Who is a virtual assistant

Excess of duties is a common nuisance for entrepreneurs. It turns out that completing formalities, arranging meetings with contractors or answering phone calls and emails can become surprisingly troublesome and excessively time-consuming at times. In such cases, the help in the form of a virtual assistant may prove a reasonable solution. What does a virtual assistant do? Who exactly is it and on what conditions you can cooperate with him or her?

Who is a virtual assistant – table of contents:

1. Virtual assistants – what do they do?
2. A remote assistant
3. Forms of employment
4. Benefits of hiring a virtual assistant
5. FAQ

Virtual assistants – what do they do?

Office matters that you can bail your employer out of – that’s what a virtual assistant does. However, the work of an assistant does not only consist of handling organizational matters. The specificity of each industry, in principle, determines the number of duties incumbent on the virtual assistant.

Examples of activities that assistants undertake are:

• technical support at every step of e.g. creating a website or landing page,
• standard organizational duties: responding to correspondence, telephone contact with contractors,
• dealing with the company’s image in social media

There may, of course, be many more duties. Their range depends on the sector in which you specialize.

A remote assistant

There is a major difference between what a traditional assistant does and what a virtual assistant does. Working remotely is the main factor that sets virtual assistants apart.

They’re most often hired to work in online stores. Of course, it is not a rule of thumb. However, it should be emphasized that in the work of a virtual assistant the most important matters are specific competencies, such as:

• basic knowledge of accounting,
• office management and project management skills,
• ability to write texts efficiently

Forms of employment

How can you hire one? The vast majority of assistants are self-employed and provide VAT invoices to employers interested in their services.

A virtual assistant’s office is most often their home or apartment. An increasingly popular form of working as a virtual assistant is also renting co-working spaces in the organization.

If you like our content, join our busy bees community on Facebook and Twitter!