How to Try Our Virtual Team on a Trial Basis

As a small business owner, I really dislike being locked into a contract. I’ve heard horror stories from my clients who got locked into long-term contracts with a firm that didn’t deliver what they promised! Now, I’m not bad-mouthing my competitors here! The aim of countless virtual assistant firms out there is to help your business succeed.

When you’re running a small business, you need to have flexibility, especially when you’re first starting out. Your income might not be predictable and having a big fixed cost can become a nightmare for your budget. With many reputable virtual assistant firms, you don’t have to worry about signing long-term contracts with them, locking you into their business and services. You can contract them for a specific task that can act as your own personal trial period!

That’s the model I built my business with, and it has worked for me (and my clients) over the last 20 years!

The Power of Short-Term Contracts

I remember back when smartphones first came out, and the only place you could get one was through your telephone service provider. You would get locked into super-long contracts, unable to shop around until the end of your term. Do you remember that? This state of affairs certainly wasn’t ideal for a small business owner, as you would be stuck with that monthly cost, even if a better deal came along. 

Looking for a short-term contract can be a much better plan for the long-term! With the flexibility of most digital marketing experts and virtual assistants, you have the freedom to try out their services to see if they will be a good match for you and your company. 

How a Virtual Assistant Team Can Help

Say your website isn’t performing to the level that you’d like, but you don’t want to pay someone to rewrite the entire site before you know if they can deliver the quality you expect. This is something I hear again and again from my clients! You can hire our team or a virtual assistant to complete a website audit and then check their work to see if you approve. If you do, you can hire them to complete the rest of the website redesign project! 

Another excellent way to see if our team or a virtual assistant has what it takes is to hand them your social media for a week or so. If they have digital marketing experience (and they should if they’re offering social media marketing), they will have already researched your previous social media to ensure that their writing style will match what’s already on your channels. And if they blow you away with their work, I might ask them to do a social media audit to determine how to improve your posts and how you reach out to your audience! 

It is these kinds of flexible outcomes that can make an experienced virtual assistant priceless for a small business budget.

No Training Period

A major monetary drain on companies of all sizes is the cost of hiring and training a new employee. 

In the best-case scenario, a new employee works out perfectly after a reasonable training period, pulling their weight and being worth every dime you spend on them. Worst-case scenario, they go through a lengthy and necessary training period that ends with you realizing that they aren’t going to work out. Then, once you let them go, you will have to start the whole process over again.

Either way, you’re going to be spending a considerable amount of time, effort, and money on bringing on this new employee. Worse still, you need to repeat the process whenever you bring on someone new. And don’t forget the time you’d need to spend pouring over resumes/LinkedIn profiles and doing interviews. It’s one of the least effective ways to build a team for your small business. 

That isn’t a problem that you have when hiring a team like ours. By connecting with an established and experienced digital marketing firm, you know that they are pre-trained and ready to take on whatever you hand to them. All you need to do is find a firm that offers the services you’re looking for, take a look at the quality of their work, and bring them on for a small project to see if they have what it takes. 

Not only that, if they don’t work out, you don’t have to worry about the headache of firing them; you simply choose not to continue using their services. The “contract” is only as long as it takes to complete the project. With this in mind, our firm can be a fantastic way to augment your small business’s staff without having to worry about hiring a new employee.

Pick the Services You Want

No two small businesses are the same. As a small business owner or entrepreneur, your business is an extension of yourself, your perspective, and your drive to succeed. By that logic, you can’t just put the needs of your small business into a box. Businesses grow, they change, and their needs change as well.

One of the biggest advantages of hiring a team like ours is that you can choose the services that you want. You aren’t buying an “All in One” solution that you’ll never actually use. You’re picking and choosing the services you want and need, which suits you and your business.

That gives you a tremendous advantage if your business expands and you think you might need a little extra help. Just add another service to your package! Let’s say that you want to try to expand your email marketing outreach. Simply contact your digital marketing company and have them add that service for you. 

On the other hand, let’s say that you are scaling back some aspects of your business. All you need to do is connect with your virtual assistant to explain your plans, and they can help you dial back your desired services to match your business’s new needs. And add new services as you need them! If you hire a team like ours, we really help you decide where you need the support. We do everything from strategy to implementation, making us a one-stop shop for all of your digital marketing needs!  

Whether you are just starting out and need help building a foundation, or in a rapid state of growth, our team will be alongside you, doing whatever they can to help you succeed in your business goals! 

