Managing your own business all by yourself can leave you exhausted. Especially if you still have household tasks and other commitments outside of work to worry about.
Sometimes, things might feel so busy that you may feel that you don’t have any energy left for your personal errands.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Why not outsource some of your personal tasks to a virtual personal assistant (VPA)?
Hiring A Virtual Personal Assistant: The Hows And Whys
So why and how should you hire a virtual personal assistant? We prepared this comprehensive guide to answer all of your most commonly-asked questions.
How Do Virtual Personal Assistant Services Work?
So how do virtual personal assistant services work?
VPAs are like personal assistants or administrative assistants. Their job is to carry out administrative tasks in your personal life.
For example, you might need to schedule a dentist appointment. Or maybe you need to book a plane ticket and hotel for an upcoming trip.
Yes, you can do these things yourself. But with everything else that you need to do at your job, profession, or business, it may be better to have a little extra help.
Do note that unlike with personal assistants, VPAs can only perform tasks that can be done remotely and online, like making purchases, answering calls, scheduling appointments, and more.
What You Can Do With A Virtual Personal Assistant?
What could you do with a VPA? Lots! Here are some of the most common tasks assigned to them:
- Administrative tasks like setting appointments, answering phone calls, organizing files, calendar management, and data entry.
- Research tasks like looking for the right restaurant and developing travel itineraries.
- Personal errands like ordering items online, booking services, making restaurant reservations, and more.
What Is Life With A Virtual Personal Assistant Like?
Imagine a life where you can focus on only the most meaningful things and tasks that only you can do.
That’s what the right VPA can do for you. They’re executive assistants for your personal life.
When you delegate tasks to your VPAs, you free up your time for more worthwhile pursuits.
What Does A Virtual Assistant Do?
Tasks for virtual assistants might overlap with VPA tasks, but generally, most VAs support company activities while VPA’s cater to a person’s needs.
Calendar Management
With all the meetings and deadlines, managing your calendar can feel like quite a chore. Your VAs can manage your schedule for you so that you won’t miss any important events or meetings.
Expenses Tracking
Tracking expenses is crucial if you want to determine just how profitable a business is. Fortunately, some VAs with a background in bookkeeping and accounting specialize in this.
Email Management
How many emails do you get per day? Do you have time to reply to all of them? With your busy schedule, you might miss some important messages.
Let your VAs manage your email so that they can keep you on top of things.
Travel Booking
Going on a business trip? Booking your accommodations and making advance reservations can be quite troublesome. Fortunately, your VA can handle your travel bookings and other arrangements for you.
Organizational Support
As a business owner or company executive, most of your subordinates need you to sign off on projects and business decisions.
How can you see to everyone’s concerns with your busy schedule? You can hire virtual executive assistants to help make sure that everyone gets their point across.
Who Should Hire A Virtual Personal Assistant?
Entrepreneurs or business owners hire VPAs to handle their personal errands so they can focus on growing their business.
Professionals with busy schedules can also outsource their errands to their VPAs and thus free up more time for themselves and their families.
Basically, anyone who wants to be more productive could use a VPA.
From customer support and administrative support, to web design, VPAs help you get more done in less time and enable you to focus on tasks that will really move your business or career forward.
How To Hire Your Own Virtual Personal Assistant
Just hop on a discovery call with us and we’ll develop a short list of candidates to help you find the best one for your needs.
Afterwards, we’ll establish a work schedule and scope of work for your potential VPA.
What Won’t A Virtual Personal Assistant Do?
VPAs can pretty much do anything that can be done remotely – so long as they don’t cross ethical or legal boundaries.
Should you have any additional tasks outside the scope of work, you can renegotiate your VPA’s contract, but bear in mind that this could involve additional service fees.
How Much Do Virtual Personal Assistant Services Cost?
This varies depending on the skills required and the tasks involved.
On average, the pricing of online personal assistant jobs ranges from $5.32 to $6.55 per hour. You can also hire VPAs for part-time or full-time contracts.
Virtual Personal Assistants Vs Virtual Assistants: Which Do You Need?
So, what’s the difference between VPAs versus virtual assistants? And which kind of assistant jobs should you screen for?
Let’s take a closer look.
Similarities Between A Virtual Assistant And A Virtual Personal Assistant
Virtual Assistants provide support in admin, technical, or creative tasks for their clients. It’s an umbrella term encompassing virtual assistants with different specialties like bookkeeper VAs, administrative assistants, executive assistants, and more.
On the other hand, a VPA is a kind of personal virtual assistant. They generally cater to one person’s specific needs.
Both VAs and VPAs have similar skills in the following areas:
Organization
VAs and VPAs often have great organizational skills with which to balance deadlines, appointments, preparing MS Excel files, and other to-dos.
Professionalism
As VAs and VPAs represent you and/or your business, they exhibit a high level of professionalism to bring credibility to your image and/or your company.
Computer Skills
VAs and VPAs possess the computer skills necessary to carry out their daily tasks using the necessary digital platforms and tools.
Trustworthiness
A good VA or VPA can be trusted with confidential information, especially since they usually have access to your personal details as they book appointments and make purchases on yours or your company’s behalf.
Communication Skills
VAs and VPAs have excellent communication skills, enabling them to communicate effectively with customers, coworkers, and other stakeholders to get things done.
How Are Virtual Personal Assistants Different Than Virtual Assistants?
Here are the ways in which VPAs and VAs differ in terms of the tasks they handle:
Personal Errands
From ordering gifts online to scheduling a doctor’s appointment, you can outsource a lot of personal errands to your VPAs.
