Have you recently hired a virtual professional but aren’t sure which virtual assistant duties suit them best? This roundup is sure to maximize their skills!
Maximize Your Workforce: How to Assign Virtual Assistant Duties
Are you looking to increase workplace productivity?
In the workplace, making sure everything goes as planned often falls on the shoulders of your employees. This means that the grind begins for them to ensure everything small detail is correct. This can lead to burnout, which can negatively impact workplace productivity.
What’s great is that there are now virtual assistants for you to rely on. Assigning your virtual assistant duties allows your workforce to focus on more important tasks.
Which duties should you assign to your virtual assistants, though? To find out, read what’s below. Learn which duties are best assigned as virtual assistant responsibilities.
Calendar Management
A virtual assistant can help you with the management of your business calendar. This can include organizing meetings, reminding team members about upcoming events, and even help in rescheduling them.
This can also apply to your personal calendar. There will be times when someone will want to meet up with you, which means taking time out of your day. Your virtual assistant can be in charge of this, and can also be the one to say “No” to them in your place.
Email Organization and Management
Keeping in touch with clients is as important as reaching new ones. Email is one of the few ways that you can do this effectively. If you’re managing a medium-sized company, this can mean you’ll get overwhelmed by the sheer number of emails.
A virtual assistant can help take the load off of your shoulders. They can organize important emails for you to respond to first. They can also manage them by responding to the less important ones.
Travel Help
With travel restrictions relaxing, you’ll be able to travel for business purposes once again. With the pandemic still a looming threat, though, you’ll need a lot of help to prepare yourself for travel.
You can give your virtual assistant tasks to find you the appropriate accommodations in the area you’re traveling to. You can even have them schedule your flights to streamline the process.
You can even provide your credit info to them to complete the booking process entirely. If you find the right virtual assistant, you can trust them enough to give them this kind of information.
Customers Engagement
Many virtual assistants can also help you manage your clients. They can provide customer support by chatting with customers that have inquiries for your business.
Professional virtual assistants even have the right set of skills to represent you in social media. This helps your brand become more involved on the Internet. It’s a great way to help you boost your brand awareness, further increasing your chances of business success.
Assign Your Virtual Assistant Duties Today
Maximize the efficiency of your workforce with the help of virtual assistants. Give your virtual assistant duties that can help out your workforce in different ways. With their help, you’re sure to increase your overall workplace productivity!
Are you looking for reliable virtual assistants? Contact us here and we’ll get in touch with you as soon as possible! We’ll provide you with the highest quality service available!
There’s always a light form of virtual assistant training when onboarding VAs into your business. Here are five tips to make the process go well.
VA Onboarding: 5 Valuable Tips for Virtual Assistant Training
With a rising demand for various virtual assistant services, more and more businesses and entrepreneurs are taking on VAs at a rapid pace. However, just because the need is high doesn’t mean that certain aspects of the hiring process should be glossed over.
Virtual assistant training is an important process to get right. If you don’t, your VA will be unlikely to fulfill your expectations, because they simply won’t be prepared.
Read on for five valuable tips to make sure your virtual assistant training goes smoothly.
1. Maintain Regular Communication
With a virtual assistant, you can’t, of course, meet in person. But that doesn’t mean communication isn’t still important.
Especially in their first few weeks, schedule regular check-in calls, ideally with video, so you can see how things are going for them and keep them informed of the next steps.
If you’re hiring a virtual assistant from another country, keep time zones and potential language barriers in mind. Clear communication is everything when it comes to remote work, so keep it consistent and simple from the beginning.
2. Have a Clear Schedule
There’s nothing worse than starting a new job and having no idea what you’re meant to be doing. On their first day, make sure your VA knows what they’re doing that day and the next few days.
Give them enough time to find their feet, but also schedule appointments in their calendar so that they have some direction. In the first few days, you’ll need to offer more assistance than you’re used to, but any good VA will find their feet soon enough.
3. Don’t Rush Training
Virtual assistant services are vast, so there might be a lot to get through. Even if it seems like a lot, however, it’s important that you don’t try to take shortcuts. Onboarding a new employee can take time, sometimes even months.
Knowing how to train virtual assistants can take some patience. Nonetheless, it will pay off in the end by how much time you free up by offloading tasks to another person. Your business will thank you in the end!
4. Be Methodical With Access
Virtual assistant onboarding is not just about training them. It’s also about integrating them into your processes. Think about every account they will need access to or software they need a profile for in advance.
Do what you can to set up these profiles for them earlier on so it doesn’t waste time on their first few days. Plus, it ensures that you don’t forget anything important in the meantime.
5. Ask for Input
Hiring a virtual assistant is not just about delegating tasks. It’s about welcoming someone into your business. Ask for their input about what works for them too.
Employees like to feel valued in their workplace, so listening to how your new VA likes to communicate, or seeing how they’re finding their training can help you make your business a hospitable place to work, even remotely.
Ready to Get Started with Virtual Assistant Training?
If you’re keen to put these tips into action with your own virtual assistant training, why not schedule a consultation with our team today? We have a range of virtual assistant services that are just waiting to take some of the strain off your business.
Many people have heard of the GTD method, but few know how it can be applied to a virtual assistant. Here, we make the connection between this winning time management methodology and working with an Executive Virtual Assistant.
Create a cadence to organize your life.
Firstly, how does a virtual assistant bring value? A virtual assistant should reduce the burden on your shoulders so that you can focus on achieving your personal and professional goals. Time is at a premium for everyone, so having someone who can do all those little tasks is invaluable.
Is it actionable? Then you do it, delegate it, or defer it
How the GTD method works with an Executive Virtual Assistant
The GTD method works in many ways:
Habits
The small tasks that take up the most time are habits. These could be simple things like processing of incoming files, scheduling meetings etc. Here is where a virtual assistant can come in handy, as they can take up these duties.
Weekly Review
The second way this method works is via weekly review, and this is where we need an Executive Virtual Assistant to perform tasks. A virtual assistant should identify the top priorities and then provide you with an action plan to accomplish them within the week.
With the aid of these two ways, you can now apply GTD to a virtual assistant.
Getting started with GTD: Task Management Plan and Weekly Review
How much time you will devote to this – the more time you spend on it, the more effective it will be
Working off your calendar and inbox with a three-step system – define the tasks that need to be dealt with today, create a list of them and then get to work
Produce a weekly review that includes feedback from others or yourself. If your team asks for clarification on something, refer them to your weekly review.
You can also take this opportunity to point out what’s working and not working equally as well as sharing best practices from other people.
See For Yourself: A Closer Look at Virtual Assistants
The popularity and acceptance of virtual assistants will grow over the next decade. It is estimated that, in 2020, 40% of the entire US task force are virtual professionals. Today’s use cases for these task-oriented professionals are vast. “Freelance virtual assistant services” will be one of the biggest industries in terms of employment and global revenue by the end of the decade.
“Outsourcing makes the hustle better — because you’re not burdened with many/growing expenses that you’ll need to figure out how to cover and hit profit”
Focus on your growth & scale your operations
ENVISIONING OF A NEW REALITY FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & business owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VAs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
Are you debating between Upwork vs Fiverr for your professional needs? Get an idea of how these freelance platforms work in this comparison guide.
Upwork vs Fiverr: Comparing the Freelance Platforms and Opportunities
The freelancer economy continues to grow at an incredible rate. According to a study commissioned by Upwork and the Freelancers Union, the majority of the workforce will be freelancers by 2027.
You better get acquainted with freelance job boards now, because they will be the future. Comparing two of the most popular, Upwork vs Fiverr, can help you decide which one is best suited to your particular task.
Upwork vs Fiverr: Looking for Freelancers
Hiring freelancers can help reduce your overhead, but you need to pick the right ones. A difference between Upwork and Fiverr is in how you seek out freelancers to hire in the first place.
Upwork stars from your job posting, whereas Fiverr starts with the freelancers posting their skills.
When business owners first start working with Upwork, most of them will begin by posting the specifics of their project. That will include the requirements of the task, and some details about your company.
Upwork will then analyze those requirements and show you the best freelancers for your particular task. You can also ignore their recommendation and search through potential freelancers on your own.
Fiverr, on the other hand, starts with freelancers posting tasks, or “gigs”, they can complete and the prices they charge for each. If you want to hire freelancers, you search through those listings to find someone with the skills you need.
To help you decide Fiverr includes a review system where you can see the type of work a freelancer has done in the past, as well as their customer reviews.
Differences in Prices and Payments
There is quality talent on both platforms. But, while Fiverr includes many skilled freelancers (especially for things like graphic design), Upwork generally gives you more ways to vet your candidate.
As noted above, Upwork provides video chat for you to speak with candidates. They also administer skills tests and verify the identity of any potential freelancer. As a result, freelancers on Upwork may be more expensive but also more verifiably skilled.
Upwork also provides the option to pay freelancers by the project or by the hour. They also provide a time tracker to monitor the freelancer’s work.
Because Fiverr starts with posted gigs, basically anyone can post any type of job. You can find someone to do any task you might need, but there are fewer tools to vet them before you hire them.
