Why Every Entrepreneur Needs a Virtual Team

If you are an emerging small business owner or considering branching out on your own, you’ve probably given a lot of thought to the endeavor, weighing the pros and cons and wondering whether you have what it takes to work for yourself. Starting your own business can be overwhelming, but with the help of a virtual assistant team you can boost your confidence and set yourself up for success right from the beginning! The following are a few ways that partnering with a virtual team can benefit you and your budding enterprise.

Help You Stay Energized and Focused
Something every small business owner will attest to is that there is a LOT to do—especially in the beginning. Starting your own business means learning a host of new skills, completing a seemingly endless list of tasks, and building a brand and network—to name a few—all while maintaining enough positivity and energy to stick with it while you aren’t getting paid. Because starting a business is big, sometimes risky commitment, it can be easy to get bogged down and discouraged when you face so many unknowns and a mountain of work every day. By hiring a virtual assistant from the get-go, you can set yourself up for success right from the start. A virtual assistant takes tasks off of your plate that you either don’t know how to do or don’t have time for and frees you up to work on other areas of your list. When you have more time, you can get more done and feel like you are accomplishing something. Plus, simply having a partner to navigate the new world of independent business ownership helps keep your morale high—you’re in this together!

[Tweet “Having a partner to navigate the world of entrepreneurship keeps your morale high.”]

Save You Stress
Tackling a new skill set can be challenging, let alone a handful of new skill sets and an entirely new approach to your career! Because virtual assistants have specialized experience in areas like social media, client relations, branding, networking, marketing, and bookkeeping, partnering with one can save you tons of stress and maybe even help you stay legally protected (especially if you are an un-experienced bookkeeper!). Learning new skills takes mental energy and time; when you hand off a foreign task like content creation to an expert, you can breathe a sigh of relief knowing that particular area of your business is in good hands!

Allow You to Do More in Less Time
Because your virtual assistant or team will specialize in areas that you do not, they will get the work done much more quickly than if you took it on, having to learn a new skill and then apply it effectively to your tasks. Additionally, even though your business is likely not making a profit at the outset, it is still helpful to value the time you put into your business and utilize it efficiently and wisely—after all, the business dictum “Time is money” has stuck around for a reason! Because virtual assistants only bill you for the time they actually spend working, you can get more done in less time by outsourcing tasks that might take you an entire day to a virtual assistant who can complete them in under an hour.

[Tweet “Specialized VA’s work quickly; they don’t need to learn what they’re doing before they do it.”]

Help You Launch Your Business Forward
While there are some virtual assistants who specialize strictly in one area, many have a wide portfolio of skills to bring to your small business. An assistant like this can partner with you in multiple areas of your business and help you get on your feet and move forward much faster than you could do on your own, without specialized knowledge or experience. Even if you don’t have the budget yet to hire a virtual assistant to partner with you in more than one area, you could consider hiring her for an hour or two for consulting; chances are she has a lot of insight into what you’re attempting and even a small amount of her time will prove helpful. Your virtual team has probably also partnered with other businesses like yours, or at least other small businesses, and may have bonus tips or holistic insight about what makes some businesses succeed and others not. Yes, virtual assistants tend to charge more per hour than an in-office administrative assistant, but they typically cost far less than someone who does strictly business consulting, and an hour or two of a virtual assistant’s time is well worth the reward of growing your business intelligently and efficiently.

How could your small business benefit by partnering with a virtual team?