Entries by Swapnil Dhamankar

6 Don’ts for a successful virtual Assistant

6 Don’ts for a successful virtual Assistant

A Virtual Assistant is the need of the hour. In these times of competition among virtual assistants, a successful virtual assistant is someone who cares for his client’s businesses as he would have done for his own, accepts his mistakes and Learns from it, is proactive, farsighted and who can showcase his achievements more than his caliber or potential. People hire a virtual assistant keeping these qualities in their minds. 

Let’s discuss them in detail,

  • Not my Business

Never, I repeat Never; treat the business of your client as his business. If a client is hiring you as a virtual assistant then you are also part of the business, therefore, work as if the company belongs to you. A successful virtual assistant is someone who feels, works and reacts as if he belongs to that company. Felt like a king now?

  • Do it later Attitude

Time is money has been said again and again and you know exactly what it is so.

Don’t be a sucker of time but be a sucker of work and that too Quality work. (Did you expect a song of Nick Jonas instead). When clients hire a virtual assistant, they mostly prefer proactive people.

  • Perfect Assistant with no mistakes

Never be someone who hides mistakes, we all are humans and perfect human doesn’t exist so own your doings be it right or wrong. Perfection is demanded but excellence is what we can attain. Perfection can be a myth. Clients hire a virtual assistant who craves for excellence and nothing less.

  • Limited sighted Virtual Assistant

Clients hire a virtual assistant who thinks ahead of work what is asked of him/her, the VAs who does it cannot be stopped from getting hired a lot more than their competitors. Not only that but also they have their clients happy and satisfied with their work.

  • One Way Communication

Don’t always communicate verbally but try alternate yet professional ways of exchanging views.

Communicate through emails, VCs. These ways help the completion of tasks efficiently.

A successful Virtual Assistant is someone who can google his way out of any situation without asking the client and wasting his time on petty issues.

  • A Lot of caliber with No Achievements

These days Clients hire a virtual assistant not based on personality or potential but on what they have achieved to date. So a successful Virtual assistant should be someone who can showcase his/her achievements as a virtual assistant. A successful virtual assistant is someone who has a basic knowledge of various niches but deep knowledge of the sector he is working in currently as a virtual assistant.

Conclusion

These are the 6 don’ts that every successful Virtual assistant avoids. They focus on the ominous qualities which are very essential to be in the preferred list of their clients. They make rosters of their client’s activities, rely less on the inputs of their manager and make their path. These are the qualities that the clients look forward to when they hire a Virtual Assistant.

A Powerful Weapon for Your Business

A Powerful Weapon for Your Business

Today’s Virtual Assistant plays an important role in the growth of the business. Every businessman and entrepreneur knows that Virtual assistant is a secret weapon who helps in the rapid growth of the business because they work from a remote location at a comparatively low rate. Presently, everyone wants to succeed in his business in a fast way and they know Virtual assistant is the best option for this.

Let’s look at how online Virtual assistant

  •     For fast growth of a business

Everyone knows that India is a developing country and day by day there is the establishment of new companies and every start-up business owner-entrepreneur wants to grow his business in a fast way. In this situation, the Virtual assistant helps a lot for the fast growth of the business because online virtual assistants available 24/7 and they work from a remote location.

  •     Performing work at an inexpensive rate

In India, it is very challenging to hire an experienced employ at a low salary. But this problem can be solved by hiring an online virtual assistant because in comparison to employ, virtual assistants work at inexpensive rates with quality and virtual assistants perform the work in the right way because they are well experienced and knowledgeable.

  •     Lack of Space

For any start-up and small businessman, it is very difficult to provide proper space for its employees for work because they can’t afford a huge office for its employ. But this problem can only be solved by hiring online virtual assistant because they work online from a remote location, so there is no space required to perform his work.

  •     Add Business Flexibility

Most of the businessmen and entrepreneurs like to hire people through virtual assistant online because of their flexibility to manage the time for work.