For that reason, Fiverr can be a great place to find relatively cheap solutions for simpler jobs. In fact, the name originally referenced the $5 gigs you could find on the platform.
Because everything is based on gigs, you cannot pay Fiverr freelancers by the hour.
Bottom Line: It Depends on the Job
Whether Upwork or Fiverr is better for your business depends mostly on the specifics of your task.
For a more complicated or specific job, you’ll probably want to go with Upwork. The cost will likely be higher, but you can find someone easily with the specific skills you need, and vet them more closely.
Fiverr is better suited for smaller, simpler, or more specific jobs. The cost is generally low enough that you can hire multiple people to design your logo, for instance, and then pick the one you like most.
Freelancers Let You Focus on What You Do Best
Whichever portal you choose, Upwork vs Fiverr, working with freelancers can help your company focus on its core competencies. That will make you more efficient and drive up profits.
Slack is an incredible tool to collaborate and keep teams on track with project goals. Learn how to leverage this platform alongside virtual assistants to grow.
How to Grow Your Business With Slack and Virtual Assistants
Since COVID-19’s inception, the standard communication model for businesses has changed from in-person to virtual. Millions of Americans became remote workers and millions more are likely to follow this trend as the months unfold.
As work-life becomes more virtual, the potential for having a better work-life balance unfolds, too.
Businesses can expand their horizons and delegate tasks more efficiently by hiring part-time virtual assistants. Businesses may also consider using better tools to efficiently manage their virtual assistant staff.
Slack is an incredible tool to collaborate and keep teams on track with project goals. Even better, it creates an atmosphere of transparency.
Read more to learn how leveraging this platform alongside virtual assistants will grow your business.
What Is a Virtual Assistant?
Unlike the old business model where your pool of possible employees was limited to your local area, now you can hire anyone from anywhere.
Yes, anywhere. All over the globe. If they have a computer and internet service handy, they’re a potential employee.
Since they work remotely, the tasks that virtual assistants (VAs) can perform are limited to the tasks their computers can perform. Depending on your business model, the sky’s the limit.
Pro tip – Experienced VAs are great at juggling many tasks at once. Consider delegating repetitive work to them that can’t be done by a computer or AI system.
But how is it possible to manage someone you may never see in person?
It’s actually pretty easy. Using virtual assistant services like Slack only requires a basic understanding of digital technologies.
Why You Should Choose Slack as Your Workspace Hub
Don’t limit the use of this technology to you and your virtual assistant. Think of Slack as a transparent virtual hub between employers and employees.
It’s perfect for:
Creating specific channels between different parties
Keeping staff up to date with company goals and initiatives
Project management
Creating a more down-to-earth and personal work environment
Even better, you and your VA can work together to turn Slack into your primary source of digital communication with the entire team! Consider forming these kinds of channels:
Team specific: Split your slack channels into teams. Create camaraderie
Event Updates: Pin posts here to get your staff excited for events
Rules and Regulations: Keep your team informed about expectations
Social: Here, staff can talk about anything. Be sure to form ground rules
Your team can benefit immensely from using Slack because its services aren’t limited to on-site office hours, assuming you still have staff working on site.
Your staff will also have the bonus of being able to send direct messages to other staff members. This will make it easier for team leaders to schedule meetings with individuals on a discreet basis.
Notice a Trend?
Slack stands out as a workspace hub because it opens many doors for businesses with an eye for transparency and ultimately, success.
Forward-thinking CEOs and virtual assistants are using slack for business purposes because it is specifically made for facilitating trust and camaraderie in a remote-work environment.
If you want to know more about growing your business in the remote workplace, be sure to visit our Contact Us Page and we’ll respond ASAP. We’d love to inform you about all we know!
The old idea that you need to be in the same place as someone to work with them is no longer accurate because employers are now hiring full-time virtual assistants to balance the workload of local employees.
Some of these companies include:
– AMD – Adobe – Amazon – Airbnb – Apple
The list is endless and this post goes into much more detail about what it means for businesses, employees, and economies.
The rise of virtual outsourcing has been a long time coming, and now that it has finally arrived many companies are embracing this new trend. One of the most common types of virtual outsourcing is virtual assistants – employees who act as personal assistants to their bosses, managing tasks like answering emails, or scheduling meetings. Instead of hiring an individual temp, they use an online company such as MyOutDesk — one that brings together both employers and seasoned remote professionals.
Well-known companies that use outsourced virtual professionals
The list of companies using virtual assistants is growing huge. They have found a way to hire cheap people over the internet that saves them money in the long run. Outsourcing to virtual assistants is becoming one of the hottest ways to save money and increase productivity as well as hiring flexibility and growth. Some start-ups are even looking at hiring full-time virtual assistants, without having to deal with recruiting employees.
Virtual assistant employers report that they pay between $9 to $12 an hour, which is significantly lower than any other job or even the standard temp jobs at places like ManpowerGroup or Robert Half.
Other companies that hire remote workers & virtual professionals include:
There are companies that are also starting to experiment with outsource their entire workforce and replace all employees with cheap freelancers. Companies like Groupon, Kayak and Living Social have already started outsourcing their customer-facing staff.
It is interesting to note that there are many more benefits of outsourcing than just cost savings.
… Companies are able to:
Cut expenses
Improve efficiency
Be more flexible with their work schedule or location
Grow capacity to serve more clients & increase sales
It may seem like a great idea for businesses to work alongside outsourced staff. This makes it easier for a business to scale and be flexible when dealing with much smaller groups of employees. While outsourcing to virtual assistants, allows for different operating models, controlling the type of work that is being done at specific times, and having different people do the work at different times or locations.
Industries have benefited most from virtual assistants in the last 10 years:
– Insurance
– Consulting
– Marketing
– Real Estate
– Financial M, Mortgage, Lending
– Healthcare
– Ecommerce & Retail
– Biotech
– IT
It has been reported that a growing number of firms have started hiring virtual assistants that specialize in analysis, marketing, operations, and sales development. Virtual assistants that are specialized in recruitment coordination, research, and development, have led to growth in industries such as information technology, biotechnology, and healthcare/life sciences.
Growing a small enterprise with virtual assistants more accessible than ever before:
– Hiring a virtual assistant is accessible to small businesses and start-ups
– Lower cost alternative to offset the workload of local employees while scaling operation and growing business capacity.
Project management software, like project management software such as Asana or Trello, is the backbone of operations in most companies. It allows companies to hire virtual assistants for just about any job – from administrative tasks, sales, and marketing work, blog posts, and transcribing sessions. It has become more affordable for businesses to hire virtual assistants — one of the factors why outsourcing is so popular with companies today is because quality remote work is easily accessible.
See For Yourself: A Closer Look at Virtual Assistants
The popularity and acceptance of virtual assistants will grow over the next decade. It is estimated that, in 2020, 40% of the entire US task force are virtual professionals. Today’s use cases for these task-oriented professionals are vast. “Freelance virtual assistant services” will be one of the biggest industries in terms of employment and global revenue by the end of the decade.
“Outsourcing makes the hustle better — because you’re not burdened with many/growing expenses that you’ll need to figure out how to cover and hit profit”
Focus on your growth & scale your operations
ENVISIONING OF A NEW REALITY FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & business owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VAs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
Every company knows the importance of a productive workforce. But how do you ensure high productivity without breaking the bank?
Traditionally, companies have been forced to rely on things like stroke-counter systems and arduous supervision processes to keep tabs on their employees. And most of the time, it’s not worth the hassle. Outsourcing your work to a qualified virtual assistant is a better way to reduce overhead and attain the highest productivity yet.
Here are five reasons why Virtual Assistants can double your business:
1. Local employees LOVE the help of virtual assistants
Virtual assistants are generally very dependable, efficient and they come with lots of added benefits, such as added accountability. Workload reduction aside, it’s fun for them to have someone to chat with at the computer or over the phone.
2. Hiring a reliable virtual assistant to do the work for you is cheaper in the long run than training and hiring employees yourself.
Virtual assistant services charge clients a flat rate with little-to-no added expense for onboarding, supervising, or training. You can hire as many virtual assistants as you need with relative ease and each virtual assistant will be paid on a salary basis, so there is no worker’s compensation or unemployment cost to be had either.
3. When your company hires VAs full-time from agencies, they become part of your team with all that comes with
Reputable virtual assistant providers, such as MyOutDesk (rated #1 by TechRadar), will cover health coverage, employee payroll records, documentation, and regulatory compliance issues, benefits packages, and etc. This will reduce your own overhead in the long run.
4. Virtual assistants potentially can take on more responsibilities than full-time employees.
Instead of hiring an employee to handle tasks individually, virtual assistants can take care of them batch-wise, thus saving you time and money all at once. They may also be able to generate more sales leads via your website and social media marketing.
“Virtual assistants were able to the job that the local people were able to do … AND they actually raised the bar!” — Belami eCommerce
5. You can make more money when you outsource your work to a virtual assistant.
Why? Because it takes time to train new in-house hires from scratch and let those people grow with the company. Virtual assistants are pre-qualified to quickly adapt to your business needs and are equally part of your team for less.
