Key Takeaways:
50.2% of solopreneurs face anxiety, 34.4% experience burnout and 26.9% report a lack of work-life balance. Leveraging support from virtual assistants can help you tackle high levels of stress and ease job pressure.
23% of startups fail due to the wrong team, 14% due to poor marketing and 14% due to ignoring customers. If you don’t get enough time to dedicate to each task, sharing your workload with a skilled VA will prevent poor task quality and unnecessary delays.
From e-commerce and hospitality businesses to real estate and creative agencies, virtual assistants empower many industries with smarter, faster support.
Thanks to the post-pandemic world, the digital reliance of businesses is at its peak. Every organization is trying to gain a competitive edge by embracing technology for its operations, services and products.
In such a cloud-oriented market, hiring virtual assistants for routine tasks will streamline processes and boost business productivity.
VAs are for entrepreneurs, startups and busy professionals who find themselves buried in repetitive tasks, struggle to balance operations with growth or have a tight budget for in-house hiring.
Along with game-changing benefits like cost-saving, increased productivity and scalable support, you can get tailored support for your industry-specific needs.
Find out more about which industries and businesses can hire a virtual assistant and spend more time on growth and innovation.
What are Virtual Assistants?
Virtual assistants (VAs) are remote professionals responsible for handling the day-to-day admin tasks of businesses. By taking care of these time-consuming tasks, they clear out executive schedules and make time for strategizing and planning.
Hundreds of tasks can be delegated to VAs.
They easily support various secondary chores like managing email inboxes, maintaining the database, organizing the calendar and scheduling meetings.
Additionally, specialized virtual assistants also complete a variety of skilled projects that involve graphic designing, photo and video editing, podcast support, writing scripts and more.
The costs of virtual assistants are significantly lower than traditional employees. Because they work remotely, you can save more bucks on overhead costs.
You can hire VAs from freelance marketplaces. But freelancers are infamous for their high rates, hassled recruitment, shaky time management and unsatisfactory quality of work.
To prevent such headaches, hiring virtual assistants from outsourcing agencies is a better option for businesses.
All you have to do is share your requirements with them. They will recruit the best candidates for you to review. With them, you don’t have to worry about employee benefits, statutory taxes and more as the VA will be legally employed by the agency.
Industries That Need Virtual Assistants
From e-commerce and hospitality businesses to real estate and creative agencies, virtual assistants empower many industries with smarter, faster support.
Here are a few industries that can run smoothly with the right VA’s support.
Sales and Marketing Firms
Marketing and sales departments play pivotal roles in businesses. While marketing helps increase brand awareness and build relations with customers, the sales department directly brings in revenue by converting leads.
So you have heavy responsibilities to bear. But your workflow is often slowed down by menial admin tasks like responding to social media comments.
This is where virtual marketing assistants and sales virtual assistants come in.
VAs can help you with various marketing tasks to speed up your workflow, like:
- Researching keywords.
- Analyzing competitor strategies.
- Tracking campaign performance.
- Responding to social media comments.
- Reaching out to influencers.
- Assisting with SEO best practices.
Some sales tasks you can hand over to a VA are cold calling and emailing, lead capturing, prospecting, sales report preparation and CRM management.
E-Commerce Businesses
An e-commerce small business owner says,
I run a small e-commerce store and lately, I’ve been finding customer service to be a massive time sink. Most of it is dealing with emails—questions about shipping, returns and general inquiries. It feels like I’m spending hours each day just trying to keep up and it takes me away from focusing on growth, marketing and everything else that makes the business run.
Optimizing e-commerce operations is simple with a virtual assistant. From supply-chain planning to customer service, they can ace it all.
E-commerce VAs enhance the shopping experience at your online store while you focus on growing it! They help you:
- Search the market for trending products.
- Monitor competitor pricing.
- Post product listings.
- Manage inventory records.
- Manage customer chats, calls or emails.
- Collect customer feedback.
- Check the validity of refund requests.
- Issue returns.
- Record all transactions.
Real Estate Agents
With difficult interactions, high-stakes decisions and cutthroat competition, working in the real estate industry is not easy. You also have to engage in many physically taxing tasks like making rounds of open houses, examining property conditions and coordinating visits for clients.
On top of these, admin tasks like applying for permits online also fall on you. There remains little room for self-care or rest. All this is what makes real estate the industry with the second-highest rates of depression in the US.
One simple way to reduce this stress is to leverage the support of real estate virtual assistants.
They can assist you in dealing with buyers as well as renters. For better reach online, VAs can set up your account on platforms like Zillow and create attractive property listings. You can also get your virtual assistant to create accounts and post content on social media pages, your real estate VA will help you tap market opportunities online.
Virtual assistants can also:
- Schedule appointments with potential clients.
- Hunt for properties online.
- Promote open houses on social media.
- Place bids.
- Manage rental properties.
- Look for investors online.
- Proofread agreements.
- Renew annual rental contracts.
