delegate is the hallmark of a great leader.
So what do you do with your new-found freedom? Focus on your family, take time to exercise, engage in hobbies and a social life outside of work, and you will find that developing personal holistic health will provide you with benefits far beyond the simple time and cost savings of outsourcing.
Turn the key to freedom
If this is what you want your business to look like, we have prepared a comprehensive, completely free resource to describe how outsourcing works, what your options are, and explain the simple steps you can take right now to get started. Download our white paper here to find out how The Back Room can help you turn the key to freedom.
If you are an accounting firm looking to outsource accounting activities, you can also use our Outsourcing Readiness tool to find out where youre at. The Readiness Tool is an easy-to-use tool designed to assess how well developed your business plan is to help you succeed in outsourcing parts of your business. It wont take long to complete (as little as 10 minutes) and at the end of the process, we will prepare a downloadable list of recommended actions for you to take. This includes plenty of information to help you implement the recommended changes.