Having an assistant is a concept that’s as old as the first specialized tasks. Why? Well, because there are only so many specialists and they have only so many work hours in their day. So, having them waste these precious few hours on tasks that someone else could do seems like such a waste. Today, with the age of remote work at its apex, the concept of virtual assistants is more appealing than ever before.
To give you a general sense of how this works and why it’s such a good idea, here are the top four industries that virtual assistants serve the best in.
1. Marketing and advertising
The field of marketing requires a unique combination of creativity, outreach, and bureaucratic tasks, and skilled virtual assistants can handle all of them.
Outreach is a huge part of marketing, and while email outreach can be automated, it still has to be supervised by humans. Sure, you could put a veteran digital marketer on the case, but isn’t it more cost-effective to have this veteran marketer set up the system and onboard an assistant? This way, they can focus on the more creative tasks, and the job gets done either way.
Even if your content is created by an AI, you need someone to create a prompt, edit the text, and post it online. These are relatively simple tasks that don’t require a veteran writer. If you do hire profesional content creators, you need someone to update their tasks, remind them of deadlines, and serve as a link between them and the agency management.
Social media management takes more work than you think, but it’s quite easy to underestimate it, believing that it’s not much more complex than running your own social media accounts. Nothing could be further from the truth. If you also run a sponsored ad campaign, there’s even more work, ranging from cost management to banner creation.
2. Real estate
Real estate is one of the busiest and hectic fields, and you need all the help you can get in order to handle your daily tasks. There are so many ways that a veteran realtor or property manager can benefit from a real estate virtual assistant.
The bulk of their responsibilities would be research. In other words, their primary task would be to go to sites with property listings and look for suitable properties for your business. This task sounds a lot more complex than it actually is, but it will take a lot of time. After research, you also need someone to do data entry.
Another thing you need to focus on is the outreach. This is similar to what we’ve discussed in the previous section. You need someone reaching out to all these property owners, potential buyers, and tenants. While tools and automation are very sophisticated these days, in reality, you still need a human on the other end of the line.
You also need someone in charge of tenant relations. Tenants want to be heard by a real human on the other end, not a bot.
Meeting and tour preparation are serious tasks that require serious commitment. The preparation of presentation materials alone can be challenging and take a lot of time and effort away from your already busy schedule. Fortunately, a virtual assistant can help solve this problem quite effortlessly.
3. Finance and accounting
The main reason why this breakthrough happened right now is because all the accounting processes are automated and taking place via cloud-based platforms, which makes everyone’s job a lot easier. This means that, as an accountant, you can get some much-needed help from an assistant and avoid the need to hire a much more expensive bookkeeper or find another accountant.
The biggest challenge with this lies in finding someone trustworthy. This is why finding an agency that offers virtual assistant services is a much better deal. In this scenario, you have someone who has experience handling the vetting process and someone who will take responsibility. Splitting liability when it comes to matters of finance is always a sensible move.
It’s also worth mentioning that there are a lot of local tax rules and laws, which is why outsourcing to a local financial agency sounds like the best possible move. The problem is that sometimes, this won’t be financially viable. At the same time, hiring a virtual assistant with some knowledge of the local tax system can be a helpful idea (especially if a lot of your remote employees are from that area).
Most importantly, getting paychecks on time is one of the most important steps in talent retention. Having an assistant on top of it can be a saving grace for your business.
4. Consulting
Consultants are usually overburdened with too many responsibilities, and they need someone capable of handling most of the preparatory work and schedule maintenance.
A consultant will conduct an interview with the company management in order to develop a feeling for the current state of the company but this is never enough. There’s so much digging to do. If a consultant spends all their time on research, they have to wait for too long to start devising a strategy. This way, someone’s on the task simultaneously while the personalized approach is being developed. This way, no time is getting wasted.
Also, while consulting services are pretty self-explanatory, it’s sometimes hard to measure the impact (and ROI) of a job well done. A virtual assistant can use analytical tools and templates to generate reports. These reports can later be submitted together with invoicing in order to build a relationship on trust and transparency.
One more thing worth mentioning is that while we’ve already discussed the role of a virtual assistant in the field of accounting, the truth is that they can perform a similar task within a business that provides consulting services.
Wrap up
Virtual assistants are amazing for those who need assistants but work mostly on cloud-based platforms. This way, they can give them access without going too much out of their way. It’s a cost-effective solution to one of your biggest problems, and the best part is that it’s so scalable. With their roles in these four industries presented in this manner, you probably have a much easier job understanding the appeal of virtual assistants in 2024.
