Virtual Office Assistants - Smart Way to Grow Your Home-Based Business

Outsourcing your office tasks to a Virtual Assistant will leave you with more time and energy to devote them to creative activities.

By Wendy Maynard

If you find that your daily office work is turning more into hard work than smart work then you need to consider outsourcing. It doesn't matter whether you need infrequent or continuing aid, outsourcing can save you lot of time and money. Most importantly, you'll able to devote more time to creative activities that require only your attention. Majority of professionals like copywriters, web designers, programmers, office assistants, are all readily available when required.

Taking this to the next level is the way of hiring people through the Internet for part-time basis called Virtual Assistants. They are usually hired by small or home-based businesses that do not need or want full-time employees.

By definition, a Virtual Assistant (or VA) is a professional service provider who specializes in providing remote administrative, creative or technical services, utilizing latest technology to deliver their services and communicate with clients.

A VA can be found for almost any type of work. Are you a electrician who needs help with accounting? Or you need help building a website for your business? Or you may need someone to schedule your appointments? Or you need help creating a business plan or proposal? No matter what your work may be, you can most likely find help online.
For most basic office chores, you can expect to pay around $20 to $50 an hour. For more focused services like technical programming, coaching, graphic designing, legal assistance, prices can range from $80-$125 an hour. This may appear expensive at first but if you are not in need of a full-time employee, working 40 hours a week, this can save you lot of money in the long run.

Let me illustrate and compare with an example the actual costs of maintaining a full-time employee and outsourcing:

• Full-time Employee Salary: $30,000 or $14.42/hr assuming 2080 work hrs per year.
• Two-week Paid Leave: $1154 (can be more if a temporary is hired)
• Health Insurance (employer portion): $1800 (@$150/month)
• Worker's Comp. (.61%): $183
• FICA Taxes (7.65%): $2295
• Unemployment (State and fed): $309
• Office Space, Software and Equipments: $2500 (1000 sq. ft. @ $25/sq. ft.)
• Miscellaneous Costs (Disability and 401K Matching, Dental, Vision, Profit Sharing and Stock Options): Above $2500
• Yearly Bonus: $2500 (1 month salary)
• Sick leave: $1154 (10 days in a year)
• Other insubstantial costs (training, fees, furniture, etc.): $1000

Total cost: $54,395 or $21.82/hour assuming 100% productivity.

As a full-time employee cannot be 100% productive because of many reasons like inactive time, personal problems, learning curve, errands, etc. combined with loss of productivity due to meetings, distractions, company functions, sales fluctuations and lack of time to supervise or delegate supervision. So, taking in to account 75% productivity level, the actual cost of maintaining a full-time employee comes to $29.11/hour and with 50% productivity level, it comes to $43.64/hour. This means depending on your employee's productivity, you may be paying up to twice his or her actual salary! This is simply not a cost-saving solution for most small and home-based business.

Here's why outsourcing your office work to Virtual Assistants will save you time, money and energy:

1. They own their own office equipments with latest software.
2. They are professionals in their area of expertise.
3. They pay their own taxes and benefits.
4. They are self-motivated and do not require any training.
5. They keep their personal problems to themselves.
6. They are dedicated to their clients in helping them reach their goals.

Of course, if you are content with your current full-time employees, that's totally acceptable. It's not wise too to mend that already working fine. However, if you find that the costs required to maintain a full-time employee are not justified in your case, then you must consider outsourcing your tasks to a Virtual Assistant. Help is just few clicks away.

About the author:

Wendy Maynard, your friendly marketing maven, is the owner of Kinesis (http://www.kinesisinc.com). Kinesis specializes in marketing, graphic and website design, and business writing. You can visit her marketing blog, Kinetic Ideas at: http://www.wendy.kinesisinc.com

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Additional Resources

Websites

Home Secretarial Services
A team of home-based secretaries with many willing to work on premises.
http://www.homesecretary.com/

Virtual Assistant Networking Forum
A forum for networking with other VAs or to find VAs in your area.
http://www.mediamage.com/cvaforum

Virtual Assistants For You
International register of Virtual Assistants.
http://www.va4u.com/

Guru
A place to outsource your projects to freelancers.
http://www.guru.com/

Elance
A place to outsource your projects to freelancers.
http://www.elance.com/

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