Virtual Assistants: A Low Cost Complement to Your Virtual Office

TORONTO-If you are like most entrepreneurs, you need a little help around your virtual office but you aren’t sure it’s quite the right time to hire a fill-time employee. Never fear—virtual assistants are here.

Virtual assistants are proven to be a cost-effective means to getting trained talent to help you with all sorts of tasks, from social media marketing to outbound phone calls and beyond. So instead of calling in a temp, which can be extremely costly, or hiring a full-time worker with benefits, why not opt for an affordable virtual assistant? Think of it as on-demand help.

Here’s how the virtual assistant model works: You can hire a virtual assistant for a single task or for several weeks at a time. Maybe you are working on a special event and need an extra set of hands. With the virtual assistant model, you don’t have to commit to a certain number of hours or dollars each week. And virtual assistants can work from their own virtual offices.

They say time is money. Well, with a virtual assistant you have more time and you pay less money than you would hiring a full-time worker. You may have customers in multiple time zones, for example. By hiring a virtual assistant in an opposite time zone from yours, you can extend your production hours.

Let’s not forget: virtual assistants have their own office equipment. That means you aren’t shelling out the cost of computers and smartphones. All in all, a virtual assistant is an inexpensive way to get the job done when compared to hiring full-time workers or bringing in temps.

About Jennifer LeClaire

Jennifer LeClaire is a veteran business journalist, editor and new media entrepreneur with a strong niche in real estate and technology.