38 Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Sales Assistant
Know what a grueling yet rewarding career is? Sales. Without an ounce of doubt, sales is one of the most important cogs in running a modern business.?
If you’re an entrepreneur, it’s likely you’ve been actively involved in the sales process up till now. But that doesn’t mean you don’t need a seasoned salesperson on your team.
Every entrepreneur needs to up their game and if you’re spending enormous amounts of time on emails and following up with your clients, you’re just delaying your growth. Think what you could accomplish if you could just wave a wand and get a big chunk of time back.?
Outsourcing a virtual sales assistant will improve your productivity by allowing you to focus on other core activities that will help scale your business.?
What tasks can I delegate to a sales assistant?
A virtual sales assistant can help you with the following tasks:
To cut a long story short, your sales VA will let you focus on your core competencies by taking care of the administrative tasks. Let’s look at the reasons to hire a virtual sales assistant.?
Increase Productivity
1. ? ? ? Productivity benefits
As a business owner, time is your most valuable commodity. Think of it like this: You earn $500 an hour and spend most of your time following up with leads and doing tasks that can be delegated to a VA for $25, you’re losing a lot of money without even realizing it. You should be spending this time doing things that are more important and require your intelligence. Outsourcing a VA will help increase your productivity as you will be saving a lot of time.??
2. ? ? ? Save time
As stated in a study by Harvard Business Review, you can save up to 20% of your time each day just by delegating administrative tasks to someone. Now think of what you could accomplish with this extra time! Invest your time and resources into tasks that need to be done by you and outsource a virtual assistant to take care of all the non-core activities.?
3. ? ? ? Flexible working hours
Companies have started offering flexible working hours to their employees due to the benefits that are associated with it. If you offer flexible working hours to your sales VA, they will be available even after the traditional working hours, especially if you’re working across different time zones. Since sales VAs have to deal with multiple clients, they prefer flexible working hours. This ultimately increases employee productivity and profitability of the business.
4. ? ? ? Focus on your core business
When you delegate routine tasks to your virtual assistant, you get to spend more time on core business activities that directly affect the growth of your business.
5. ? ? ? Improved retention
Lack of flexibility can hinder productivity. Giving your employees some freedom to choose what works best for them can improve their productivity. Since virtual assistants get paid by the hour, they’re more motivated than in-house employees. As a matter of fact, offering a flexible work arrangement will improve employee retention and your VA will be willing to go the extra mile for you.?
Outsource Sales Operations
6. ? ? ? Sales
Before outsourcing a sales VA, you need to think through all the relevant details. Outline whatever you want the potential candidate to know about the business. Once you brief them on your target market and products, your VA will start converting leads. Since a VA holds years of experience in sales, they will be able to filter out viable leads for you and this will let you focus on other things.
7. ? ? ? Lead generation
Although an entrepreneur has a laser-sharp focus on their target market, lead generation can still be tedious and time consuming. Fortunately, this is a task that can be outsourced to a virtual sales assistant. Let your VA do the cold-calling and let them filter out the hottest leads for you.?
8. ? ? ? Updating CRM
A CRM helps organize and streamline your sales process and makes conversation easier. However, managing data can be a tedious task. That’s where a virtual sales assistant comes in handy. If you hire someone who has the skills to manage a CRM software efficiently, with any luck, it will save you a lot of time and energy. Your VA will not only take control of the CRM system, but also pitch to the potential leads and train your in-house employees on the tool.
9. ? ? ? Data entry
While data entry is a vital task, it is extremely time consuming. Fortunately, your VA can take care of it for you. Your virtual assistant may have years of experience in managing and updating databases. Hence, this task is better off outsourced to a VA.
10. ? Prospect research
You can outsource a virtual sales assistant to get a hold of prospects through various social media platforms. They are trained so they know exactly how to pitch to the prospects. Furthermore, you can outsource your email marketing tasks to your VA to improve client retention.
11. ? Scheduling meetings
Find it hard to keep meetings in check? Outsource a virtual assistant to organize your calendar and train him to schedule meetings for you.?
12. ? Contacting new leads
Get a virtual assistant to handle all your monotonous tasks. Train them to evaluate prospects based on the criteria that you provided and interact with the leads over a call, email, and message.
13. ? Contacting old leads
Reconnecting with old leads is very important and most businesses fail to do so because they don’t have enough time. Since your sales VA will have an updated database of new and old leads, it will be easier for him to get in touch with old leads to find out if they’re still interested in the product.?
14. ? Build your sales team
Instead of wasting resources on an in-house sales team, get in touch with a wide pool of seasoned virtual salespersons through various outsourcing platforms and build a virtual sales team. It’s not only cost effective but also very convenient. Moreover, it allows you to train them based on the changing business needs with ease.?
Increase Conversion Rate
15. ? Timely follow up with new leads
Responding to leads chew up ridiculous amounts of time. Hence, it’s better to get this task outsourced to a trained virtual assistant.?
When you give your leads a great sales pitch, they pull up their socks to get to know more about your product and business. But it doesn’t end here, does it? Follow-ups need to be done on a consistent basis because they improve client retention and make them feel valued. Get your VA to respond to queries and schedule follow up calls.
16. ? Create a lead nurturing workflow?
Lead nurturing is a crucial sales practice. It lifts ROI by 45% and increases sales opportunities by 20%. However, some businesses don’t get time to follow up with their old leads. It means lost business! Outsource a virtual sales assistant to use lead nurturing tools and tactics to stay in touch with old leads.
