But, what is a VA and what can He / She do for me?

As a business owner and entrepreneur, you, and you alone, know all the hard work it has taken you to get as far as you have. All the time and resources you have invested in your idea — your baby — so it is understandable that you want to make sure that everything is done according to your standards. You live up to the motto: “If you want something well done: do it yourself”.

But, does any of the following sound familiar to you?

• You are overwhelmed with your own schedule; maybe, sometimes you forget to schedule something. Maybe you miss a client’s deadline. Maybe you forgot that follow up call, and it costs you a business deal.
• You find that you have lost the excitement that your business used to bring to you. You don’t look forward to being at the office because you know there is a long, tedious task waiting for you. You are angry at your job, or at yourself, because you wish you could just take care of the really important, creative things… but you can’t.
• You know you are really good with being creative and finding new ideas to improve your business and generating more income; but maybe you just wish you could use your time in something more important than trying to figure out the formulas on a spreadsheet.
• Or simply, you realize that your business is growing so much and so fast that the small things that used to take just a little time are now taking half of your day: answering emails, phone calls, preparing your schedule, returning calls that you couldn’t get because you were in a meeting. All those tiny but vital things that need to get done, all the time.

If you just found yourself nodding as you read this list, it’s time for you to consider delegating and focusing on the things that are the most important for your business, all those things that only you can do. It’s time to consider a Virtual Assistant.

But what is a VA? What can she/he do for me?

A VA is a professional that provides administrative, technical, or creative (social) assistance to clients remotely.

So, let’s go back to that checklist from before:

Can a VA:

1- Manage my schedule? – Yes!

2- Take care of the really long tasks like organizing information and documents or doing research? – You bet!

3- Take care of that sales report that has been giving you a headache, and maybe show you a trick or two on Excel? – Most definitely!

4- Answer follow-up emails, answer the phone and take messages, organizing meetings? – Of course!

But wait! A VA can also do much more for you:

5- Manage your company’s website, create content (as blog entries) and take care of your social networks, in order to drive more clients to you!

6- Book flights and hotels for you according to your specific standards while taking the time to find the best available rates.

7- Research and find options (and the best price) for that special gift you have been looking for in a well-timed, previous date so you can show up with a gift on your hands on that special day!

8- Preparing that PowerPoint presentation you just didn’t think you were going to finish because you were too busy gathering the information and networking to find new potential customers to show it to.

9- Take care of shipping the products and invoicing your costumers.

And pretty much any task that you need to get off your hands. With the proper training, you can delegate pretty much anything on a VA.

You might be thinking “My business is quite unusual (in a good way) I wonder if a VA could handle the tasks?”

Well, fortunately, UAM has a lot of VA’s with a variety of costumers, some more unusual than others, so here are some examples:

“I had a client who was participating on a TV show called “Fashion Star”. It was really exciting for me to work with her because I love fashion and she is a famous designer, it was like a dream come true. One of my tasks was to watch the show every week and to manage all her social media activity. It was strange and funny at the same time because I had never been paid to watch TV. It was a great experience and I enjoyed it a lot.” – Sofia Melara

“I had a client who had a daily lunch ordered at a small local restaurant in Los Angeles. Every day I was to call the restaurant to cancel her order at exactly 11:30am (PST). This was a daily, on-going task. I didn’t understand why she didn’t cancel the whole “subscription” at once, instead of having to cancel her lunch order on a daily basis. I reached a point where any of the restaurant’s workers knew when I was calling and what I was calling for.” - April Paz

"The most unusual task I have performed has definitely been scheduling "Aztecan Shamanic" healing sessions. One of my customers wrote and directed a documentary film about the life of the Aztec people in the modern era. During the film he met an Aztec medicine man and thought about a way to raise funds for the women in their community, and as a nice gesture he took the Aztec medicine man to California and sold Aztecan Shamanic healing sessions. I must say although very unusual, it was a very nice experience and I would be more than happy to keep on contributing with causes such as these." - Jackie Vicente

“Currently, I have a client for whom I make a lot of calls. The idea behind this is to offer his services to the people I’m calling, however, people always have interesting excuses to just not talk to you: this year, during the Soccer World Cup, I got this person on the phone who stated he was busy watching the game and couldn’t talk. It was super funny since other than that the only thing that he told me before hanging up the phone was the current score and that he was hoping for his team to win” – Celina Moreno