Are you a business owner that needs to free up more time to work on your business instead of in it? Have you thought about whether you should work with a Virtual Assistant (VA) to help you manage your time more effectively and efficiently?

There’s so much more you could achieve if you took the pressure off yourself and didn’t personally complete every task associated with running your business.

What can a VA offer?

By utilising the services a highly experienced and professional VA can offer, you can outsource a wide variety of mundane tasks and focus on more lucrative aspects of your work. This could be sales and marketing, relationship building with clients, networking or even setting aside proper planning time to strategise and do some big-picture thinking.

Of course, there are other financial benefits too. You wouldn’t need to worry about recruitment costs, training, holiday and sickness pay, pension contributions or even having to process payroll every month. You simply receive an invoice for the number of hours’ support needed and hey presto, you have a VA at your disposal with the exact skills and experience you need.

As if saving time and money wasn’t enough, you now also have someone on hand to act as a sounding board and even suggest ways to better manage your business. Remember, a VA is a business owner too and will likely have experience of working within multiple types of organisations.

So, what should you look for in a VA?

Firstly, you need to establish exactly what you need from your VA in terms of the skillset, experience and role you would like them to play. This determines the type of VAs you need to research and seek out but how do you ensure the safety and security of your business?

There are several key best practices a VA should be adhering to and it can be difficult to ensure this is the case with those you consider for the role.  Some of the important points to consider include:

• Do they use professional contracts prepared by legal experts?
• Are they registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), an essential requirement in this new era of GDPR regulations?
• Do they have appropriate insurances such as professional indemnity, public liability and cyber cover to protect you and your business?
• If you need them to carry out any finance-related tasks, are they registered with HMRC for Anti-Money Laundering (AML)?

How accreditation can benefit you

There are thousands of VAs out there offering their services and it can be hard to figure out exactly who meets all of these standards.  Fortunately, there is a simple way of confirming and that is to seek out an accredited VA where all the due diligence checks have been done for you.

By selecting an accredited VA you have the reassurance that they have been assessed and verified, their business has been operating for a minimum period and they have all of the relevant registrations and protection in place. Not only will this put your mind at rest, but you also know they are taking their business seriously and are investing in their professional development. They will also have access to a network of other highly skilled VA colleagues so if you need something actioned which is outside of their skillset, they will be able to assist with sourcing the right person for the job.  

At VIP VA we are proud to have pioneered the setting of industry standards for VAs and we also introduced our accreditation in 2017, keen to help safe, professional VAs stand out.

If you are interested in working with an accredited VA, please do check out our Finding Your VA page or visit our new directory HERE.

If you have any further questions about VAs in general, please do get in touch.