What Is a Virtual Assistant for Entrepreneurs?

A Virtual Assistant for Entrepreneurs is an independent contractor who provides a wide variety of services to entrepreneurs and startups, allowing them to focus on business-critical tasks. Depending on the industry your company’s in and the type of work that needs to get done, you can delegate various responsibilities to a Virtual Assistant—administrative tasks, calendar management, content creation, data research and collection, social media management, email and phone support, and more.

There are many reasons to hire a Virtual Assistant, but the biggest one is the fact that they’re a much more cost-effective option than a full-time employee. This is especially true when you want to outsource a part of work that doesn’t require someone to dedicate 8 hours a day, 5 days a week to the task. 

VAs typically charge by the hour, and you’re only paying them for the hours worked. How many hours a day or week they put in depends on the scope of work and the nature of your agreement (contract). 

Another major advantage of a Virtual Assistant over a full-time employee is that you don’t have to pay them the expensive benefits FTEs are entitled to by law. In other words, if you opt for a VA, you won’t spend a dime on paid time off, sick days, vacations, insurance, or even professional tax. 

Additionally, since VAs work remotely, you have access to a global talent pool, meaning you can find a skilled Virtual Assistant to handle practically any tasks you need help with, at any price point.

What Does a Virtual Assistant for Entrepreneurs Do?

Virtual Assistants offer a wide range of services, so it is up to you to specify which responsibilities you want to delegate to the expert you hire. As versatile as these contractors are, it’s best not to assume a single individual has all the skills you’re looking for, which is why a precise job description is a must.

Depending on their skills, education, experience, and the field they specialize in, a Virtual Assistant for Entrepreneurs can handle:

• Administrative work—These essential activities can consume an entire workday each week, costing you a lot of precious time. You’ll get space to concentrate on higher-level priorities if you hire a Virtual Assistant to book travel arrangements, organize your calendar and to-do list, and coordinate, schedule, and reschedule calls and appointments.
• Content creation—Online visibility is crucial for the success of your business, but the only way to ensure your website is on the first page of Google search results is by creating and publishing large volumes of quality content. This takes a ton of time, as well as substantial writing and editing experience, but a skilled Virtual Assistant can handle content creation for you at an affordable price.
• Accounting—Activities such as bookkeeping and sending invoices are not only time-consuming, but also dull. They stifle the creativity every successful entrepreneur needs to come up with innovative solutions and strategies for their business. Hire a finance-savvy assistant to maintain the books, create and send invoices, maintain budgets, make purchases, and keep track of expenses.
• Social media management—The social media accounts that represent your business have to appear accessible and feature relevant content. Rather than hours every day creating content for your company’s Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram profiles, recruit an experienced Virtual Assistant to create content, schedule posts, engage with the followers, and analyze reports and statistics.

How Much Does It Cost To Hire a Virtual Assistant for Entrepreneurs?

Most virtual assistants will charge you either for specific projects or deliverables they complete or by the hour. The actual cost of Virtual Assistants varies depending on multiple factors, such as their level of education, previous experience, the niche/area they specialize in, and the industry average of the country they live in.

According to ZipRecruiter, the average annual salary for Virtual Assistants comes out at $40,000 in the U.S. These numbers give you a rough idea of how much a VA earns per year, on average, but you should keep in mind that the rates of individual Virtual Assistants can vary from $10 to $100+ per hour, depending on the complexity of the work. Ultimately, what you end up paying your VA mostly depends on the type of tasks you’ll outsource to them and the price you manage to negotiate with the VA of your choice.

That said, Virtual Assistants are undeniably a much more affordable option than full-time employees. Even if the hourly rate was the same for a VA and an FTE, you’d still save a ton of money if you opt for a Virtual Assistants since you won’t be required to pay any expensive benefits like paid time off, sick days, insurance, parental leave, or professional tax.

Additionally, the nature of remote employment gives you access to a global talent pool, meaning you can find a Virtual Assistant with the right set of skills for the job, at any price point.

Expert Tips on Hiring a Virtual Assistant for Entrepreneurs

While hiring remotely has its fair share of perks, you should keep in mind it also comes with certain downsides. The Virtual Assistant you hire has to be reliable, competent, and able to deliver top-notch work without being micromanaged. 

The last thing you want is to hire a person who lacks the core competencies for the job—you’d have to micromanage them and constantly QA their work, which defeats the purpose of outsourcing the tasks to a VA. 

Here are a few tips on how to find a talented, reliable Virtual Assistant for Entrepreneurs who’s a perfect fit for your business. 

• Tip 1—Be highly specific when writing a job description. Virtual Assistants are skilled at a wide range of activities, from SEO and lead generation to content creation and email marketing. The skills your ideal VA should possess are determined by the type of work your plan to outsource to them. In order to attract the VA with the right competencies and ensure they’ll perform well in the role, you’ll have to create a thorough job description that specifies all of the duties and responsibilities they’ll take on. You should also list all the skills, competencies, and qualifications they must possess. 

• Tip #2—Spend a bit of extra time on finding a virtual assistant who’s trustworthy. The reason you’re hiring a virtual assistant in the first place is so you can let them work independently and clear up your schedule for more important tasks. That’s why the assistant you employ has to be reliable—you have to be able to trust them with sensitive information, such as passwords, as well as be confident they’ll produce high-quality results without being checked on all the time.

• Tip #3—Evaluate a large number of applicants using an automated hiring funnel. Screening dozens or hundreds of candidates manually will take up too much of your time and cause a delay in higher-priority activities you should be focusing on instead. Rather than wasting time and resources on replying to individual emails and reviewing countless applications, set up an automated hiring funnel with Workello and find your ideal VA in no time!

Everything is preconfigured, so you can set up a fully automated hiring funnel with Workello in 3 minutes! Streamline every stage of your hiring funnel, automate email correspondence, filter out bad candidates with a single click, and find the perfect Virtual Assistant for Entrepreneurs faster.

Hire a Reliable Virtual Assistant for Entrepreneurs Faster

You can think of Workello as the perfect virtual hiring assistant. Our fully automated hiring funnel is the product of countless hours, over $100,000 of investment, and dozens of iterations. With Workello, you can automate testing, scheduling, and email correspondence with candidates so you can focus on scaling your business and maximizing revenue.

Here’s how Workello makes hiring Virtual Assistants for Entrepreneurs a breeze:

1. Sign up for a free Workello account and launch your automated, pre-configured hiring funnel in less than 3 minutes
2. Post your job ads across LinkedIn, Monster, Facebook, Indeed, and all your other hiring channels and link to your Workello job ad
3. See all your candidates in a single unified Workello dashboard, regardless of which hiring channel they applied from
4. Reject, test, interview, and send offers to Virtual Assistants for Entrepreneurs with a single click
5. Filter out unqualified candidates with Workello’s built-in testing feature
6. Trigger automated emails and move candidates through your hiring funnel simply by changing their status from a drop-down menu
7. Minimize transactional questions by enabling candidates to see a live status page that tells them exactly which stage of your hiring funnel they are in

Don’t waste hundreds of hours looking for a perfect VA for Entrepreneurs that’s supposed to save you valuable time. Set up a fully automated hiring funnel with Workello, cut your hiring costs by 50%, and start accepting ideal candidates today!

Sign up now and review 5 VA for Entrepreneurs tests for free.