Creative Agencies
Attractive graphics and videos are a great way to promote your business in an engaging manner. But hiring an in-house graphic designer is a luxury many small businesses can’t afford.
Virtual creative assistants can be hired to provide creative support at affordable rates. These are specialized VAs well-versed in creative software. You can ask them to create striking social media graphics, design and set up your brand kit and support your content marketing strategy in more ways than one.
A specialized virtual assistant can:
- Create branded graphics.
- Redesign your brand logo.
- Write content for social media and blogs.
- Edit photos, YouTube vlogs and podcasts.
- Communicate with video sponsors.
- Design presentation slides.
- Transcribe audio.
- Write show notes.
- Create animations.
IT and Software Companies
IT executives help clients leverage technology to achieve their goals. Your job is not just to create programs, but to create technological business strategies.
But you might fail to give your 100% at your high-stakes job when you’re burdened by fringe tasks like process documentation.
This is why you must support your coders and engineers with an IT virtual assistant.
VAs can support you in various admin tasks, like:
- Scheduling meetings.
- Managing communication between team members.
- Transferring files.
- Creating reports or presentations.
- Tracking project progress.
- Recording expenses.
Many IT-specific tasks can also be performed by specialized VAs. These include testing software, identifying and fixing bugs, writing documentation, integrating third-party APIs, conducting UI/UX tests, developing WordPress websites, assisting with database development and more.
Hospitality Businesses
With seasonal booms in tourism, your hotel can be overwhelmed by large inflows of customers during some months of the year. When you’re at full capacity, you cannot afford to miss out on guest calls and room service requests as it might affect your hotel’s guest-first reputation.
One or even a dedicated team of virtual assistants can be set up to support all and disappoint none. Hospitality virtual assistants are a cost-efficient way to assist your guests and leave lasting impressions on them.
VAs can support your hotel by:
- Making reservations and bookings.
- Logging room service requests.
- Processing digital check-in and check-out.
- Managing inventory.
- Placing orders with vendors.
- Performing hotel guest analytics.
- Collecting feedback from guests.
You can also delegate admin tasks like marketing your hotel online, promoting on social media, updating your website, maintaining online portals for reservations and collecting guest information.
Travel Agencies
Since travel planning mainly occurs online, it’s one of the best tasks to assign to a virtual assistant. They can understand client needs and recommend suitable itineraries as per the client’s planned budget.
Travel agents can rely on a VA to carry out admin tasks like:
- Collecting client documents for ticket booking.
- Researching local sites for itinerary planning.
- Finding affordable flights and hotels.
- Recommending restaurants to clients.
- Setting up contacts with car rentals.
- Arranging guides at tourist locations.
Your travel virtual assistants can also do web check-ins, track flight delays, book travel insurance, monitor changes in local weather conditions and assist clients remotely during their trips.
Healthcare and Wellness Businesses
As per research by the CDC, 46% of US healthcare workers felt burnt out in 2022. Healthcare professionals face some of the most challenging stressors at work. Having to witness severe conditions such as the pandemic has serious mental and physical impacts on their well-being.
Hiring a virtual assistant to ease this pressure allows doctors and wellness coaches to stay fit and live fulfilling lives.
Don’t overwork! Offload admin tasks like responding to emails, scheduling appointments, following up on patient appointments and maintaining patient records to your VAs.
Virtual assistants can also:
- Send consent forms.
- Verify insurance.
- Process claims.
- Book intake sessions.
- Send vaccination reminders.
- Locate healthcare facilities near patients’ residences.
- Order prescribed medication.
- Facilitate virtual consultations.
- Update notes in patient charts.
- Communicate with patients in remote regions.
Law Firms
Lawyers have stressful schedules. Multiple rounds to courtrooms and government offices is exhausting and messes up your work-life balance. When there’s so much stress, it will inevitably hamper your performance in high-stakes cases.
With comprehensive assistance, lawyers focus on what they do best and boost their chances of winning cases.
All admin tasks of law offices can be taken care of by a virtual assistant. Some of these are email support, data entry, travel booking, transcription services, accounting and maintaining client files.
Virtual assistants can also support paralegal tasks like proofreading legal documents, writing discoveries or pleadings, preparing information related to the case and researching corporate, family or immigration law.
Finance Agencies
To grow your agency, you must focus on client acquisition and retention. But admin tasks can eat up your time and delay profit.
Virtual assistants can efficiently handle your secondary chores and simplify your busy schedule.
You can assign all back office tasks like drafting emails, scheduling meetings, taking meeting minutes, managing the calendar, creating presentations, conducting research, following up with clients, setting appointments and booking travel or accommodation.
They can also assist in finance-specific tasks such as:
- Processing insurance filings.
- Assisting with financial planning.
- Helping with investment management.
- Planning retirement strategies.
- Strategizing tax optimization.
- Assisting with estate planning.
- Generating financial statements for clients’ annual reports.
Consulting Firms
Consultants battle with long schedules that barely leave any time for rest and can often result in burnout.