No Firm Minimum Contract

Firm minimum contacts are a trap for small businesses. Most small businesses have a limited amount of capital to work with, and a firm minimum contract can consume that capital fast. Even if it looks like a good deal, you’d be surprised at how quickly that “good deal” can turn bad.

With a great virtual assistant business, you are only buying the services that you need. If you need an editorial calendar created, that’s what you are paying for. If you want four blogs written in a month, they will be in your inbox before you know it. And if you need help creating a social media or email marketing strategy, we can help with only that! When you hire our team to create an email funnel that will convert, for example, that is the only thing you are going to have to pay for!

That isn’t to say that I don’t go the extra mile for my clients. Far from it! I’m a big believer in providing exceptional service to help your company grow. But you never need to worry about me billing you for unwanted services. You tell me what you need, I tell you how long I need to complete it. We set a reasonable due date, and that’s the “contract.” A lot of times, a new client isn’t sure where to start. With my 20 years of experience, it’s very easy for me to look over everything that you currently have, and your goals and help to create a roadmap to get you there! 

Emergency Projects

Let’s say that you suddenly realize that you’ve taken on WAY too much. Your to-do list is exploding, and you have no idea how you’re going to complete everything on it before it’s too late. In case of emergency, break the glass and give me a call!

Just getting a single item off your to-do list can suddenly make everything else on it much more manageable. Handing over a five-hour project to our team suddenly transforms a late night of work into a good night’s sleep! And who couldn’t use a good night’s sleep! 

Though a to-do list can be a powerful productivity tool, it can also weigh you down. Hiring a virtual assistant team is a powerful way to boost your productivity and improve your overall physical and mental wellness. Have writer’s block? Hand the task over to one of our copywriters! Don’t panic over your workload ever again! Instead, bring on a virtual assistant team to help relieve the pressure! 

Maternity or Paternity Leave

Another area where our virtual team can be a huge help is with maternity or paternity leave. Earlier this year, I had a client who was taking a six-week maternity leave and needed someone to fill her role in her business. We stepped in and took over all of her copywriting, email marketing, Hubspot workflows, social media marketing, graphic design, funnel management, the list goes on and on. I seamlessly filled her shoes and her in-house team members were surprised at how well the arrangement worked! They were able to continue to grow the business. And she was able to spend the first six weeks of her baby’s life with her baby! Now that is a win, win! 

So, What Did We Learn? 

Let’s review what we learned:

1. Flexibility is necessary for small businesses and entrepreneurs!  
2. Virtual assistant teams like ours should work on short-term contracts for specific projects with a huge amount of flexibility!
3. Using a virtual team on a trial basis can give you an insight into the quality of their work. 
4. Training a new employee can be a massive expenditure of time, effort, and money (especially if they don’t work out).
5. A virtual assistant comes pre-trained! An expert in their field that is literally down the virtual hall from you! Huge time savings!
6. If a virtual assistant team isn’t working out, there is no need to “fire” them. Simply don’t bring them on for another contract.
7. With a virtual team, you only need to hire them for the specific services you need. This is a huge bonus! You only pay for what you need! 
8. A virtual team like ours scales with the size of your business. 
9. Avoid firm minimum contracts with a virtual assistant. Instead, stick with contacts for particular or recurring tasks. 
10. If you’re feeling temporarily overwhelmed by your to-do list, hire a virtual team to take one or two of the tasks on it. You’ll see how much space it frees up for you and how much you get done, you’ll be adding more to their list in no time! 

Free Resources

I always like to say that hiring a virtual assistant team is a way to get your life back. When you’re running a small business, it can consume every aspect of your life. Family, exercise, friends, sleep, it can ALL take a backseat! Trust me, you can do that for a little while, but eventually, it leads to the worst kind of burnout. My goal as the leader of a virtual team is to give small business owners the freedom to live their life. And in turn, help them grow their businesses! If you want to learn more about how I do this, you can check out my free workbook: How to Use Our Digital Marketing Team to Grow Your Business and Get Your Life Back. 

Again, not every virtual assistant business out there will offer you the flexibility I am talking about above. Some might try to lock you into a long-term contract, guaranteeing that you will be paying for their services even if they aren’t living up to your expectations. As a small business owner myself, I think that is ridiculous. At Jennie Lyon Digital Marketing and Virtual Assistant Services, you get everything that you pay for. If you want to give our services a try, that’s no problem at all! Contact me for a free consultation, and we can talk about how I can give you a short-term hand. If it works out and you wish to expand our working relationship by hiring more services, that would be wonderful! I hope to hear from you soon!

Links For This Episode:

• Workbook: How to Use Our Digital Marketing Team to Grow Your Business and Get Your Life Bac

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