Running a startup is tough. After navigating the precarious early months, the entrepreneur’s next focus usually shifts to sustaining and growing the business, but it’s easier said than done.
According to research by Statistic Brain, 50% of all US companies fail after 5 years, and over 70% after 10 years. In Australia, 86.9% of failures during the 2017/18 financial year were businesses having fewer than 20 employees.
To minimise the chances of your business failing, you’ll need to:
- Maintain cash flow.
- Reduce operating costs.
- Hire and retain quality staff.
- Increasing sales and revenue.
Interestingly, you can solve most (maybe even all) of these pain points by addressing just one of them: hiring and retaining a high-performing virtual assistant.
What is a virtual assistant?
A virtual assistant (or VA) is typically a self-employed professional who provides various administrative, creative or technical services to clients remotely. Because VAs are independent contractors, companies won’t have to worry about health insurance, superannuation or other types of employee benefits when working with one – other than the VA’s fees, of course.
VAs can do a myriad of tasks for clients, such as:
- Managing email inboxes.
- Handling property management functions.
- Programming and other IT-focused responsibilities.
- Developing sales strategies.
- Preparing financial statements.
Outsourcing or Offshoring?
The hiring of VAs is generally an offshore arrangement and isn’t necessarily outsourced. The difference is that outsourcing involves contracting work out to a third party, while offshoring is having the work done overseas.
Outsourcing and offshoring aren’t mutually exclusive; one can exist without the other. For instance, you can hire a nearby firm to handle your design requirements (which is outsourcing) instead of maintaining an internal department.
Likewise, companies can offshore work without outsourcing it – like when a Telstra call centre in the Philippines serves Australian customers.
Benefits of hiring a VA
Hiring a VA gives your startup more advantages than having them on-site. These include (but are not limited to) the following:
Cost savings
There are several reasons why having a VA is cheaper than regular employees:
- More often than not, your only expense when employing a VA is their fee, which is computed on a per-productive-hour basis. So if the VA doesn’t work, you won’t have to pay them.
- VAs are self-employed remote workers who normally handle their own operating costs, including equipment, rent, and internet connectivity. This means you won’t have to spend on office space, electricity, supplies and (as mentioned earlier) employee benefits – unless you require the use of particular paid software.
Consider this hypothetical scenario: a startup of 5 will probably need a 90-sq-ft office, which costs upwards of $200 per sq ft in prime locations like London or New York. That’s over $200K a year, outside of utilities. With a remote team of VAs, you won’t have to shoulder that expense. - You employ professionals from other countries where labour is cheaper. With Remote Workmate’s Philippine-based VAs, for example, you’ll pay only 20-30% of what you pay a local employee.
VAs offer the reliability of in-house staff
Unlike outsourced departments whose operations are external to your company, employing VAs is essentially like having someone in-house. Why? Because VAs work directly with you and other members of your fledgling company (albeit remotely).
This setup gives you the dependability of an established team, minus the associated upkeep.
Your VA can handle everyday business functions
As your startup’s primary decision-maker, you have limited time and attention. Thus, it shouldn’t be on you to handle everyday business functions like:
- Scheduling your own appointments.
- Entering receipts into an accounting system.
- Updating your website and social media accounts.
- Preparing the company payroll.
Because if you did, you wouldn’t be able to get any actual work done.
However, you can hire VAs to perform peripheral-yet-vital tasks: By delegating these responsibilities, your business continues running smoothly. At the same time, this allows you to focus on your core business – the primary activity your business was founded on.
Offshore staff are more productive
Working remotely makes people happier, and more productive and engaged. Perhaps it’s the time they save from not being in traffic, or maybe they’re not constantly distracted by co-workers. Whatever the cause, various research supports this assertion:
- A Stanford University study found that employees who worked from home-recorded a 13% increase in performance, mainly because they took fewer breaks and sick days.
- According to a recent US-wide SurePayroll survey, 65% of respondents think a remote work schedule would increase their productivity, and 86% preferred to work alone to reach maximum productivity.