Grocery Shopping
Haven’t got time for grocery shopping? Your VPA can do it online so you don’t have to.
House And Family Organization
With a busy schedule at work, you may forget to order a present for an anniversary with your partner or schedule important repairs.
So long as they can be done online, you can delegate errands for the house and family to your VPAs as well.
Event Planning
Throwing a birthday party for your son? This could involve tedious tasks like looking for suppliers, booking a venue, and so on.
Fortunately, you can outsource most of the event planning to your VPA so that you can just enjoy the event after your work day.
We Put A Personal Touch On Everything We Do
Whether it’s planning your vacation to New York or managing your personal day-to-day activities, our VPAs are ready to take on the job.
We tailor-fit our services to your needs and put a personal touch on everything we do to help you achieve your goals, whether it’s growing your business or achieving a healthier work-life balance.
Typical Virtual Assistant Responsibilities
Here are some typical virtual assistant responsibilities a VA can do for you if you decide to hire one:
Online Research
Almost all the information you need is available on the internet. But looking for it can be tedious and time-consuming.
Now, you can delegate these tasks to your virtual assistant. Some virtual assistant jobs even require special skills in this area.
Data Entry
Have a lot of data to encode? Your virtual assistants can take on data entry tasks to save you time.
Document Preparation
Virtual assistants can also prepare your documents for you. They can draft, format, and proofread your documents before your next presentation.
Answer Phones
Your virtual assistant can act like a virtual receptionist or executive assistant and accept calls for you while directing the more important ones your way.
Virtual Personal Assistant Responsibilities
On the other hand, here are some of the things VPAs can take off of your plate:
Online Ordering
Need to order food or other snacks online? VPAs can order the things you want for you.
Restaurant Reservations
Want to dine in a certain restaurant? Your VPA can make the reservations and even pre-order food for you if needed.
Gifts
If you need to buy gifts for a special someone, your VPA can source the perfect item for you. Just describe what you want and they’ll make the purchase on your behalf – and even have it delivered to the recipient.
The Reasons You Should Hire Virtual Assistant Services
Most people hire VPAs to take care of their personal tasks so that they can be more productive at their business, job, or practice. Or so that they can spend more time with their loved ones.
Lastly, people hire VPAs to save money. Thanks to the USD-PHP exchange rate and the relatively low cost of living in the Philippines, you can already hire full-time or part-time Filipino VPAs for just a fraction of the cost.
Start Delegating
Get your own VPA with just a few simple steps:
Sign Up
Sign up by clicking the “request a call back” tab. Once you schedule a meeting with us, we can talk about your unique needs and draw up a shortlist of suitable candidates.
Connect With Your Virtual PA
Once you interview a candidate from the shortlist and decide on who to hire, your VPA can start in as quickly as 3 business days.
Relax And Track Usage
Once the onboarding is done, you can delegate tasks to your VPA.
You can track their productivity with the advanced tracking software our company uses.
What Qualities Should a Virtual Assistant Possess?
There are different VAs suited for specific roles.
Yet all good VAs exhibit the following qualities: attention to detail, professionalism, trustworthiness, basic computer skills, adaptability, and strong communications skills.
With Remote Staff, you can be assured that we screen for these qualities when we look for candidates we present to you.
How Different Is Remote Staff From Other VA Service Providers?
We don’t just match you with skilled remote talent. We also make sure that the candidate you end up with is a good fit for you and your company with our personality compatibility test.
On top of that, we utilize advanced tools for tracking productivity and implementing payroll.
Our service doesn’t end upon hiring. We will provide all the necessary support to help you grow your business in the long term.
Let us tackle your to-do list
From ordering gifts that’ll knock the socks off your recipient to scheduling your dental appointments, Remote Staff’s VPAs can and have done it all.
Request a call back today and hire the best Filipino VPA for your needs!
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do I Make Sure My Personal Assistant Knows What To Do?
Our VPAs are already trained and experienced in their fields.
You just need to define their scope of work and equip them with the proper tools and programs necessary for their tasks once you hire them.
How Long Will It Take To Get Started?
After the discovery call, it can take roughly 6 days to provide you with a shortlist of candidates.
Once you hire a candidate, your VPA can start in as early as 3 business days.
How Do You Keep Track Of Your Virtual Assistant’s Hours?
You’ll have access to an advanced tracker that provides reports on your VPA’s productivity.
How Safe Is Your Information?
We take your privacy very seriously. As part of our service agreement, we have security measures and stipulations in place for handling proprietary information.
Remote Staff also has an in-house team of IT professionals should you need further assistance.
What Are The Skillsets Of Your VAs?
In general, VAs possess the skills and qualities listed in one of the initial sections, along with specialized skill sets like bookkeeping, graphic design, social media, and more.
Are Virtual Personal Assistant Services Worth The Cost?
Definitely!
What can you do with the time and money that you save?
Use these for other revenue-generating activities -or just spend more quality time with the people who matter the most.
Looking For A Virtual PA?
Need a Virtual PA? Click the “request a call back” tab. We’ll set a meeting to discuss your unique needs and then provide a shortlist of the best candidates to suit your needs shortly afterwards.
Leandro is a content creator and digital nomad who started his career as a remote working content writer. He is an advocate of location independent sources of income. And he believes that everyone has the ability to be one as well.
Serena has been working remotely and writing content for the better part of the last decade. To date, she's written for Pepper.ph and Mabuhay Magazine, among others, and has churned out more than a thousand articles on everything from The Basics of Stock Market Investing to How to Make Milk Tea-Flavored Taho at home. Hermits, aspiring hermits, and non-hermits with interesting project propositions may email her at serena.estrella10@gmail.com.