A consultant in the finance industry says,
At peak stress and I want to quit. I have not felt like myself since starting this job 5 years ago…
Living a balanced lifestyle while helping your clients implement the best business strategies may seem unrealistic.
But it’s not impossible, thanks to virtual assistants!
By delegating routine, time-consuming tasks to a VA, you can reduce stress and improve your work-life balance. This will also significantly increase your client intake capacity and retention rate.
Virtual assistants can schedule meetings, research, manage client files, answer calls, respond to emails, book travel, prepare expense reports and manage the CRM database. They can also collect relevant information on competitors, market trends and client activities.
Trading and Construction Businesses
If you’re an independent contractor, the hands-on nature of your job is backbreaking. Having to perform back-office services yourself is an added burden that will soon drain you.
Consider hiring a virtual assistant committed to bringing you relief!
A VA can schedule inspections, monitor budgets, coordinate supplies’ procurement and maintain contact with vendors, site engineers, architects or subcontractors.
They can also research innovative building techniques, industrial tech advancements and government regulations.
Types of Businesses That Need Virtual Assistants
When nearly every business function is taking place online, companies can gain a lot from virtual assistants. After all, why would a company hire an expensive, in-house employee when a VA can deliver similar results at a cost-effective price?
All business types can onboard VAs to increase efficiency, build capacity and boost productivity.
Here are some businesses that will benefit infinitely from a virtual assistant.
Solopreneurs
Complete control is the biggest benefit of being a solopreneur. But with great control comes greater responsibility. You are solely accountable for your venture’s success and failure.
Solopreneurs often face high levels of job pressure. 50.2% of entrepreneurs face anxiety, 34.4% experience burnout and 26.9% report a lack of work-life balance.
Juggling between everyday tasks and essential business duties is next to impossible. And hiring full-time employees can burn a hole in your pocket, especially when every small expense has a mighty impact on your business.
Hiring an offshore virtual assistant is the best way to stop wearing multiple hats and focus on growing the business.
You can let the VA follow up with vendors, while you prioritize client acquisition. Focus on product development while your social media VA replies to comments.
You can hire virtual assistants for solopreneurs to answer customer calls and emails, create and manage databases, assist you in filing taxes, apply for government permits, handle basic bookkeeping and create promotional social-media graphics.
Startups
Building a company from scratch, expanding services and making a profit—founding and keeping a startup running is not for the weak. To add to the stress, routine admin tasks can delay real results further.
23% of startups fail due to the wrong team, 14% due to poor marketing and 14% due to ignoring customers. You don’t get enough time to dedicate to each task, leading to poor task quality or unnecessary delays.
But building in-house capacity from the get-go is not easy as the company’s has to bear other big costs during the budding stages. Hiring a VA is a great way to expand support without increasing costs.
Virtual assistants can manage the CEO’s calendars, schedule appointments with investors, write SOPs, process invoices, create social media content, assist with website development and manage online subscriptions.
Small Businesses
Small businesses diversify markets with their unique, cutting-edge solutions. Their impact on the economy is huge—almost 99.9% of U.S. firms are small businesses.
But there is an urgent need for systemization, workflow improvement and automation in these enterprises.
Virtual assistants support small businesses in key ways. Instead of onboarding expensive in-house hires, small business owners can leverage admin as well as niche support with virtual assistants.
Virtual assistants can record your expenses, manage your orders & inventory, coordinate with vendors, support customers in purchasing, collect feedback, create content for the brand’s social pages, write copy for the website, post job openings and more.
Seasonal Businesses
A winter wear apparel brand, a wedding planner or a Christmas tree vendor—all are seasonal businesses.
These ventures have predictable business cycles i.e., a majority of their profit is made during a period of high activity every year. The rest of the year is sustained with the revenue earned in these few active months.
A virtual assistant allows seasonal businesses to scale down support during the off-season. This way, you don’t have to continue paying full salaries when there isn’t the same amount of work.
VAs allow you to optimize help as per your fluctuating business needs. You can even hire dedicated VA teams during crunch periods to manage heavy workloads. They can handle everyday operations such as data entry, communications, meeting support, file management and basic bookkeeping.
Enterprises
Yes, even successful corporations can enjoy the benefits of virtual assistants!
All businesses, big or small, embrace new strategies to manage costs and boost productivity. A virtual assistant is both a cost-efficient and time-efficient asset.
A personal VA can remove all time-suckers from a senior manager’s schedule. Personal errands, such as booking your doctor’s appointments, planning travel and assisting with home maintenance bookings, are also their responsibility.
Some big-picture business tasks executive virtual assistants can handle are arranging business parties, conferences, work travel and team-building activities.
Final Thoughts
Whether you own a startup, a small business or a big corporation, having a jam-packed schedule is a given.
Virtual assistants can free you from low-value tasks and make space for meaningful and strategic activities.
Sales, marketing, e-commerce, creative services, real estate, IT, hospitality and many more industries can hire virtual assistants to simplify operations and reduce the workload on their core teams.