For example, if any businessman and entrepreneur plan to have 24/7 customer service, they can hire a virtual assistant from different parts of the world to manage shifts throughout their workday. The time zone differentials will work in his favor.

  •     To perform various tasks

An online virtual assistant is multitasking and this is the best quality of virtual assistant. A virtual assistant can help in various tasks depending on the experience and skillset required for any demanded work. Virtual assistants are capable of doing more than one task. Multitasking helps to assign different tasks to a single person.

These are some of the best points of online virtual assistant which contributes to the growth of your business.

Conclusion

After knowing all these points we can say that how virtual assistant plays an important role in the growth of the business. If we hired a virtual assistant intelligently, they help a lot in increasing business like- reduce operating costs, increase productivity, strengthen weak areas in the organization, maintains daily work and performs other important work. We can say that a virtual assistant is a powerful weapon for success in business.

Virtual Assistant Services that will help you to grow in a Competitive World

Virtual Assistant Services that will help you to grow in a Competitive World

A virtual assistant is a person who provides a variety of services to entrepreneurs from a remote location. From digital marketing, event management, personal errands to scheduling appointments hiring a virtual assistant makes it all stress-free.

Services Provided by Virtual Assistants:

  •   Virtual Admin Services: Virtual admin services include managing appointments, organizing tasks and scheduling meetings. It is important to hire a virtual assistant to carry out daily routine activities like general administration tasks, data management, and mailings and calling tasks. It will lead to an increase in work productivity. These regime activities may look small but affect drastically the core tasks if not handled on time.

  •   Accounting and Finance: Accounting and finance is the most important function of a company. This task being lengthy and having standards to follow it is recommended to hire a virtual assistant. The services provided by the expert virtual assistant are calculation and accounting services, assisting financial reporting, updating and maintaining invoices and checking deductions and taxes. Increase employee productivity by hiring a virtual assistant and lessen the burden of senior-level employees so that they can focus on more important tasks like forming efficient strategies and executing those strategies to achieve organizational goals and objectives.

  • Virtual Tech Support: Technological developments have been increasing at a fast pace and these advancements have proved beneficial to the business. But just installing software is not enough entrepreneurs need to manage it too. Virtual assistant providing tech support includes services like software installation, CCTV surveillance, windows support mac support, set up and configuration and remote diagnostic services. The tech support services work the best for small businesses that are willing to expand.

When an organization hire a virtual assistant to do a job in a professional way it saves cost on training employees to do the same task. The organization saves on salary as virtual assistants don’t work full time so the payout is also less. The most important aspect of hiring a virtual assistant is that it will save time for organizations as they can outsource activities to professional assistants and can focus on more important tasks.

Hiring a virtual assistant is beneficial in this competitive world. As virtual assistants are well trained and qualified, they can handle any tasks given to them. By hiring virtual assistant, entrepreneurs can expand the business as entrepreneurs don’t have to handle all tasks. 

The 7 Most Misunderstood Facts about Online Personal Assistant

The 7 Most Misunderstood Facts about Online Personal Assistant

A virtual personal assistant is a skilled and experienced person who serves business owners, entrepreneurs and small clients from a remote location. They take care of the administrative force, financial tasks and many more. A virtual assistant has a stable grasp upon the working of the internet and the new trends on it. They keep themselves updated with the latest upgrades, government norms and the needs of the market.

The demands for an online personal assistant has risen at the present time as many large companies are opting to hire a VA instead of appointing a secretary or more employees.

However, some people are still not aware of the details and facts about online personal assistants and have quite a lot of misconceptions about them. So here are the most commonly misunderstood facts about online virtual assistants.

  1. It is a belief that online personal assistants charge quite a hefty amount for the services that they provide as and when appointed. But it is a complete myth because they charge pretty less compared to the amount you pay to the employees and other workers of your company.