See For Yourself: A Closer Look at Virtual Assistants
The popularity and acceptance of virtual assistants will grow over the next decade. It is estimated that, in 2020, 40% of the entire US task force are virtual professionals. Today’s use cases for these task-oriented professionals are vast. “Freelance virtual assistant services” will be one of the biggest industries in terms of employment and global revenue by the end of the decade.
“Outsourcing makes the hustle better — because you’re not burdened with many/growing expenses that you’ll need to figure out how to cover and hit profit”
Focus on your growth & scale your operations
ENVISIONING OF A NEW REALITY FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & business owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VAs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
Virtual assistant services are quickly emerging as the next-generation business solution, with companies in nearly every industry investing heavily in these efficient and productive roles. The mass expansion of virtual assistants is creating an entirely contemporary class of jobs.
What is a Virtual Assistant?
The definition of a virtual assistant (or professional), as an occupation, is “an individual who provides personal administrative or business assistance to clients from a remote location via electronic means.” Common “administrative or business” assistance (the range of services VAs offer) include prospecting, calling, marketing, customer service, and administrative support.
Virtual assistants (VAs) provide assistance in prospecting, calling, marketing, administrative, and customer service functions to their clients from a remote, home office and typically from a different country.
Virtual assistants are career-oriented virtual assistants with proven industry and educational experience.
Virtual assistants (or “virtual professionals,” as we prefer to call them ) are everywhere now. They are used in every industry and have become ubiquitous in the workplace. The increase in virtual professionals worldwide is rapid and even dramatic.
The Future of Virtual Assistants (Business Process Outsourcing)
The VAs who are helping clients build their businesses are the ones who will serve as the vehicle for the next wave of disruption in a number of industries. Business process outsourcing (BPO)—the practice of taking over some or all of a company’s processes and functions, which would usually be done by employees, and having someone else fulfill those tasks—is becoming so widespread that it is starting to have an impact on every industry.
When you think about business process outsourcing you can think about it in terms of any industry or process that is run from an office. For example, even the most basic business like a small restaurant is going to have employees in the kitchen cooking food, servers waiting tables, and bartenders preparing drinks. When you think about it, nearly every business can be broken down into process and function components.
At some point in the future, even the people who own restaurants are going to realize there is an opportunity for them to save money and increase profits if they don’t have to pay traditional employees at a restaurant and can instead rely on a virtual workforce.
At this time it is only beginning, but already we are seeing virtual assistants interacting directly with customers of major corporations in ways that will eventually allow companies like Google or Apple to replace their entire call center staff with virtual assistants. That means you will have somebody you never met in person to take calls for your business processes.
There are a number of reasons that all of these industries are quickly adopting virtual assistants. For instance, many companies have operations in different countries. They have offices in other countries that can help you with customer service and dealing with the production and selling of your product or service in those countries.
Companies also want to cut costs and increase profits, which is a key reason why all of these industries are adopting virtual assistance. It is also important for companies to have high-quality service delivered to their customers in a reliable way. You can’t afford to have any mistakes in your business process, or you will lose business.
Hybrid Business Model
Virtual assistants are a key component in the hybrid business model of the future. A hybrid model is a mix of two approaches: on-site and off-site. In this model, an organization retains core functions in its home office (such as accounting, customer service, etc.) but outsources the performance of low-value processed back to other countries.
At one point or another, all businesses are going to have to get rid of their employees and rely more heavily on virtual assistants. Business processes are so complex and there is so little that can be automated that you really need good people running your company for you to survive and function properly. Employees can’t do everything. Rather than bombard local employees with repetitive, and time-consuming tasks, virtual assistants can handle a lot of the heavy lifting in your company and make your business more efficient.
See For Yourself: A Closer Look at Virtual Assistants
The popularity and acceptance of virtual assistants will grow over the next decade. It is estimated that, in 2020, 40% of the entire US task force are virtual professionals. Today’s use cases for these task-oriented professionals are vast. “Freelance virtual assistant services” will be one of the biggest industries in terms of employment and global revenue by the end of the decade.
“Outsourcing makes the hustle better — because you’re not burdened with many/growing expenses that you’ll need to figure out how to cover and hit profit”
Focus on your growth & scale your operations
ENVISIONING OF A NEW REALITY FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & business owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
See what we are about, and schedule a free consultation with us. We’ll take the time to learn more about your business and offer solutions to foster top talent and lower operational costs for your company.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VAs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
A recent survey revealed that the average American spends between 1.5 to 3 hours per week managing their own calendar. Imagine what you could do — on your own schedule — if you had a virtual assistant to schedule your meetings, appointments, and projects for you.
You would have more time and energy to:
Grow your business or organization with strategic planning, research & development, and more customer service
Plan for personal vacations and manage household expenses better (it’s more difficult when you’re juggling work with travel plans as most people do)
Work smarter with research, planning, transaction management, & coordination of tasks between professionals or departments
Learn new skills on your own time (e.g., photography, videography, fitness, personal training)
Find more time to spend with your family and friends
It’s not just about what you can do — but what you won’t have to do! And you don’t have to break the bank in order to hire a Virtual Personal Assistant. Here at MyOutDesk, we offer a highly rated staff of career-focused professionals with industry expertise. They are trained in the latest software, techniques, and terminology specific to your industry. These are dedicated professionals who build businesses — on their own time — for clients around the globe.
Concierge service doesn’t have to end when you check out from a hotel. Look, we know it’s tough to organize all the everyday small details. The wealthiest and most successful people in the world stay on top of their game because they can afford an executive personal assistant.
The truth is out.
Personal Assistants are now affordable for all! At MyOutDesk, we’ve upgraded the traditional personal assistant and turned it virtual.
Now, you have access to the top pool of the most hardworking & educated career virtual professionals in the world — at up to 70% less than the cost of a traditional personal assistant. To learn more and explore your ideas, schedule a strategy consultation: here.
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs Claim a free Double Your Business strategy consultation
No more part-time assistant. No more student assistants. No more late nights in the office. No more missing the gym & family quality time. Sure, you can still ask the teenager down the block to help with small errands, like picking up the groceries & dry cleaning (you’ll also more time to do the errands you want with a professional assistant). Instead, now you can have a full-time Virtual Personal Assistant with a career background from your preferred industry and skill set!
You can sleep well at night knowing that your work transactions & tasks are handled on time -AND- you have plenty of quality personal & family time.
Personal Assistant Solutions
Travel arrangements & logistics
Calendaring, bookkeeping, and appointments
Reservations, confirmations, and follow-up
Help desk & technology
Research & planning
Transaction coordinator
Intake calls & reception
Digital & social media
Graphic design & writing
Podcasts & interviews
Tenured. College-educated. Career Virtual Assistants
With industry expertise in:
Property management, PR/Publicity, Real Estate, Mortgage & Lending, IT & Technology, HR, Insurance, Marketing, Finance, Retail, Inside/Outside Sales, and much more.
You can acquire top talent for your daily needs even while cutting your costs, saving you up to 70%of the cost of a traditional employee. Professional virtual assistants can grow your everyday capacity. Schedule an interview.
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Outsource Your Personal & Professional Workload with Personal Assistant Solutions
The math is simple with an enormous ROI. A full-time Virtual Personal Assistant will lower your costs, reduce overhead, save time, and leverage professional talent for your career, business, and personal goals.
It’s no wonder entrepreneurs & career-focused professionals trust us most — with 13 years of experience serving over 6,000 clients. Last year we saved our clients $55 million as the highest-rated virtual assistant company with more than 500 verified 5-star business reviews.
Focus on your growth & scale your operations
ENVISIONING OF A NEW REALITY FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & business owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
See what we are about, and schedule a free consultation with us. We’ll take the time to learn more about your business and offer solutions to foster top talent and lower operational costs for your company.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free Double Your Business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VAs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
As more and more people are finding out, the idea of working a 4-hour workweek is not just a bunch of hot air. Such an arrangement can be quite possible if you’re willing to make a few key changes to your lifestyle. What are the benefits of this type of work arrangement? And how can you achieve it for yourself? Read on to find out!
What is the science behind the 4-hour workweek?
Working less than 5 days in a row has been proven to have significant benefits for creativity and productivity, among other things. The fact that you won’t burn completely out on a short workweek is scientifically proven. This is one of the reasons why this time-saving strategy has become so popular in recent years.
Here are just some benefits of a 4-hour workweek:
Increased productivity
A four-hour workweek’s duration gives you just enough time to finish everyday tasks but little enough time to overthink them. When you have sufficient time for processing your tasks, your performance will be noticeably better. Much better than if you rush through them in a hectic environment. This will allow you to get more done per hour.
Creativity
The more you can accomplish in a day, the better. With more done in less time, a short workweek also allows you to concentrate on creative work for longer periods of time than usual. According to studies conducted by psychologists, staying up late at night for long working sessions can have beneficial effects on your creativity.
