May 2005

When a Virtual Assistant Needs a VA

Nadia Cornier

by Nadia Cornier

During the summer, when your children are ‘home’ from school and your significant other may have vacation time lined up, everyone will expect you to be able to walk away from your “day job” as easily as they have. Don’t expect them to understand that just because it’s summer that you don’t naturally get time off – those who don’t run their own business don’t always understand.

Instead, plan on freeing up more time for personal and family use.

But, when you are running and growing your own business it’s not always easy to free up your personal time – you’re responsible for a lot of things – so, in order to make “me” time, you may need to rely on your network of virtual assistance associates.

"Taking My Own Advice"

When I first started to get more clients, I switched to Quicken under the suggestion of my accountant. That way, once a quarter, I could email him my books and he could review them in order to insure that I was handling my finances properly. I loved how the program tracked everything, but I hated trying to figure out how to use the program properly. I had a hard time figuring out the secrets/tips that would really make it an easy-to-use program that would save me time and money. Instead, I avoided using it until it was absolutely necessary.

Suddenly, my bills were going out later and later (and I got paid later and later) and there were any number of mistakes in my invoices/books that I had to figure out. The only thing that was keeping me from hiring someone right away was the fact that I didn’t want to pay anyone else for something I should be able to do on my own – but – after a little bit of math (not using Quicken, obviously) I figured that I could hire another VA to do my books and it would take him/her a little over an hour where it took me two or three.

I was losing money every time I tried to wade my way through Quicken on my own. Now I can hire another VA, spend my time doing the work I enjoy (which is why I started my own business to begin with) and make money!

In order to free up your time, make more money and keep your sanity – make a list of business related tasks that you find yourself putting off every month and hire another virtual assistant to handle these tasks – not to mention good business karma.

Examples:

A couple things you could use another VA’s help with.

• Your financial books (see above)

• Marketing/Promoting your business. Especially if you are at a point where you have enough business to keep you busy, but not enough to expand. If you don’t have time to do your own marketing to make that leap into “bigger” – you can hire another VA to help you market your business.

• Word processing work. I work with a large number of authors, and every now and then I have to write copy for interviews, blurbs, and press kits – this is something that I could hire another VA to do.

• Follow up calls. Maybe one of the most important lessons we can learn from ‘big’ consulting agencies is that they always follow up with a “how did we do?” phone call or email after the fact. But, it’s often very difficult for a client to give accurate feedback to the person they worked with, but another – separate – company can get much more reliable information. Hire another VA to make calls or set up a website where they can gather information on your behalf so you can have an accurate picture of what your clients think you could be doing better.

There are thousands of ways another VA can help you grow your own business. And by hiring another VA, you are really embracing and living the ideals that you try and teach other business owners: “Let me help you build your business. Give me the tasks that you don’t love to do and free yourself up for the work you do love.”

About the Author:

Nadia Cornier is the president of Cornier & Associates, LLC. Based in Allentown, PA – C&A specializes in publicity, marketing and promotion and really believes in the VA business model. You can contact her through her website: www.cornierassociates.com or by email at nadia@cornierassociates.com.