  2. Online personal assistants are mostly multi-tasking but as they perform their job from a remote location, they fail to understand the immediate needs of the company and thus it might happen that their suggestions and advice may not be fruitful for you at all times. This is again a misunderstood fact as these VAs are quite aware of the needs of the company, depending on the communication at the time of signing the contract.

  3. The virtual assistants may not agree with the terms and conditions of your company when you improve them in the long run and they might choose to not adapt to the changes and decisions taken by you. Again, something that VAs don’t normally do.

  4. Virtual personal assistants might lag behind in scheduling a meeting and taking care of the requirements of your clients as they would not get the information timely if your client faces a sudden issue and reschedule the meeting at the last moment. However, this is not true as these VAs can function efficiently with proper communication.

  5. Even when most of the virtual personal assistants are experienced and have a stronghold over their domain of work, if you end up leaving all the responsibilities upon them, you can face problems at every step. This is not true as VAs treat the clients as their own company and work efficiently and faithfully.

  6. Virtual assistants serve with full dedication and commitment but their work efficacy and productivity fail to meet the needs or their performance may lag behind the employees. It isn’t true at all as they are as efficient, or more than in-house employees.

  7. They aren’t always available upon communication as they are based on a remote location. However, VAs adjust to the work timing of the clients. Hence, they are mostly available for communication as and when needed.

However, an online personal assistant is capable of assisting in your business in many ways. If you can instruct and supervise them according to your needs, you might not face all the troubles with the misunderstood facts.

How to Get Hired as a Virtual Personal Assistant

How to Get Hired as a Virtual Personal Assistant

Get hired as a virtual personal assistant and independent contractor who provides services to business owners and entrepreneurs from a remote location. Although the demand for a virtual personal assistant is growing rapidly these days, there is still a large number of people who don’t understand the duties and role of this job profile.

Starting from administrative tasks to managing the client’s work schedule, a virtual personal assistant has a lot to offer than you can even imagine. Depending upon your knowledge, skills and your area of interest, you can choose what facilities you want to offer to your consumers.

Find out your areas of interest and strengths and chalk out the tasks accordingly. An intense desire to learn, amazing communication skills and a bold and positive attitude are all you need to start working as a virtual personal assistant

Here is a gist of tips that you can follow to serve as a successful virtual assistant.

  • In order to work as a virtual assistant, firstly, you need to have a strong grasp of the working manner of the internet and the latest trends and customs of the services you want to provide to your clients. Thus, frame a business structure by keeping in mind the strengths and working experience you have.

  • The best part of this job profile is that it does not follow any specific rulebook and thus, there are no hard and fast regulations that you need to stick to. Decide which virtual personal assistant services you want to offer to your clients. Once you start working in this domain, you will be able to adapt and change your services accordingly on the basis of the requirements of your clients, the profitability and your personal area of strength.

  • Time management and organizing an expenditure structure is a major point to work upon before you start serving as a full-time virtual assistant. Keep a track of the monetary condition and the expenses and personal time you need for your regular lifestyle. There will always be an episode of bargaining with your clients regarding your payments and thus it is better to demand a higher rate than you require. In the long run, you won’t feel satisfied if you work for inadequate pay.

  • The next step is to design an attractive website for your business and to establish your presence. Maintaining a proper website and updating your social networking accounts is a major step to gain attention among your clients. 

  • Figure out your target market first and grow your network based on that. Find out the prospects and needs of your ideal clients and start offering the services accordingly. Serve in such a way so that you become the irreplaceable one in your duty.

By working as a virtual personal assistant, you are going to help others expand their business, thus being an extremely satisfying job profile. But you also need to take care of your needs and must set a boundary so that you do not end up suffering while trying to assist someone else to develop their business. all these tips will help you in getting hired as a virtual personal assistant.

5 Common Mistakes while Hiring a Virtual Assistant Services Provider

5 Common Mistakes while Hiring a Virtual Assistant Services Provider

A virtual assistant services provider is someone who works from a remote area and helps you to tackle the administrative tasks of your business. This job is normally done by the employees, who used to work under you in your office itself. However, virtual assistant services offer the same perks but without burdening you with the responsibilities you would have for in-house employees.

