Running a business involves dealing with dozens of operations that often require an immediate response. The need for daily support became an agent for the appearance of a new profession titled a virtual assistant. This specialist is a helping hand allowing you to focus on the performance of the key tasks and forget about excessive stress. How can his services be used for the benefit of the sales sector?
Business growth increases the number of daily tasks and the need for hiring someone who will assist you with simple tasks, starting from answering phone calls up to meetings arrangement. Virtual assistants have become a vital part of many businesses these days. What features make them so popular?
Who Is A Virtual Assistant?
A virtual assistant is a specialist that helps his employer with managing administrative tasks. This person performs his responsibilities and manages tasks remotely.
That is why such specialists are often called “online secretaries.” They perform equal functions, but the position of a virtual assistant does not require a physical presence in an office.
What Can A Virtual Assistant Do
Depending on the business sector, his responsibilities may vary. Here are the main functions that can be delegated to a virtual assistant:
Administrative functions
That includes:
- Entry of data that does not require special skills or knowledge;
- Answering emails and phone calls;
- Arrangement of meetings and trips;
- Managing meetings and calendars.
Private tasks
Virtual assistants can be hired not only for managing tasks related to work:
- Shopping (buying stationery, books, gifts);
Creation of thematic content
The creation of different content has become a priority for big companies involved in sales. They launch blogs to get closer to customers. In their posts, they usually talk about their products, their use, and application.
Content creation is not easy as it requires specific skills and knowledge. Apart from writing, one should also find or take thematic pictures, edit and upload them with text into a blog. By entrusting your entire blog (or part of functions) to a virtual assistant, you can rest assured about the quality of the material.
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Manage financial operations
Virtual assistants can maintain some of your daily financial operations:
- Maintain a record of your monthly expenditure;
- Do some shopping.
Manage your email
When moving online, companies provide not only a list of their products but also the contact information (phone, fax, email). If a customer has a question, he can directly contact a seller for cooperation, clarification of details, etc.
The problem is that these days companies receive a great number of incoming messages, responding to which takes plenty of time. Virtual assistants are often hired to respond to these emails and carry out email marketing campaigns.
Hold research or analysis
A virtual assistant can hold profound research in a specific field, including analysis of competitors’ products and services, demand for certain products of your company, etc.
This will help you get insights about further development, ways to improve sales, etc. To find a specialist who will create the best piece of writing, you can look through a top writers, boasting high-qualified investigators, editors, and writers.
Manage social media networks
Presence on social networks is a compulsory thing for modern business. With the growth of technologies, people are more likely to buy a thing on the Internet than from the market. You can hire a virtual assistant for product sales, promotion, and advertisement on popular platforms.
You can entrust full or partial responsibilities to an online assistant. Once you get the necessary information, you can send it to an assistant who will upload it to your company’s profile and do further manipulations to attracts customers.
Benefits Of Hiring A Virtual Assistant For Sales
When it comes to sales, hiring a virtual assistant provides an employer with a range of advantages:
- No extra space is needed. A virtual assistant does not need a designated area or an office to work for you.
- You get an employee with rich experience. A virtual assistant is a person that is competent in dealing with versatile issues. This peculiarity is due to previous experience and the need for quick adaptation to a change of environment. A professional who had experience in a similar field knows tricks for attracting customers and encouraging a desire to buy from them.
- Time- and cost-efficiency. Hiring a virtual assistant provides the possibility to save salary costs as you hire a person on an hourly rate instead of a full-time employee for a small job performance. You also save time and money on his training and advancement of skills.
- Faster response to customers. Whether you do small or big business, it is all about customers. If you provide them with great services, they are more likely to visit your store next time rather than your competitor’s. Timely response and personalized service will encourage customers to recommend your business to their associates, thereby boosting sales volumes.
- Higher efficiency level. Entrusting low-value tasks to a reliable specialist allows you to focus on the key tasks, build new contacts, and learn data crucial for scaling revenues. For example, when entrusting social media profiles to a personal assistant, you can rest assured that your followers will be provided with useful and detailed information about the latest updates and products you offer. This will increase both awareness and the number of potential customers.
How To Find A Virtual Assistant?
Having a virtual assistant in your teams is always advantageous. Unlike the usual selection of personnel, the choice of a virtual assistant does not provide for a personal meeting.
Things One Should Pay Attention To When Choosing A Virtual Assistant
- Good reputation. Look for an online secretary only at reputed platforms.
- Honesty. Collaboration with a new person often involves access to private data. Show a potential candidate that you appreciate honesty and privacy.
- Attention to details. Entrusting processes to an assistant means that everything should be done properly as even the slightest mistake may cost you a reputation.
- Timeliness. A new assistant should work quickly and provide a timely response, data handling or delivery.
- Good manners. Your assistant is your representative in the dialogue with customers. He should be polite and kind. He should also be capable of dealing with customers who are dissatisfied with products, etc.
- Reliability. A reliable virtual assistant saves his employer from worries related to timely task performance. Otherwise, an employer risks finishing all work by himself.
- Creativity. An assistant should not only solve the given tasks but offer creative ideas on how to do it better to attract the maximum audience.
Top 5 Skills Every Virtual Assistant Should Have
These days, a virtual assistant should be not only a good person but possess a range of technical skills, enabling productive relations.
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- Experienced PC user. Good computer skills are a must-have for a candidate as he will interact with you through electronic devices (PC, laptops, tablets, phones, etc.). He should know how to get, send, and share data, draft tables and schemes, edit images, etc.
- Writing and research skills. If a virtual assistant is in charge of content creation, he should be capable of creating unique content that will be useful for customers.
- Awareness about the functioning of social networks. Social networks are a great source of potential customers. Therefore, a virtual assistant should know the basic principles of their work for the case if one day he will need to make changes in already existing information about your products or services.
- Communication skills. The sales sector deals with customers. A virtual assistant should also be a good psychologist who knows how to find common ground with clients and resolve conflicts.
- Planning skills. Depending on his functions, an online secretary should have a clear plan of his workday and know how long it will take him to perform certain operations.