Innovation
If you’re working longer hours, it’s normal to think that you’ll be more innovative in those hours. This is simply not the case. When you work fewer hours but are more productive, your ideas can flow for longer periods of time without interruption. That means that when you do think of something creative, it gets thought through much quicker. Also, you don’t have the urge to interrupt your train of thought with other tasks. Creativity is best when uninterrupted and this type of schedule allows for that.
Happiness
When people are less stressed at work, they’re happier at home. This is because they have more time to spend with their families and in their own hobbies. Studies have shown that those who work less than 40 hours a week are less likely to experience psychological problems.
How can CEOs achieve the 4-hour workweek without comprising the business?
It’s simple, with virtual assistants. Don’t field emails, take calls, and do data entry. Instead, you can focus on giving your business more attention and spend more time with your family. Virtual assistants make this possible today.
With virtual assistants, CEOs can finally have a 4-hour workweek
Virtual assistants are the key to working less in your business so that you can accomplish more in less time. There are many types of tasks that come up throughout a typical day for business owners. The other great benefit of having virtual assistants is that they can perform these tasks for less money than skipping them altogether. You can finally have the freedom to focus only on what’s most important in your business. Virtual assistants make it easier to find new (and cheaper) ways to grow business.
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & business owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
See what we are about, and schedule a free consultation with us. We’ll take the time to learn more about your business and offer solutions to foster top talent and lower operational costs for your company.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free Double Your Business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VAs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
As any business owner will tell you, the majority of the work that has to be done isn’t the thing that everybody thinks about when they think about running a business.
In this article we will identify six common reasons for businesses to use remote administrative assistants, focusing primarily on small businesses with between one and twenty employees, in order to give you an idea about the ways in which this can benefit each of them.
Projects vs Needs vs Time
Sure, you’ve got your big ideas. You have to come up with a way to make money. You have to present solutions and establish a company culture and reputation. You also need to come up with advertising and marketing campaigns and keep on top of compliance requirements.
All your projects take time and money, but it represents just a portion of what it actually takes to run an effective business each day, and that’s why every single one of these tasks needs to be broken down into smaller components so that they don’t overwhelm you.
Some of those smaller components might be as easy as coming up with a social media strategy, or as complicated as finding all the information and advice you’re missing to do what you need to do. Or maybe it’s time to implement a new employee app or figure out how your time is being spent.
No matter the size of your business, there are day-to-day tasks that demand your attention and personal attention but may not justify their own dedicated staff time. That’s where remote administrative assistants can help give you a digital shoulder to lean on.
Why your business needs Remote Administrative Virtual Assistants
With remote administrative assistants, as you’re able to handle the more complex tasks yourself, you can hand grunt work over to your administrative assistant.
1. Administrative Assistants for Any Task – Even Those That Take Time to Do
Some things just take time and effort, and not everybody is skilled enough to be able to do everything perfectly. If you’re not a professional organizer, booking travel arrangements or creating an employee document management system may take you a little longer than you’d like. But if you have remote administrative assistants that can handle the more complex tasks, then there is no reason to spend that time on something else. You can move through your day more quickly, and focus on the things that only you should be working on at any given time.
2. Working around the clock is possible for you, WITHOUT having to world around the clock
Most of the administrative tasks that you would assign an employee will require you to be available at least during the time when they are working. While this can work out well for remote employees, your business can operate around the clock. Having remote administrative assistants means that you never have to be available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. As long as the task can be handled in smaller blocks of time or at specific times each day, it can still be handled remotely.
3. You Have the Advantage of Distance, WITHOUT the Disadvantage of Distance
There are times when your presence is required at another location; whether you need to meet with someone else in person, or handle an emergency situation that requires your personal attention, it’s nice to know that you have someone who can attend to details while you take care of business on the other side of town, on a different continent, or even on another planet. Remote administrative assistants give you freedom without sacrificing your ability to get something done quickly and easily.
4. Separate Your Personal and Business Life, With the Peace of Mind of Knowing You Have Back-Up in Hand
If you’re a busy entrepreneur, then having your administrative assistants be part of your team means that you’ll always know they are there for you. If something goes wrong, or if you are on vacation for a week and need to have someone else take care of things while you are unavailable, then your administrative assistant is ready to step in and get the job done. (Of course, this may require that they have time available at the moment; businesses with small staff may not be able to afford extra hours or pay for additional help.)
5. Remote Access Helps You Focus on Administration Without Distractions
As humans we often find it hard to work effectively when there are distractions around us: smartphones ringing, people talking near us or even just an unexpected noise can disrupt our concentration. Having virtual & remote employees means that these distractions do not have to be factored into our workflow; we don’t even need to worry about whether an employee has turned their email notifications on or off at any given time. This means that we can get our work done, and we don’t need to worry about other things that could be taking up our attention.
6. Remote Administrative Assistants are Happy to Work for You, So They’ll Provide Their Best Performance
Career-oriented remote administrative assistants are happy to come and work for you. They don’t have time pressures at the office and they won’t be distracted by other things; they will want to do their best for their employer because they care about how well those efforts go.
You may ask this question: who would want this service? The answer is it could be anyone from the CEO of a Fortune 5000 corporation or a small business owner, with the goal is simple – having access to technology tools at your fingertips without risking an interruption in daily operations.
Don’t box yourself! Outsourcing opens up your world to the talent that’s more affordable and probably more fit with your needed skill sets, saving you tens of thousands from additional office space, and other significant expenses related to in-house hires.
“Outsourcing makes the hustle better — because you’re not burdened with many/growing expenses that you’ll need to figure out how to cover and hit profit”
ENVISIONING OF A NEW REALITY FOR YOUR MARKETING BUSINESS
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & marketing agencies owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
See what we are about, and schedule a free consultation with us. We’ll take the time to learn more about your business and offer solutions to foster top talent and lower operational costs for your company.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VPs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
Focus on your growth & scale your operations
ENVISIONING OF A NEW REALITY FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & business owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
See what we are about, and schedule a free consultation with us. We’ll take the time to learn more about your business and offer solutions to foster top talent and lower operational costs for your company.
Claim a free business strategy consult
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
The past 50 years of business have been defined by globalization, followed by digitization. What will define the next decade in business? Dispersion.
– Professor Scott Galloway
2021 Economic Projections
According to Professor Scott Galloway:
“The meta trend driving our analysis this year is The Great Dispersion – the core value that a company offers is being dispersed directly to end consumers and skipping the traditional channels of distribution; be it stores, movie theaters, doctors’ offices, or banks.”
One of the first and biggest tidal wave of dispersion that was inspired by the pandemic is the dispersion of headquarters.
Galloway’s predictions of 2021
1) Remote Work Winners
Credit: Scott Galloway / Youtube: The Prof G Show
A dramatic revolution and how and where we work
Most people are still working from home. And when they return to the office, they’re going to be used to the flexibility of staying at home.
‘Virtual assistants’ was THE trending topic of 2020. With the new year (2021), there has never been a more important time to optimize your virtual business operations.
Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Pioneers of virtual assistant services, our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VAs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
Who can catch and ride that tidal wave? Airbnb will repurpose commercial real estate and sell flexible office space to enterprise clients in 2021.
The logistics of retail products have skipped the stores, been sent to warehouses, and directly to your front porch.
With workers saving money on transportation costs since working at home, they’ll spend this saved capital on the HOME. Home restoration and home good purchases will rise. Pair home goods with e-commerce, and you’ll see profits.
With higher digital media consumption by nature (Zoom, YouTube, & TikTok – to name a few), marketing where their traffic it will generate more leads.
Getting good ROI & online traffic, when nobody is going outside
In today’s uniquely stay-at-home world, the math is simple with an enormous ROI by employing virtual assistants who can effectively handle the many aspects of a tedious online business operation.
You can lower your costs, reduce overhead, and leverage remote work for your business. It starts with a MyOutDesk Virtual Assistant.
With over 13 years of leveraging the power of remote work, we’ve gained the knowledge to help your business scale, increase profits, and allow your team members more freedom to focus on growth, all while lowering operational costs.
Nowadays, interaction is key to marketing efforts. Enhance your interaction with a full-time virtual assistant with proven experience, at up to 70% less than a traditional employee.
Remote Work: How a productive marketing team in 2021 looks
Our client’s marketing team has been operating remotely for over 16 years — Travis has learned that productive teams have multiple ways to communicate, meet on a variety of touchpoints, and emphasize accountability.
When emails, calls, and texts can get buried — a project management tool can make it easier for remote teams in marketing agencies to follow tasks and find exactly where progress lies are and what still needs to be done.
Don’t box yourself! Outsourcing opens up your world to the talent that’s more affordable and probably more fit with your needed skill sets, saving you tens of thousands from additional office space, and other significant expenses related to in-house hires.
“Outsourcing makes the hustle better — because you’re not burdened with many/growing expenses that you’ll need to figure out how to cover and hit profit”
Focus on your growth & scale your operations for 2021
ENVISIONING OF A NEW REALITY FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & business owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
See what we are about, and schedule a free consultation with us. We’ll take the time to learn more about your business and offer solutions to foster top talent and lower operational costs for your company.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Pioneers of virtual assistant services, our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VAs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
As easy as it sounds social media management is not an easy job! There are many things you have to do in order to CONVERT TRAFFIC INTO SALES.
