I’m a freelance Virtual Assistant (VA), but what does that actually mean and how can I support your small business?
“Hiya. I’m Sophie, and I’m a Social Media Manager and Virtual Assistant to small creative businesses…”
For some reason, I always feel a bit weird when someone asks me what I do. Mostly when it’s non-small-business folk, but even then. See, people have heard of a PA (Personal Assistant), right? But a VA? What is a Virtual Assistant?
And what exactly does a VA do?
I guess the answer is: it depends, really.
Google tells me that a Virtual Assistant is a remote professional who provides administrative, technical or creative support to businesses and entrepreneurs. They work as independent contractors to handle recurring operational duties and free up time for business owners.
Which is all very accurate, I guess, but doesn’t really tell you what a VA could do for your small business, does it?
What’s the difference between a VA and a Personal Assistant?
First things first, let’s differentiate between the two.
A Personal Assistant usually works in person, full time, for a single employer. A PA might manage your diary, organise appointments, deal with admin, run errands and generally provide day-to-day support. Their hours are usually fixed, say Monday – Friday, 9:00am – 5:00pm, and as they work with you side by side, they’re there for immediate support.
A Virtual Assistant, on the other hand, works remotely to provide digital support and often with multiple clients at once.
A VA’s role can include anything from email marketing and social media management to other small business tasks like research or graphic design. They don’t necessarily work set hours, although you may have a retainer (a certain number of hours of support from them that is set aside for you each month), and work tends to be done to a pre-agreed deadline.
What can a Virtual Assistant do for me and my small business?
As I touched upon, the role of a Virtual Assistant is pretty broad, to be honest, and different VAs offer different services.
One VA might manage your inbox and schedule all your appointments
Another might help with routine admin tasks, like copying and pasting, entering data, and updating records.
Another might specialise in website management or social media management
And another, like me, might take care of your small business marketing for you.
So, rather than giving you a massive list of everything a VA could do, I’m gonna tell you what I do. Because at the end of the day, you don’t hire a VA because you need a VA, necessarily. You outsource to a VA because there are specific jobs in your small business that you need help getting done.
For me, that means being an extra pair of hands for the marketing side of your business, and since you’re here reading this blog post, I’m gonna guess that’s what you’re interested in finding out more about.
So this is the kind of Virtual Assistant I am
One that helps take a bit of the weight off. To help small business owners, like you, cross some tasks off your small business to-do list and reduce some of the stress and overwhelm that comes with feeling like you have to do it all by yourself.
It means you can hand over the marketing tasks that you don’t want to do – like writing blog posts and working on your email marketing, and spend more time doing the things you love.
My clients are busy small biz owners, juggling all the jobs their creative business demands. Blog writing, email marketing, posting on social media, uploading products, writing product descriptions with SEO in mind…And they can’t (and don’t want to) do it all. So they don’t.
And this is how I can help you, too.
1. As a Virtual Assistant, I can write your blogs for you.
I know you know that blogging for your small business is really, really flippin’ great.
I know you know that writing blogs can improve your website SEO, drive people to your website, answer your ideal customer’s questions and give you content that can keep working for your small business loooong after you’ve hit publish.
I also know that you might rather stick pins in your eyes than sit down to write one.
Finding the time can feel impossible when you’ve already got a million other small business tasks on your to-do list. Writing up a blog might not feel like a priority, so your blog keeps getting pushed down the list.
Well, a freelance Virtual Assistant, like me, can take that off your hands and make sure it’s done for you.
I can take all of those brilliant blog ideas out of your head and turn them into proper blog posts, written in your brand’s voice and actually published onto your website. You give me all your ideas and expertise and knowledge, and I turn it all into a well-written SEO blog post so that people can read it, and you have one less thing to worry about – yay!
2. As a Virtual Assistant, I can support you with your email marketing
Your mailing list is full of people who have actively signed up to hear from you and your small business. So why aren’t you emailing them?