In the present generation, a virtual assistant services provider is the most preferred solution as these people mainly multitask and end up managing all your tasks and needs, single-handedly. However, hiring a virtual assistant can be quite frustrating at times if you fail to explain your working style properly. Most companies opt to hire VA services providers to solve immediate needs without thinking of the consequences.

Nevertheless, there are some common errors you need to avoid. Here they are mentioned below:

  • It is necessary to find out the reason why you want to hire a virtual assistant. Without sorting out your needs, do not look to choose a virtual assistant randomly. That would put you in more trouble and the entire process would end up getting more messed up along with wastage of both money and time. Make a proper list of the tasks you need to get done and then look for a qualified and experienced VA who can serve you in a proper way.

  • When you are appointing a VA, it is advisable to not keep a lot of expectation from a single person. The field of expertise will vary from person to person. Thus, if you are hiring a person for managing your websites and social media accounts, it can be possible that he is not well-versed in handling your clients and management process. It would be a waste to over expect from your VA and in order to avoid complications, maintain clarity of your requirements and communicate accordingly.

  • Hiring a virtual assistant does not mean you won’t review their works. It is needed to maintain a calendar and to examine their progress so that you can also suggest amendments and changes. It would boost your knowledge and would help to avoid the repetition of mistakes.

  • In recent years, there has been a rush in outsourcing VA to overseas companies as it benefits the financial side and also does increase the productivity of work. However, you need to give a thought to the part that language and cultural barriers may affect his service to some extent if proper instructions are not provided as and when needed.

  • Virtual Assistant Services are mainly provided by administrative experts who are trained and have a fair experience in this domain. Yet, they need proper instructions and briefings for the service and work to be done. Prepare a step-by-step guide that would help you to get maximum benefit.

By taking care of the steps you need to take from your side, you can prevent blunders and increase the productivity of your business Plus, all of this at much lower cost.

Email Marketing with Virtual Assistant

Email Marketing with Virtual Assistant

Without a proper marketing strategy, is it impossible for a business to grow? Why? The main reason is competition. The market is very competitive and is overcrowded with various businesses belonging in the same segment. So, if you wish that your business to grow, then it is necessary for you to make sure that you take the necessary steps to make your business visible to its customers. The only way to become visible in this overcrowded market is by adopting a proper marketing strategy, such as e-mail marketing.

Why opt for Email marketing?

Email marketing is one of the oldest forms of marketing, and till date, it has achieved amazing results. Email marketing is the only tool with a high rate of conversion. It not only brings you customers but also increases your website, which is in turn great for your SEO ranking. But implementing email marketing is a tedious job. It involves data collection, forming a proper strategy, creating eye-catching content and sending it at the right time. If you start to take part in email marketing by yourself, then focusing on your business can become more difficult. To solve this problem, you can hire an Email Marketing Virtual Assistant.

How can Email Marketing Virtual Assistant help?

Email marketing is great for advertising your brand, but you need to implement it properly in order to get the desired results. For this reason, hiring an Email Management Virtual Assistant will provide you the desired results.

Here are reasons why you should Email Management Virtual Assistant

  • Professional content

The success of Email marketing is completely based on the content. If you are creating boring content with no catchy phrases, subheads, attention-grabbing quotes, pictures, then your email marketing campaign is destined to fail. To get the desired results, you need creative and eye-catching content. This is where Email Management Virtual Assistant comes into play. It helps you to create eye-catching content which will ensure a handsome conversion rate.

  • Build a result-oriented campaign

Email marketing is completely based on how well the campaign is designed. A campaign should have a proper plan of how email marketing will be executed. This includes segregation of subscribers list, timing when the email will be sent and etc. an Email Management Virtual Assistant will surely lay down a campaign plan which will help you achieve the results you desire. 