In essence, social media managers will need to be able to write content and edit content, understand new trends on social media and understand how to use analytic software for your business. They also need to edit photos, be tech-savvy and have good time management skills. You also need to be a good manager in order to delegate tasks out among team members, etc.
The 8 competencies for PRODUCTIVE social media management
Content writing
This is about producing well-written text that readers enjoy reading or even want to share with other people. You also need great grammar skills as mistakes can easily make your company look bad or unprofessional in front of readers.
On-trend
Stay informed about what’s going on with different trends by following websites online or attending events related to the latest happenings in your industry.
Analytics
This is a way of taking data from various sources and then interpreting it to learn about what’s happening in the business in various areas. On social media, you’ll need to know how to check on the analytics by using tools provided by your social media sites.
Reputation
You need to know how to maintain the company’s reputation on social media sites. This means that you will need to stay informed about what’s happening on the sites related to your company, and you’ll need to respond quickly to negative posts that are made about your company.
You will need to edit the content that’s being posted on social media sites by other people working for the company. This is after you make sure that the content is accurate and free of mistakes. You will also need to check the grammar, spelling, and tone of the post.
Task management
You will need to know how to delegate tasks to other people working for the company. These tasks can include editing photos, replying to customers, and posting content.
Graphic & media production
You will need to edit photos, videos, and other forms of media that are going to be posted on social media sites.
“You know, there’s other people who have much more well-rounded people with marketing skill sets that we can hire for a fraction of the cost … and get more done, but also they’re going to do it a lot better.” —Travis Thom, MyOutDesk Client
Travis is talking about virtual assistants. Even with the many tools and software for marketers, even the shiniest automation software needs a human factor — especially when it comes to graphic design, email campaigns, and drips.
Virtual assistants are best for making sure that you don’t miss out on steps in your process.
As the owner and decision-maker of a marketing agency — you need dedicated time to nurture deals and close sales yourself. To prevent burnout, Travis delegates each account to his talented MyOutDesk virtual assistants.
Most of the background details — such as requests from clients, email campaigns, nitty-gritty detailed items — are what you can delegate to virtual assistants.
Since 2004, Travis’ marketing agency has operated in remote teams (saving $40,000 each year in real estate costs) and delegated his marketing operations to full-time virtual assistants — who work for a fraction of the cost of a traditional employee (saving $50,000 per year per individual). With the help of MyOutDesk, you can confidently scale your operations and find the right, consistent talent & professionals with lower lowered head costs.
A marketing agency can have virtual assistants fulfill these roles:
marketing coordinator
graphics designer
traffic coordinator
digital campaign manager
content creator & coordinator
Remote Work: How a productive marketing team in 2021 looks
Don’t box yourself! Outsourcing opens up your world to the talent that’s more affordable and probably more fit with your needed skill sets, saving you tens of thousands from additional office space, and other significant expenses related to in-house hires.
“Outsourcing makes the hustle better — because you’re not burdened with many/growing expenses that you’ll need to figure out how to cover and hit profit”
ENVISIONING OF A NEW REALITY FOR YOUR MARKETING BUSINESS
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & marketing agencies owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
See what we are about, and schedule a free consultation with us. We’ll take the time to learn more about your business and offer solutions to foster top talent and lower operational costs for your company.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VPs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
Focus on your growth & scale your operations
ENVISIONING OF A NEW REALITY FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & business owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
See what we are about, and schedule a free consultation with us. We’ll take the time to learn more about your business and offer solutions to foster top talent and lower operational costs for your company.
Claim a free business strategy consult
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment cost
Claim a free business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
Every week, your website generates hundreds, if not thousands, of visitors to your website — but only a few become the leads that you want. What should you do to increase the number?
… might be keeping you from generating more leads, traffic, and generate revenue.
As an entrepreneur, you can have a huge impact on your marketing if you learn to fragment your top efforts. Rather than trying to market to your entire database (losing many leads in the process), you can take a segmented approach.
Think Through the Flow – Marketing
The secret business strategy that brings traffic to the top performers in … leveraging virtual assistants (in many cases, more than one). Virtual assistants work for you full-time at up to 70% less cost than a traditional employee. Here’s what it takes to outcompete competitors.
When you think about it even on a tight budget, you can bring on a full-time digital media presence — and save time while producing high-quality content. It’s no secret that your competitors with media production engines are leveraging assistant labor, namely virtual assistants. Your flow of projects and tasks will be less daunting with MORE minds and MORE accountability – ll while saving on overhead costs.
Virtual assistant roles in Marketing Operations & Departments
‘Virtual assistants’ was THE trending topic of 2020. With the new year (2021), there has never been a more important time to optimize your virtual business operations — as those who have today’s market share already have completed during the pandemic.
The right virtual business operation with assistants will have the capacity to complete all the necessary grunt work — so that you & your local team can concentrate on producing higher-level results & growing the business. Businesses, firms & agencies should focus on doing only what they do well, and outsourcing the rest. This is the essence of competitive advantage.
Highly vetted virtual assistants have the core competency and skills (at up to 70% less) for:
“Once we get that lead, that’s where my MyOutDesk virtual assistants come in – they’re following up on those leads, getting them on our calendar and making our time more efficient. It saves us literally hundreds hours of time because we don’t have to skim through all of those individuals to find the most qualified people – and it’s changed our average case size from $325,000 to over $850,000!”
Never miss a lead opportunity with a Sales Development Rep (SDR)
Our client, Amy, has an SDR who handles at least 100 calls per day, and he reaches out to new leads within 5 minutes of their inquiry. Out of those, Amy shows up to work to close the already-qualified leads. She saved hundreds of hours & closed 142 transactions which is 7 million in trackable sales volume and over 200,000 in commissions!
Sales development representatives are seasoned in lead generation with the primary responsibility is to generate new leads to save time for the sales team. The responsibilities of the representative include:
Build client relationships through a cold call, warm call & respond to inquiries
Nurture prospects, follow up, record data, screen & qualify leads
Move leads through sales funnel, set appointments & manage communications
Email outreach, research market trends, prepare business reports
Generate leads through email campaigns, events, social media, telemarketing, search engine optimization, and other methods.
With the skillsets to match, a sales development representative can be a powerful addition to your sales and marketing team (up to 70% on employment costs) all while helping you to scale business.
We’ve compiled all the tips and strategies you need to easily recruit & implement the perfect Sales Development Representative. Focus on talent acquisition, time savings, and lowering overhead.
Outpace the competition & scale your operations for 2021
ENVISIONING OF A NEW REALITY FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & business owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
See what we are about, and schedule a free consultation with us. We’ll take the time to learn more about your business and offer solutions to foster top talent and lower operational costs for your company.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Pioneers of virtual assistant services, our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VAs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
‘Virtual assistants’ was THE trending topic of 2020. With the new year (2021), there has never been a more important time to optimize your virtual business operations — especially during this pandemic. It’s time to double down.
MyOutDesk is named #1 Virtual Assistant Services by both TechRadar & Analytics Insight.
Considering a virtual assistant (VA) for your business? This quick read can help you make an informed decision.
The Case for Virtual Assistants
VAs have existed since the 1980s and the biggest US corporations have used VA services for decades. They’re a huge factor to their growth model.
The right VA will complete all the necessary grunt work — so that your local team can focus on producing higher-level results & growing the business. The question is, how do you find the right assistant?
“Partnering with MyOutDesk means saving time and money assembling staff who are trained, more efficient and less distracted.” — TechRadar
Choosing the right virtual assistant service provider in 2021:
The VA industry boomed over the past 5 years. With that in mind, fundamentally there are four types of VA companies, catering to different sets of needs, as described below.
1) Database of Freelancers
This servicer displays VA profiles for mainly part-time gigs. Prices vary per assistant. Users must find, contact, select, and vet VA candidates themselves.
Pros: Great for one-time, off-hand projects. Cons: Skills & experience typically not vetted by the provider.
2) Project-Based Freelancers
This service attracts both VA candidates & clients to their website and charges an access fee. Users must find, contact, select, and vet VA candidates themselves.
Pros: Great for a one-time seasonal project.
Cons: Skills & experience typically not vetted by the provider.
3) “Done FOR You”
This service attracts both VA candidates & clients to their website and acts as a staffing company. The roles that are offered can be limited and specific to a niche.
Pros: An affordable alternative to a traditional employee.
Cons: Limited to a few roles and responsibilities, and lower value tasks.
4) “Done WITH You”
This virtual assistant services company (such as MyOutDesk) consults and caters to each client’s needs and addresses growth opportunities through outsourcing business processes.
The servicer provides and organizes a thorough talent-matching process, background checks, business process optimization tools, and strategy consultations. The servicer also acts as the de facto HR department for the virtual assistant, boosting morale through healthcare benefits, bonuses, and PTO for the VA.