Did you know that email marketing has one of the highest ROIs (return on investment) in marketing? In other words, by sending emails to your audience, you’re giving them the opportunity to buy lots of lovely things and your small biz makes money.
As a Virtual Assistant, I can write your newsletters, create your sales emails and get them scheduled and sent so that you can stop ghosting your mailing list and give them what they want. Whether that’s a monthly newsletter, emails around a new product launch, a seasonal campaign or simply someone making sure your lovely mailing list doesn’t get completely ghosted for six months (again – whoops!)
3. As a Virtual Assistant, I can support your social media content creation
This is where my Social Media Management and VA work kinda come together in perfect alignment.
Because a blog post isn’t just a blog post – or at least it shouldn’t be! It’s a couple of Instagram posts, maybe a story and a topic of conversation for a talking reel – and it’s easily an email, too.
When I’m working with a small business, like you, I actively want you to use the content I create to help make marketing your small business easier. If we’ve just published a new blog post, share it! If you’ve got an email scheduled about a new product or a new collection, you better believe I want you to pop a post on your grid talking about it and/or telling people to subscribe to your mailing list so they can make sure they receive said email.
I want you to get more bang for your buck when it comes to working together. So if I’m creating something for you, let’s see how many different ways you can use it. And ‘cause most of the work is already done, it’s an easy win for you and your small business.
4. As a Virtual Assistant, I can do the jobs you don’t want to do
I think this is a pretty cool part about what I do, ‘cause, let’s be honest here, no one wants to spend their precious time doing stuff they absolutely hate, do they?
You might love designing new products but hate writing the product descriptions.
You might love discovering a new range for your shop, but uploading it to your website is another story.
You might have a brain buzzing with ideas for blog posts but turning those thoughts into a 1000-word article is the last thing you want to do.
You might be incredibly proud and excited about a new collection you’ve just released, but the thought of actually emailing your customers about it makes you feel a bit icky.
That’s what a Virtual Assistant is for, eh? Doing all the small business tasks you quite simply do not want to do, so they actually get done (and you didn’t have to suffer for it).
5. As a Virtual Assistant, I can help you get some time back
I don’t really think working with a VA is about the blog post or the email, per se. It’s actually more about what having someone else take those things off your plate gives you.
Maybe that’s an extra afternoon to work on the things you flippin’ LOVE doing, like designing a new knit design, or making a batch of mugs ready for the kiln, or planning the new Christmas collection you release every year.
Maybe that’s a couple of hours to catch up on your accounts or prepping your VAT return (alright, maybe we have to do some of the things we hate)
Maybe it’s going for coffee and cake with your friends on a Friday morning, just for the sheer joy of it, or maybe it’s just packing up at 3pm and heading into the weekend without that nagging feeling of something you’ve still got left to do hanging over you.
Whatever that extra time looks like for you, I think that’s a pretty good reason to outsource, don’t you?
So, how can a Virtual Assistant help you as a small business owner?
Well, in a whole host of ways (within reason!). As I’ve very clearly listed out, for me it’s within the marketing side of your business. For another VA, it might be with inbox management or website management.
Make sure you know what small business task/s you want to outsource
One small piece of advice if you are thinking ‘I definitely need a Virtual Assistant to help make running my small business easier’: make sure you actually know what you want to outsource.
Obviously you don’t need to know what your next three blog posts are going to be or whatever, but you do need to have an idea of what you actually want help with and when you need it to be done by. For example, I want someone to send an email out every week, or write me a blog post every month, or upload this collection to my website by next Friday.
That’s enough for us to get started with.
If you’d like to read more about why you might hire a Virtual Assistant, I shared three reasons here. You can also read more about my blog writing for small businesses here and my email marketing service here. And if you have any questions at all about what a Virtual Assistant is and how someone like me might be able to help you, please do get in touch; I’m always more than happy to chat.