  • Schedule of emails

Email marketing lies on one basic principle, i.e. what time the mails are being sent. The timing of the mails is really important, as it ensures the open rate. If you are sending the mails when people are sleeping, then by morning, your mail will go down the list of emails and people will hardly notice your mail. An Email Management Virtual Assistant ensures that the emails are sent at the peak hour when the chances of opening the mail are really high.

  • Segregating potential customers

An Email Management Virtual Assistant ensures that your emails are sent to people who can be your potential customers. Sending emails to random people will never get you any desired results.

Here are 4 major reasons why Email Marketing Virtual Assistant can do you wonders and give the results you desire.

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What to prefer: Chatbot V/S Virtual Assistant?

What to prefer: Chatbot V/S Virtual Assistant?

Nowadays a company can make it to the top only if it provides outstanding customer service. There are many competitors in the market, but the one with prompt customer service comes out as the winner. Companies spend a lot of money on building an efficient customer service team.

Customers do not like to wait as they want their queries to be resolved as soon as possible. To curb this challenge, companies hire customer executives to address the problems and queries of the customers. Hiring a huge team of customer service officers can be an expensive affair, therefore, only big companies could afford it. For a startup, it is not possible to invest so much money in a customer executive team.

But now the tables have turned, even small companies are able to provide amazing customer service through chatbots or Virtual assistant. But wait, aren’t chatbots or Virtual assistant, the same thing? This is a common misconception and often Online Virtual Assistants or chatbots are branded as one. They almost do similar things, but the scope and limitations are different in both. For example, an Online Virtual Assistant works with you on a more personal level as you will be hiring experts to complete a specific task. These professionals will help you and work with your side-by-side in order to achieve a particular organizational goal. On the other hand, chatbots are only pre-programmed applications that are there to only clarify the doubts and queries of the target audience.

In this article, we will point out a few major differences between an Online Virtual Assistant and Chatbot.

Limitation

Chatbots are programmed in such a way that they can only answer a set of pre-programmed questions. If a question is asked which is not programmed in the chatbot, then the chatbot will fail to answer the question. Chatbots cannot hold long and interactive communications like a human. They mostly communicate in the form of text messages. 

Online Virtual Assistant is a more interactive platform than chatbots. They can understand every word which a user conveys. These assistants learn as they interact. Unlike like chatbots, they can have long interactive conversations. This way they can also handle complex tasks and solve them.

Tasks

As discussed earlier, chatbots can complete tasks that are only programmed within them. They are fed with FAQs and if something is asked beyond these questions, then the chatbots fail to answer.

On the other hand, Virtual Assistants understand everything a customer conveys. With the use of its learning behavior, an Online Virtual Assistant can compare products as per the features wanted by the user. It can also tell you which product is the best among the lot. 

Final Result

Now we know that Online Virtual Assistant and chatbots are different. Chatbots are limited to performing only selected tasks. Whereas, a VA can solve complex tasks due to its learning ability. Hence, for a company, it is advisable to opt for Virtual Assistant, to ensure that users experience a smooth customer service experience.

Why Opt Search Engine Marketing Virtual Assistant?

Why Opt Search Engine Marketing Virtual Assistant?

It is common logic that customers will only buy products and services which are visible to them. That is the reason why companies assign the majority of their funds in marketing because if the customers are not aware of your presence in the market, then how will they buy your products? Businesses implement marketing strategies to be visible in this crowded and competitive market. 

Marketing and advertising can be of many types, from mass media marketing to small scale marketing. Depending on the scale and media of advertisement the cost varies. If you are planning to advertise through mass media like television advertisements, then it is going to be expensive. But what can be the solution to marketing your products at a more economical price?

Small business owners find it difficult to afford to advertise and marketing. Since they are low on budget and low capital, opting for mass media advertisement is out of their reach. For this reason, digital marketing and SEO is the answer to such problems. SEO is a cost-effective way of introducing your products and services to the customers.