Pros: As affordable as all other VA services. Greatest selection of professional skillsets within an exclusive and competitive talent pool. A powerful model and strategic partnership for businesses looking to scale up.
Since not all virtual assistant providers are created equal, entrepreneurs & CEOs need to consider the right type of provider that would best serve their needs.
When you keep a growth mindset as a business professional, you’ll have a lot of opportunities to fix things and reap the benefits – and only a select few VA servicers can help strategize with you.
We specialize in:
marketing & sales development
general admin assistance & customer support
accounting & collection
prospecting & cold calling
Outpace the competition & scale your operations for 2021
ENVISIONING OF A NEW REALITY FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & business owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
See what we are about, and schedule a free consultation with us. We’ll take the time to learn more about your business and offer solutions to foster top talent and lower operational costs for your company.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Pioneers of virtual assistant services, our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VAs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
To effectively sell, it takes a large amount of evolving and adapting. Sometimes it’s the product, while most of the time it’s the sales personality.
A strong sales & marketing team with the right talents can effectively nurture & be a top producing team with predictable results. It requires the leader, the CEO, or the entrepreneur to curate and foster these desired traits.
And here’s how…
MyOutDesk, rated #1 Virtual Assistant Services by TechRadar, has been in the industry for over a decade, helping all types of businesses grow. We have provided sales development virtual assistant services for years, becoming one of the top virtual assistant providers available.
Our B2B services are ranked #1 is because we deliver the most value out of most competitors. While you save up to 70% off on employee costs,you get highly-vetted top talent, as well as:
free business strategy consultations
growth templates & guides
monthly CEO mastermind group sessions
productivity tracking software
dedicated client services, and more!
After serving more than 5,000 clients and employing over 4000 professionals, we have seen firsthand how this investment supports business growth. Because of this experience, MyOutDesk, currently caters to other industries as well such as professional services, mortgage, and insurance to name a few.
To summarize the 4 types of sales, here’s a handy guide for you to have.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Pioneers of virtual assistant services, our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VAs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
Focus on your growth & scale your operations
ENVISIONING OF A NEW REALITY FOR YOUR BUSINESS
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & business owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
See what we are about, and schedule a free consultation with us. We’ll take the time to learn more about your business and offer solutions to foster top talent and lower operational costs for your company.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
Claim a free business strategy consultation & ‘Grow Virtual’ Guide
Since COVID, Jennifer’s business operations are now more efficient than ever — even with a downsized team. How? With Tello and a virtual assistant.
We grab a cup of virtual coffee with Jennifer Geddes as she talks about how she utilizes Trello and her MyOutDesk Virtual Assistant to gain leverage in her business. We ask Jennifer how she does it, and she takes us through her systems and processes she built with Trello to help create a system and process for her production and training.
Now, she has these systems in place, and she is ready to scale her business!
How a Virtual Assistant Manages My Trello
Combined with a virtual assistant, I use the free version of Trello, so it doesn’t even cost us anything!
We have a couple of boards. Having a free system is awesome because I feel like I had so many different systems, and they’re all thirty dollars. well, it all adds up with Trello, just jump in!
I have one virtual assistant from MyOutDesk, as well as a marketing person. Wanda, who is my virtual assistant, is doing all the administrative tasks. She does the transaction coordination.
Upgrading the operational system
I had a team a year ago, a team of six agents. A year and a half ago, I had eight agents. Now I have one, so I’m really just trying to trim the fat and focus on the revenue and generating streams. And the highest and best use.
What I found with the agents on the team was that they were not the best use, and it also led me to hire my virtual assistant and really just finding someone who was going to be more productive, efficient, and effective to increase the bottom line.
This year has given me a chance to step back and really focus on what we’re doing in improved systems and processes.
What’s the system and process to cross that million-dollar threshold?
What you’ve learned as you implemented this system and process for your business. Why did you decide on Trello? At what point did you decide you needed a system and a process to run the team?
So, Trello was recommended through real estate b-school, which is the company that I use for coaching.
I spoke with quite a few individuals there who were using it, and it seemed like it made the most sense, so I tried it out myself and, through kind of playing around with it, I decided that it was going to achieve the things that we wanted to.
I had actually started out using Wunderlist, which is just an elementary kind of to-do list, and had built out some of these kinds of checklists there, which was like my step one of kind of like first grade then I graduated to middle school and so forth. I then integrated Trello definitely takes time to set up, and it’s an ever-evolving process because to me, what’s significant is to have every single step in here so that somebody can pick this up brand new.
A Transaction coordination virtual assistant can pick this up, and they can run with it! I have every step, but we also have how-to sheets and videos linked in a separate google drive.
So, as they’re going through each task, the individual could say, “okay, it says do x y z I don’t know how to do x y z, but they can go back and reference the video or the how-to sheet on how to actually do that step.”
It’s about creating the process and then creating the training that goes along with it that doesn’t involve me doing that and explaining.
Because it’s so time-consuming to have to explain those things over and over again. So, I’m big on recording videos, sharing my screen, talking through it while I’m doing it one time, then I don’t want to do it again.
I love your mindset. Show us one of those examples? Can you share with us one of those examples in Trello? A task where you click on it, and then you pull up a video? How long is that video? What kind of detail did you share in that video?
We have our Trello how-to sheet. This is showing someone how to process a termination and then document names so for us. On Trello, we basically have every step on here like pre-offer, offer prep, under contract, after settlement. So now, if we go back to my Trello boards, and this is where I keep my template.
Under our templates, I have a pre-offer section, offer prep, under contract, and after settlement. So, the same as here, you could follow along and say, “okay. offer prep… where are the how-to sheets on offer prep?” If we go to the top here to ‘offer prep’ and ‘create a Trello card ‘… in KW Command, create a contact command through DocuSign. How to do that it’s through your CRM.
I’m just clarifying that those who aren’t KW people command are just a CRM like Salesforce or HubSpot or any other CRM.
You have to create what’s called “an opportunity” through KW Command so that KW knows what business we’re doing right now. These are pretty simple steps here. Most of them are self-explanatory. Command, save, mortgage pre-approval, CPE, ad, client, once buyer broker assigned CTE is what we use for financial and gold tracking. So once we have a buyer broker signed, we’re going to add that into CTE. If we go back here, I’ve got a “How to add to CTE,” so if the person doesn’t know how to do that, they open it up.
It’s simple. Follow the steps. You can figure out more complicated things. We have videos on these. this, the pre-offer, is really just setting the stage. Then you get to offer prep a little bit more complicated. Creating the documents, and setting them up in DocuSign, so that they’re ready for me to then review before we send them to the client. Once we go under contract, we broke things up into Day One, which needs to be done right away. And then we get down to Day Two, and then we’ve reached Day 10, Day 16. So there’s a timeline.
Oh my gosh, there are 500 tasks, but as you can see, I’m scrolling through. There are many things here, but it’s all simple tasks that the person can complete in KW Command.
KW wants to see stuff, so we have to submit these documents to them. Once we go under contract right check off above is meant for these labels that we use here. So when you see the labels on my big screen, you can see as we go through a transaction, you get less and less of the labels, so that’s really a way for us to track how many tasks are left. We have a KW command submission. Once that’s complete, that would be checked off here. So we check that off, and now that’s gone. So that’s what that’s talking about completing it up above. But it’s really again just every step that we go through in Trello, and add the due dates above.
We’ve got an area where all of our critical due dates, execution date, first deposit, reply to inspection, second deposit, title order, and mortgage settlement. So I don’t want my VA wasting time searching for this. It’s all right here. She sets it up one time, and she sets it up when she’s sending out the initial email to the seller’s side that’s telling them about the due dates.
Once tasks get input into the system, it gets set as reminders on her calendar and finished. We do a lot with email templates, so all email templates are sent out that the VA knows what to fill in. We’re also scheduling a lot of our templates now. So before it was okay, you need to go back into the file like every day. We’re scheduling out this buyer with five pending emails sent out three to four days before the deposit.
Essentially almost all of our emails are going out on day one, or at least they’re being set to be scheduled to go out day one.
How does the CRM, your email calendar, CTE commit to excellence? How do they all play with Trello in your world?
Wanda has this template saved in her Gmail. she pulls it up and schedules it to send when it’s due on the 10th. It takes about five minutes to input these into the calendar, and again it’s done on day one. The seller side knows the dates as well as when the mortgage commitment is due. This gets emailed to the lender a day before it’s due.
Now it’s on Wanda’s calendar the day it’s due, and then we actually have a reminder. So she’ll put the calendar reminder that the mortgage commitment is due on the 10th. there will be an email that gets sent to her on the 9th and an email that gets sent to her on the 7th, so all of our due dates, we have a one-day email reminder and a three-day email reminder; what I found is having a calendar alert those get missed you’re in the middle of a Zoom, and you click off of it, or whatever it is so I have the reminders in our google calendar set as actual email reminders, so that goes into her email box she doesn’t miss it she can see that it’s due and it stays there until it’s addressed.