- A TINYPulse study titled “What Leaders Need To Know About Remote Workers” reported that remote workers are happier because they “enjoy the freedom and flexibility.” This matters because a separate UK study found that happy employees are more productive in the workplace.
- In the same TINYPulse study, 91% of remote workers said they “get more work done when working remotely” versus only 9% who think they don’t. While actual output isn’t quantified (it’s an employee self-assessment), the significant difference is noteworthy.
VAs level the playing field
Your startup doesn’t have the resources to match the internal support services (e.g. HR, accounting, IT) which large companies have. However, hiring an offshore team of VAs will give you access to your own in-house support services and enable your business to act big, just like the major players in your industry.
You get access to a larger talent pool
When a company looks for candidates, it’s usually limited to a certain distance from its premises. If the search goes beyond this area (e.g. a neighboring state, the opposite end of the country), the company will have to deal with:
- A shrinking candidate pool (because applicants don’t want to commute that far).
- Higher costs to relocate the top candidates.
You won’t have to deal with this problem with remote workers. When recruiting VAs, you get access to a larger talent pool. Granted, the selection isn’t really worldwide as there are only select offshoring destinations, but you’re looking through a far wider area than what a local talent hunt provides.
Offshore staff lets you operate in different time zones
Does your business routinely need to respond to inquiries/complaints from customers in other countries? Or perhaps your publication produces content on a 24-hour cycle? With an offshore team of VAs, you can operate in various time zones and service your audience without having to establish offices in those locations.
Having your VAs working round the clock enables your startup to have a wider reach and be more productive, putting you in a better position to succeed.
So how does addressing one pain point help your startup?
To sum up: by hiring and retaining VAs in your ranks, you’ll be able to lower your costs, which in turn helps you better manage your cash flow. With the productivity and flexibility that your remote workers provide, you’ll be able to boost your sales and revenue as well.
VAs aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution, but working with them helps your startup’s chances of surviving a highly competitive business environment.
Kabinet 2019 - President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) is not declared a target of 100 days work after inaugurating the Cabinet of Indonesia to move Forward at the State Palace, Jakarta, Wednesday (23/10).
Jokowi reasoned, he only continue the work of the government for five years.
Jokowi, she said that she will prioritize completion of the issue of the deficit of the trade balance and current transactions in Indonesia.
Jokowi will also be a focus for the open jobs as possible.
According to Jokowi, the investment will be a lot of entry into Indonesia if the bureaucratic process in Indonesia is easy.
“I have conveyed to the minister-the minister yesterday when he met one by one, that bureaucratic reform should be carried out concretely.
Each year, anybody who is a member of RICS (Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors), will have to undertake 20 hours of CPD each calendar year.
This form of professional learning is implemented to help keep industry knowledge refreshed and health and safety regulations fulfilled throughout workplaces.
This is a figure provided by RICS in order to develop and refresh your existing skills to provide the best service to your role and to your employer.
As a RICS member, you can revise the RICS Global Professional and Ethical Standards; this will count a one hour formally contributing towards your CPD.
Continuing Professional Development is important because it allows individuals to explore new educational pathways or strengthen existing pathways with new and innovative knowledge.
With an industry as dynamic and evolving as construction, it’s important to keep on top of new practices and methods.
Dives consulting olarak güvenilir bir firma ile Dubai pazarınızda yerinizi almak istiyorsanız, yardıma hazırız.
A CMA USA Certification certainly doesn’t come through overnight.
You could suddenly get doubts about concepts from the CMA USA syllabus that need to get cleared from time to time.
Your head must go-rounds anticipating the fact that you did not have anyone to help you move forward.
Incase of distance issues and lockdown that is prevailing, don’t hesitate to join Online CMA USA Training!Now, Let’s go through the tips briefly!1.
Don’t forget that the CMA USA Certification comes only with tireless working and dedication.
Calculate the hours that are left for learning.
Video KYC process has become the need of the hour today.
Earlier this process took 3 to 4 days, but now it can be done in a matter of a few minutes.
Hence, it’s beneficial for both financial institutes and customers.
To know more, just watch out the infographic.