17. ? Quality customer service
Customer service is the key to customer retention. Retaining an existing customer is undoubtedly easier than obtaining a new one. Therefore, client interactions shouldn’t end with the transaction. You need to show your existing clients that you value them and are interested in building a long-term relationship with them. Hand this task over to your VA and ask them to follow up with clients on a consistent basis.
18. ? Encourage word of mouth
Word of mouth has always been a powerful marketing tool. It not only spreads the word about your company but also helps build a positive reputation. Your virtual assistant will encourage clients to share positive reviews through emails, follow-up calls, and thank you notes.?
19. ? Social selling
Social selling is a lead generation technique used by businesses to interact with their clients and prospects on various social media platforms. Your virtual assistant will improve your social media presence and respond to client queries and rants. Social media is the best place to build strong client relationships.?
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Scale Your Business
20. ? Manage peak seasons
One of the best things about hiring a virtual assistant is that you can hire them on a contract or project basis. Which means you can outsource a VA only for your peak seasons. Your VA will manage your crucial sales support tasks while you take care of other core operations.?
21. ? Round-the-clock support
If you have an operation that requires round the clock processing, hiring a VA outside your time zone can be a real boom since your tasks will be done even while you’re asleep.
22. ? Utilize diverse skill sets
While an in-house employee has an exclusive?sales skillset, your virtual assistant has a diverse skill set. Having a virtual assistant with a diverse skill set enables you to take advantage of many untapped opportunities.
Reduce Company Costs
23. ? Reduced overhead
Perhaps the most significant benefit of hiring a virtual sales assistant is the money you save.?Instead of hiring a full-time employee, consider hiring a virtual assistant because a virtual assistant comes with no overheads.?
Virtual assistants hired from VAAS are employed by VAAS, so you don’t have to worry about paying additional benefits. Since they work remotely, you end up saving capital on furniture, computers, superannuation, and office rent etc. This allows you to invest more in scaling your business.?
24. ? No fixed costs
Virtual assistants only get paid for the amount of time they work. Moreover, project-based virtual assistants have no fixed costs. Which means you’re only responsible for paying the agreed-upon project rate.
25. ? You don’t need a physical office
When it comes to hiring Virtual Assistants, you don’t have to worry about office rent. This helps you bring your costs down.?
26. ? No fringe benefits
Aside from not having to pay fixed salaries to employees, you also get freedom from fringe benefits like health insurance, vacation, paid leaves, and taxes etc. You only have to pay for the services you get.?
27. ? No recruitment costs
You spend a significant amount of money on various hiring procedures whenever you have to hire a new employee. However, if you hire a trained virtual assistant through a?virtual assistant agency like VAAS, you can save loads of money.?
28. ? Say goodbye to temporary staffing
Since you can get a project based or demand based virtual assistant, you no longer have to worry about unstable hires. Apart from being flexible, your VA will match the caliber of a full-time employee. You get the best of all possible worlds!?
29. ? Trained professionals
A VA will save you the hassle of re-training employees. Instead of educating employees on every little advancement, why don’t you hire someone who already has those skills? If you hire a VA who has experience in sales, he can get to work immediately.
Avoid Burnout
30. ? Stay calm
As a business owner, you are probably used to donning many hats and it can be very stressful at times. With an experienced VA, you’ll be able to outsource non-core activities and increase your productivity in the areas that matter the most to your business.
31. ? Be a digital nomad
In today’s world, you don’t really have to build an office space and stick to one place. Hiring someone who’s not location dependent can reduce costs by a large margin.?
If you’re into traveling, getting a virtual assistant will be your ticket to freedom. When you outsource non-core work to your VA, you get the freedom to travel and experience new places.?
Access a Global Talent Pool
32. ? No time zone limits
If you have international clients, hiring a virtual assistant who hails from a different time zone?will be very beneficial for you. International virtual assistants may have the skills you’re looking for. If you want your business to move to the global level, you need to get away from the limitations of hiring locally.
33. ? International talent
Another benefit of hiring a virtual assistant from a different country is that your business gets a multicultural perspective which can be quite beneficial in the long run especially if you plan on serving international clients. That said, with a global talent pool at hand, you get to choose from a diverse skill set.
34. ? Low-cost talent
For every virtual assistant you hire, you’ll be able to cut costs. You will not have to worry about office rent. You’ll get talent that will not cost much and will help your business grow.?
35. ? Bilingual services
If your virtual sales assistant belongs to a different country, you have someone who can speak two languages. This gives you an opportunity to tap an untapped market. And if you already have customers in different countries, hiring a virtual assistant who can speak at least two languages can work magic for your business.
36. ? Greater flexibility
Most virtual assistants wear multiple hats. Which means they have diverse skill sets.?
Your virtual sales assistant may also have experience in CRM management, cold calling, searching for leads, and even social media handling. They can take on multiple roles to help scale your business.?
Quick and Easy Hiring
37. ? Easy onboarding
There are times when you need to fill a position on an urgent basis. But you don’t always have time to find someone who’s just the right fit for your business because traditional recruitment processes can take up to several weeks.
Virtual assistant platforms have made hiring and onboarding easier and faster, you can get a?trained VA?who knows the breadth and depth of his field and can start immediately.
38. ? Easy replacement
What if you feel like the service your virtual assistant gives you is not worth your investment? No need to panic! Virtual assistant platforms allow you to choose from a pool of highly skilled and talented virtual assistants without any hassle.?
That being said, your company could really benefit from the diversity and flexibility that virtual assistants can bring. Discover if hiring a VA is the right fit for you by scheduling a quick 10 minute call here !