I love it! How do you manage what’s done versus what’s not done? How do you manage multiple people with deadlines?
In Trello, there’s this chat feature here at the bottom. So we actually have a different template that is it’s on another board. It’ll take me too long to get over to it, but when another agent is involved, we have a pre-offer dash admin pre-offer dash agent, so it’s very clear who is responsible for what task so Wanda could see.
I found that when I had agents who weren’t following my pretty good process, not perfect, those were not the right people.
So I think that’s my simple answer, although it sounds pretty elementary. If you have a process that makes the agent’s lives easier and they’re not doing it, maybe we need to look at something else.
Another thing I did was if you, the agent, follow the process and do all the steps and don’t miss any of your due dates, and the virtual assistant will do more of the deal and do more tasks for you.
It’s like the more you follow your process, the more they do so. If you do x on time, the assistant will do y and z, you miss x, now you have to do y and z., so it was a favorable combination of positive-negative reinforcement to try to get the agents to do things.
I think it’s spending the time to do it the right way, and it’s having the right person too. So when Wanda started, we had probably 70 of it done. It would be, “okay, Wanda do these things all right? I’ll talk to you in two or three hours.” in two or three hours, we’d talk, and she’d say, “Jen, I don’t know how to do XYZ.”
“Did you look at the how-to sheet?”
“Yep, it’s blank.”
“Oh, okay, great, let’s walk through it together over zoom screen share.”
And she would create the manual, take notes on it, and then complete it. So I think now having it all complete, it would be seamless to bring someone else in.
People complain about the paperwork and transaction coordination. I mean, that is such a small portion of my business now, whereas, in the past, I’d say my admin spent probably 90% of the time on it.
Now with my virtual assistant, I’d say Wanda is spending 25% of her time on it in a perfect world with booming business. she’ll spend well under 50 percent of her time doing transaction coordination, which means I’ll run 25 million through the business with someone doing 15 hours a week of transaction coordination. Before, if I had someone spending 40 hours a week on this, and now they’re spending 15 hours a week. What can I have them do in that other time that’s 25 extra hours a week?
For me, I enjoy selling and growing and evolving; this is just kind of a side effect that needs to be done, and it needs to be done correctly, so I don’t want to spend time on it
I want it to be a system that just flows and is super easy to go through, making a lot of sense.
What’s it been like working with MyOutDesk?
MyOutDesk has been great. I have no complaints. Communication was excellent. I wanted to get started right away and was pretty demanding about that. And my request was met, which was great. I know you guys were in a significant backlog, but you could fit me in, which was really super important to me. I asked Wanda to find other resources within MyOutDesk periodically, and she does, but with her training and skillsets and all of that, I really have no complaints.
I have a client who just went under contract who complimented Wanda, “She’s been so great. How long has she worked with you?”
He’s been a long time client, and I ask for feedback.
“I’m so glad you found her. Is she in your office?” … and that’s what I was waiting for. I’m explain, “Our office is closed. She’s in the Philippines, actually.
“No kidding?”
So this is someone that’s been working with him. And he had no idea that she was in the Philippines, which to me is the goal.
My virtual assistant has been a lot more motivated and enthusiastic than anyone I’ve had in this role in a long time in person. She’s finding things to do when I get busy, and I’m not giving her something to do. I feel confident she’s working the whole time, which was not the case when someone was sitting in the office.
Growing Your Business With An Administrative Virtual Assistant
As a business person, you’re already familiar with what an administrative assistant can support do for you and why it’s crucial to your business. Staying on top of administrative functions is essential to your success.
You can be more effective if you’re not bogged down by paperwork, repetitive administrative tasks and troubleshooting bureaucratic red tape delays and issues. A administrative virtual assistant can take care of these tasks and ensure that sales paperwork and its administration run smoothly and your clients are receiving excellent customer support.
With a virtual coordinator, you can become more efficient & effective – while your coordinator handles all the repetitive tasks involved with your business – like gathering documents and signatures, calling clients, and stakeholders, completing paperwork, following up on contracts & requirements, and putting together a broker file for each completed transaction.
Having a virtual professional tackle operations and administrative outcomes for you can go far beyond what a traditional assistant does, like answering phones and keeping your calendar. There are many more ways a virtual professional can help you administratively. Here are some concrete examples of my favorite things administrative virtual professionals do for our clients.
Simply put, MyOutDesk equips entrepreneurs & business owners with tools, strategies, and virtual employees – and when combined, businesses have a competitive edge and find growth while efficient systems and processes are put in place.
MyOutDesk proudly provides additional free business growth guides, books, and strategy calls.
See what we are about, and schedule a free consultation with us. We’ll take the time to learn more about your business and offer solutions to foster top talent and lower operational costs for your company.
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Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Pioneers of virtual assistant services, our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VAs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
About 50 percent of the virtual professionals we place with clients are fulfilling clients’ sales development outcomes (that’s over 5,000 virtual professionals we’re talking about). So over the years, we have garnered real evidence about how virtual assistantsas Sales Development Representatives are real catalysts in business.
We share this concrete system to show how any business who integrates virtual assistants in their business can also scale operational capacity while also lowering overhead costs.
Bulletproof Scripts
Clear Elevator Pitch
Value Proposition
Process for Handling Objections
Positioning Document
System for Measuring Results
Avoiding Common Mistakes
Sales Development Rep Example Calls
A virtual assistant can help you and your business enormously when it comes to generating and converting leads — that is, taking a potential customer who may have an interest in your business, or even may never have heard of your business, and turning that lead into a warm opportunity.
That warm opportunity would include a sales meeting, and if all goes well a sales quote. Preparing virtual professionals to succeed with this outcome is one of my favorite things to do because the path to having your investment in sales development reps (SDR) pay off in terms of revenue is clear-cut and highly measurable from an outcome basis.
When I say pay off, I’m not speaking merely of an increase in sales. In business, I like a three-to-one return. If I’m spending $5,000 to put someone in place, I want to see a $15,000 return. Your top concern about onboarding a virtual sales team will probably be “How do I do this?” Well, you could just put someone in a seat and say, “OK, now go sell for me,” and ask that individual to be accountable for some metrics you have made up in your head. In fact, as an entrepreneur, your go-to mode is probably that you jump right in first and worry about the how later. That is classic entrepreneur behavior, and in general, it’s a great attribute. In this instance, however, I’d like you to resist that and reframe your thinking.
This is a situation in which having a concrete plan will pay off in real dollars. Think about onboarding an SDR as if you are running a relay race and you have a baton in your hand. You’re fully committed, and you’re killing it at Usain Bolt speed. As you approach runner number two, she holds out her hand expectantly to receive the baton. But instead of passing it to her, you throw it to her. It misses its mark, striking her in the head, and she stumbles. Not smart, right? You have just set up your talented teammate to fail. And that is the biggest mistake that people make when they hire VPs: They chuck the baton rather than smoothly hand it off. So, all you need is a recipe for a smooth handoff.
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Have Bulletproof Scripts
Scripts are in the virtual professional’s arsenal. Here are the elements you should painstakingly document in written form for your new sales team members. Of course, the content will vary depending on the type of business you are in, but for the moment, I will give you examples based on what we use at MyOutDesk.
A Clear Elevator Pitch
Know your elevator pitch. The base formula for a good elevator pitch is “I serve [who] to do [what], so they [get this result].” Ours is: “We instantly scale growing companies with virtual professionals.” That is what we do at MyOutDesk, in a nutshell. The elevator pitch is such an important piece for you to craft and for your VPs to absorb. You all need to be on the same page as you communicate your company’s value, and once you have articulated this clearly and documented it transparently, your VPs will be able to advance that message. They will communicate it in exactly the way you would.
Know Your Value Proposition
This might seem a bit obvious, but many business owners think their value proposition is just that—obvious—and they fail to document it concretely for their virtual sales reps. Give them the information they need to be clear in their conversations about why your clients choose you. What is the benefit they see? We hear time and time again from our clients that they are overwhelmed, and alleviating that overwhelm is where we add massive value. They are so busy, and we are the “easy button” for finding talent to help them. There is no way they could find five people to interview in forty-eight hours…but we can. We have already vetted them. The MyOutDesk value proposition: “We provide indispensable VPs to growing businesses.” If you can articulate your value proposition clearly to your virtual professionals and have that in written form somewhere they can refer to, you are hitting one out of the park from the outset.
When you give your virtual professionals your value proposition, you are giving them the ideal outcome. But you also have to prepare them for the challenges they’ll encounter. Document all the objections that a potential customer might have for your product or service, and your virtual professionals will wear it like armor in their conversations with leads. They will be ready to answer potential customers’ objections in a friendly way. Why might a customer say no? What answer could your virtual professionals give that might turn that into a yes? Help them to anticipate these issues.
Have a Positioning Document
A positioning document expresses how your product or service fills a need that competitors don’t, so this is a critical piece for a sales development rep to know. At MyOutDesk, our positioning document has expressions along these lines:
We have helped over five thousand clients grow their businesses.
We make sure that every virtual professional you interview is exceptional and MOD-certified because of our thorough vetting process.