SEO helps your website to rank higher in Google’s search engine. Since it is a cost-effective method of advertising, small business owners prefer SEO to market their products and services.

Business owners are busy looking after the operations of the business. Therefore, they hardly get time to market their products. One can either hire an SEO expert to do the SEO for the business website or opt for SEO Virtual Assistant to do the job. Most of the business owners hardly have any knowledge of SEO marketing Virtual Assistant. By opting for this assistant, one can completely focus on their business operations and let the assistant run the SEO campaigns.

How does it work?

First, we need to know how SEO works. Google has algorithms that are able to identify a website that matches the queries of the search. As per the relevance of the website, the sites are ranked accordingly. Now how does Google determine which site is better and more relevant to the search? This is where SEO comes in. Google identifies the keywords presented in the site. If your business site has the relevant keywords and it matches with the search, then your website will rank high in the search engine. But how do you make your website optimized and SEO friendly?

This is can be achieved if you opt for SEO Virtual Assistant. This assistant is well-versed with the norms and parameters which Google looks for in a website. This SEO VA has proper knowledge about keyword density and algorithms. The assistant will assist you to optimize your website with SEO friendly content and keyword selection.

What is the job of an SEO Virtual Assistant?

An SEO Virtual Assistant can point out the following:

  • Competitor research – An SEO Virtual Assistant will help you identify the keywords that are being used by your competitor. If you understand their marketing strategy, then you can dominate them.

  • Keyword research – SEO Virtual Assistant will continuously suggest keywords that are related to your business. The more accurate the keywords and better is the results.

  • Link building – An SEO Virtual Assistant also helps you to understand valuable websites where you can backlink your website.

These are the following ways by which an SEO Virtual Assistant can help in the search engine marketing of your website.

Office Automation with Virtual Assistant

Office Automation with Virtual Assistant

One of the most essential aspects of initiating business is related to the management of data. When a company is involved in a monetary transaction with another firm, the relevant data with regards to the business deal is to be recorded and registered safely. This process of recording data was manually done not more than a decade ago. However, with the introduction of the internet and the evolution of technology, everything changed for the better.

Every data and information related to a business is now recorded on various digital platforms by the use of the latest technologies and software. We know this as office automation. However, the process of office automation can be complicated, especially for small businesses that lack the ideas and the expertise to shift to this module of business. So what is the solution to this problem?

The answer is straightforward. Start-ups and small businesses can rely upon the services offered by Virtual Office Assistant. These firms ensure that all your data and information related to the clients and employees are all uploaded and managed on a digital level. Hiring the services of these experts will ensure that the data processed by your firm will be managed by professionals who only utilize the most relevant technology that is present in the present corporate world. Hence, the overall risks of making mistakes significantly decrease as most of the entries are made automatically by machines.

Following are some of the benefits of availing the services of Virtual Office Assistants for the purpose of Office Automation:

  1. Increased transparency – If you want your business to reach the stratosphere of success then it is imperative that you and your employees maintain effective communication at all times. A gap in communication can cause a lot of confusion and increases the chance of errors. Office Automation improves communication as all the data is recorded on a digital level. All the employees can gain access to this information and in turn, can communicate among themselves in a better way.
  1. Track responsibilities – With an improvement in communication, the management can delegate certain responsibilities to specific employees. The changes and modifications to a project can likewise be updated with the help of Office Automation. Therefore, it becomes easier for the management to delegate and track responsibilities within the team. Consequently, the performance and the proficiency level of each candidate can be tracked in the long run as well.
  1. Increase in the efficiency of the employees – With an overall improvement in the information flow, communication is also enhanced. Simultaneously, the employees can work with a clear mindset as each individual knows their responsibilities and job role. Thus, the efficiency level of the entire corporate agency improves. The firm starts to work like a well-oiled machine and fulfills client needs and requirements in a better way. 

These are some of the benefits of Office Automation which you can avail by collaborating with some of the best Virtual Office Assistants. Consider it to be an investment that will surely give rise to long-term profits.