Hiring a virtual assistant is not just affordable; it’s a cost-effective strategy compared to employing someone locally. When you hire a virtual assistant through an agency, particularly from regions like the Philippines, you can expect to save significantly—often 50-70%—compared to the cost of hiring a local employee.

Here’s why:

Lower Hourly Rates: The cost of living in countries like the Philippines is generally lower than in Western countries, which means that salaries are also lower. This allows you to hire skilled assistants at a fraction of the cost you would pay locally.

No Overhead Costs: When you hire locally, you often incur additional costs such as office space, equipment, utilities, and employee benefits like health insurance and pensions. With a virtual assistant, these overhead costs are either significantly reduced or completely eliminated, as VAs typically work from their own offices and handle their own equipment and benefits.

Flexible Scaling: Virtual assistants can be hired on a flexible basis, whether it’s part-time or full-time, which is more difficult and costly with local hires. This flexibility allows you to scale up or down based on your current business needs without the financial risk associated with long-term commitments or layoffs.

Increased Productivity: Virtual assistants are focused solely on the tasks at hand and are not caught up in the day-to-day distractions that can occur in a traditional office environment. This leads to higher efficiency and productivity, ensuring that your investment in a VA provides a solid return in terms of both time and money saved.

By opting for a virtual assistant, you’re not only saving money but also gaining access to a broader talent pool, allowing for better matching of skills to your specific business needs. This arrangement not only makes financial sense but also boosts your capacity to focus on strategic growth initiatives, making the decision to hire a virtual assistant both a savvy and economical choice for your business.

Our virtual assistants are proficient in a wide range of skills, enabling them to handle a diverse array of tasks—far beyond just routine day-to-day chores. When considering hiring a VA, think beyond your current workload. VAs can take over both large projects and smaller, time-consuming tasks that you might currently be managing yourself. This not only frees up your time but ensures their skills are fully utilised and impactful.

Additionally, there might be essential business-growing activities you're not currently undertaking simply because you don't have the time or resources. Our virtual assistants can step in to manage these as well. Consider tasks like social media management, customer support, data entry, and market research—activities that are crucial for growth but often neglected due to time constraints. To help you identify more opportunities for delegation, we provide a guide on "32 Essential Activities to Delegate to a Virtual Assistant." This guide will help you see how a VA could not only support your existing operations but also help expand them, effectively driving your business forward.

By engaging a VA, you create capacity not just to maintain your business, but to grow it. This makes a VA not just an operational expense, but a strategic asset that can transform your business productivity and scalability.

Maintaining control over your business operations is crucial, and with our VAs, you delegate tasks, not authority. Our goal is to make delegation seamless, allowing you to stay in command while benefiting from the efficiency and skills of a professional assistant.

It's not uncommon for businesses to start without formal systems or processes in place, but this shouldn't deter you from hiring a virtual assistant. Our VAs are not only skilled in administrative tasks but are also experienced in setting up systems and processes for a variety of business operations. They can assist you in creating a structured approach to your tasks, significantly improving efficiency and consistency across your business activities.

To help you get started, we can show you how to create simple systems using tools like Loom for video instructions and ChatGPT for automated responses and process documentation. The key is to begin by systemising your first 3-5 tasks. This provides a foundation that your VA can follow and excel with from the start. Once these initial systems are in place, your VA can replicate and expand these processes for future tasks, continually supporting and enhancing your business operations.

By systemising your tasks, you not only make it easier for your VA to provide effective support but also ensure that your business can scale smoothly as it grows. This approach turns potential chaos into organized productivity, fostering a healthier, more manageable, and scalable business environment.

Working with a VA for the first time is an opportunity for growth and learning. We provide guidance and support throughout the process, ensuring a smooth transition and effective collaboration. Our team is here to assist with best practices and to ensure you get the most out of your VA experience.

At our agency, the minimum engagement is set at 10 hours per week. This requirement is in place not only to ensure that our virtual assistants can provide significant value through a deep understanding of and contribution to your business goals but also to maintain the viability and efficiency of our service. The recruitment and onboarding process involves a considerable investment of time and resources, and engagements shorter than 10 hours per week are not sustainable for our operational model.

This minimum commitment benefits our clients by ensuring that VAs are more integrated into their operations, leading to better outcomes due to a more thorough understanding of the business and its needs. Additionally, this arrangement supports our virtual assistants by providing them with a stable and worthwhile workload.

If you are unsure about the need for 10 hours of VA support, we recommend evaluating your weekly tasks by using our guide on Operational vs Strategic Tasks. This review often reveals many hours spent on tasks that do not drive business success but can be effectively managed by a VA. This exercise not only helps clarify your delegation needs but also enhances your business’s efficiency and focus on growth.

While it's true that you might find virtual assistants offering their services at $5 per hour directly, there are several factors to consider which often justify a higher rate when hiring through an agency:

Vetting and Quality Assurance: Agencies conduct thorough vetting processes, including background checks, skill assessments, and interviews. This ensures that you are matched with highly skilled and reliable VAs. When you hire directly, especially at lower rates, you might need to conduct this vetting yourself, which can be time-consuming and risky if not done thoroughly.

Training and Professional Development: Agencies often provide their VAs with ongoing training and professional development, which keeps their skills sharp and up to date. This is something that might not be as readily available to a VA hired directly, particularly if they are working independently at lower rates.

Consistency and Reliability: Agencies can offer more consistent service by managing the VAs' schedules and providing backups or replacements if needed. This is a level of reliability that can be hard to maintain with a freelance or directly hired VA, especially one working at the lowest rates.

Risk Mitigation: Hiring through an agency provides a layer of protection against common risks associated with direct hires, such as non-delivery of work, confidentiality breaches, or inconsistent work quality. Agencies often have policies and measures in place to handle such issues effectively.

Support and Mediation: Should challenges arise, agencies often have support teams and systems in place to provide mediation and assistance quickly. This immediate support helps prevent small issues from becoming larger problems, which can be a common issue when managing VAs directly.

Cultural and Communication Training: Agencies also prepare VAs to work effectively with clients from different cultural backgrounds, which includes communication training to minimise misunderstandings and ensure clear, effective interactions.

Paying a higher rate through an agency can be seen as an investment in a smoother, more secure, and more professional experience. It frees up more of your time and reduces the potential stress associated with managing direct hires, especially when dealing with critical or sensitive tasks.

We strive to match you with the best VA to meet your needs. However, if for any reason it doesn’t work out, we provide a free replacement guarantee. Our priority is your satisfaction and ensuring that your business receives uninterrupted support.