We have been in this business for twelve years and built an industry around serving medium and small businesses.
We provide Market Force™ personality profiles to accurately match talent.
We provide medical benefits, microloans, vacations, and conferences for our virtual professionals.
MyTimeIn is our proprietary software that helps track outcomes and provides daily task oversight.
We have a Chief People Office in the United States that personally vets our virtual professionals.
Your partnership with us benefits our Charity Impact Movement (503c). We give away thousands of dollars every year to impoverished communities.
These are points on which none of our competitors can compare. Anyone who tries to stack up against that will have a huge challenge, and the only way they can win is through offering a lower price and lower quality. MyOutDesk is the price leader and has the highest quality available, so this is exactly where I want our competitors to be (a lower-priced alternative). If they offer lower prices, we can say, “Look at all the value we have to help your business scale. If you are looking for the cheapest, that’s not us. If you are looking to scale effectively, while ensuring a great end product that gives value to your customers, we know how to do that.”
You and your sales virtual professionals will know you are scaling the business when you have clearly defined processes for measuring the following:
Leads received: This is the number one thing you must track. How many leads are coming into your business every single day, week, and month?
A number of calls: How many calls did your virtual professionals make to those leads?
Leads converted: How many of those calls went from being just a lead to an actual opportunity to sell?
Speed to lead: This is a metric that really matters. How much time elapses between when the lead comes into when the call goes out and does it convert successfully? For example, a lead might come in at 1:00, and they get a call five minutes later.
New clients/sales: How many new clients resulted from this process? This is the bottom line. Have a system in place that tracks all these things in a way that is easy for everyone to understand.
Avoid These Failure Points
What I have described so far are the things you need to do to be successful in scaling with your virtual SDRs. Based on my vast experience, I’d also like to give you some common pitfalls to avoid.
You don’t have enough leads: I like to have five hundred new leads a month, but your number will depend on what industry you are in and what your sales cycle looks like. I always like to have three to five salespeople behind our virtual SDRs. An SDR’s job is to convert a lead into an opportunity, right? And the salesperson’s job is to turn that opportunity into a client. It is important for the SDR to feel like he or she is on the same team as the salesperson and vice versa. Having enough leads and enough salespeople allows you to test who is closing and who is not. We once had a client come to us because he was upset his team wasn’t converting enough leads. It turned out that the salesperson wasn’t immediately calling the leads once they got converted into an opportunity, instead of letting them go for two or three days before calling. It’s very important that you have enough people and measurement for speed to lead for both the VP and the salesperson here in the United States.
You aren’t doing daily and weekly meetings: I like a daily morning meeting with a little music and a little coffee, so everyone can talk about the wins. Everyone is talking about where their energy is and how they are feeling, and we are putting positivity out early in the morning so that feeling can be conveyed through the phones. Weekly meetings are for making commitments to sales and conversion goals.
You aren’t tracking conversations: Someone who is having forty or fifty conversations per day is going to have a different result than someone who is having ten. You want to set concrete goals for the number of conversations and share those in your daily and weekly meetings.
You don’t have activity-level measurements: Your system for measuring results should include everyone on your team. How many calls did each person make? How many times did each person try? How fast did each person handle the opportunities in front of him or her, and how often convert? These are important metrics to have for each individual.
You aren’t going after the 3Rs: As I mentioned in chapter 11, referrals, recommendations, and reviews are critical to your business. It is astounding how many businesses fail to harness the power of these three things. We chase them ruthlessly at MyOutDesk. In fact, we get referrals all the time from people who have never even done business with us. There is a woman in Texas who has sent us three or four clients. I had only one conversation with her, five years ago, and she hasn’t bought from us, but she keeps sending us people because I had a great conversation with her. If you aren’t pursuing the 3Rs with your team, you are missing out. As you can see, my prevailing message about how to set up your virtual SDRs for success is to communicate, communicate, communicate. Assume nothing, and document everything.
SDR Example Calls
Here are a few snippets from a call being made to a seller lead:
Here are a few snippets from a call being made by one of our Real Estate ISA VAs to a Buyer Lead:
Here are a few snippets of a call being made to an Expired Listing Lead:
Did You Know? MyOutDesk’s origin story is set during the last global financial crisis of 2008. Yes, that’s right — our business started by scaling businesses with virtual assistants during a recession! Our first client in 2008 went from five to seventeen VPs with a completely revamped organizational model in short order, and he told MyOutDesk, “Our virtual professionals have shaved $250,000 off our monthly overhead.”
How fast is your lead follow-up? If it’s more than 5 minutes, you’re losing business — and you’re losing a lot of it. Believe it or not, while many companies still cling to the belief that it’s good to “wait a few hours” so they don’t seem desperate, the truth is that if you don’t follow up within the first 5 minutes, you won’t make the sale.
In the Lead Response Management Study, Professor James Oldroyd performed an in-depth study of response times & contact rates and found that for every 5 minutes you wait, there’s roughly a 4x reduction in your chance of contacting the lead. If you wait more than an hour, your chances of contracting the lead are 10 times lower than if you’d called them in the first 5 minutes!
Keep in mind that 75% of prospects do business with the company that contacts them first. However, the average response time to an online lead is 44 hours and 50% of online leads never get a response! Why is there such a large disparity? In small businesses, the issue is usually that you’re busy with task-work and don’t have time to jump on new leads. With all the responsibilities on your plate, the lead response often falls to the bottom of the list when in fact it should be a priority.
Improve your speed to lead time and never miss an opportunity again. MyOutDesk Real Estate ISA Virtual Assistants can give you the leverage you need to boost your business. Schedule your ‘Grow Virtual’ Strategy Session to find out how.
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According to studies, the odds of calling to contact a lead decrease by over 10 times in the first hour.
The odds of qualifying a lead in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 21 times. And from 5 minutes to 10 minutes the dial to qualify odds to decrease 4 times.
Online leads are a great source to grow your business and yet, they are extremely underutilized. Many leads get resold over FIVE TIMES mostly because business owners like you don’t call them. Many leads prospect several Realtors before settling on one but keep in mind that the first statistic we shared, 75% of prospects do business with the company that contacts them first!
A study by the Harvard Business Review revealed that contact within an hour of inquiry, you have 7x more of a chance to have a productive conversation compared to reaching out after over an hour, and compared to someone who waits 24 hours to contact a lead, you’re 60 times more likely.
In real estate, 64% of buyers and 66% of sellers end up working with the agent they speak with first, according to the National Association of Realtors. Those who are first-to-the-draw have a tremendous advantage.
As an example, let us tell you about one of our clients Amy and her ISA Virtual Assistant Rex. Rex is in charge of calling leads as soon as they enter their system. His speed to lead is extremely important and this sense of urgency was instilled in him from his first day with Amy. Aside from being tasked to make at least 100 calls a day, he is also given new leads that he must reach out to within 5 minutes of their query. Rex set 199 appointments in his first year alone and out of those, Amy has closed 142 transactions. This is 7 million in trackable sales volume and over $200,000 in GCI!
Amy, like many business owners we work with, simply could not take everything on herself. She realized that her team needed someone who could focus on their speed to lead time. So she hired and trained a Virtual Professional who could pick up the slack so she and the rest of her team could focus on what they needed to accomplish.
This is only one part of the whole speed-to-lead game, stay tuned as we will explore more strategies such as the best times of day to call leads, etc.
If you want to improve your speed to lead but know you can’t do it all yourself, book your ‘Grow Virtual’ Strategy Session with us today so we can have a conversation about how a MyOutDesk Virtual Assistant can help.
Experience The Difference
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment costs
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Manage Smarter is the podcast for today’s managers and emerging leaders. Each episode is a frank, fast-paced, and sometimes humorous discussion of the challenges facing managers from the front lines to the C‑Suite. We address the metrics, strategies, and solutions needed to improve team performance, company culture, and overall productivity.
Manage Smarter 132:
Managing Growth and Culture with Virtual Assistants
MyOutDesk can save you up to 70% on employment cost Claim a free strategy consultation & downloads
A podcast of SalesFuel, their mission is to provide our clients with the competitive insight that enables them to acquire, develop and retain their best employees and customers.
Daniel Ramsey is the founder and CEO of MyOutDesk, the highest-rated virtual assistant company in the marketplace with over 500 verified 5‑star reviews, and over 13 years of experience, serving more than 6,000 clients across industries. He is also the author of the bestselling book, Scaling Your Business with MOD Virtual Professionals.
Daniel is going to share a Grow Virtual Guide to help businesses and executives how to effectively transition to a fully remote or blended organizational model, how to reinvent the value we provide in this changing market, and how to grow virtual all while reducing operational costs.
Manage Smarter listeners can get a FREE copy of this Grow Virtual Guide by texting MOD to 31996
In this episode, Audrey, Lee, and Daniel discuss:
How to expand in the current sales climate and sell more
How using virtual assistants can free up valuable time and reduce operational costs
Tips for creating a strong culture among remote workers
Processes he uses to enforce accountability, engagement, work quality, and oversight among global remote teams
