Virtual Assistance - ALD Group

Some years ago, only the "bosses" and big businessmen could boast of having an assistant or secretary. However, the fact that many people are looking for alternatives to free up their time from more routine tasks, not rewarding and / or simply not desirable but necessary, has emerged a whole new category of business and professionals: The Virtual Assistants.

What is a virtual assistant? Well, she is someone who you hire to do for you anything you want to delegate and do not require her physical presence. And we would get surprised about the amount of things we can do without being present. And we would get even more surprised about the amount of stuff that we could really delegate to others and of which we do not realize.

If you have calculated how much worth your time (for example, calculate what you earn each year for the hours you work, you can see your cost per hour), you can understand the philosophy behind the recruitment of virtual assistants. If we say that every hour of your time costs 30 euros, releasing 2-3 hours of tedious and irrelevant tasks could reportarte a daily savings of 100 euros. If we assume that these tasks must be carried out equally if you hire a Virtual Assistant to whom you pay 10 euros/hour (there are more expensive and cheaper), you are saving 70 euros a day, and you can devote your time to other more productive tasks.

For entrepreneurs, and professionals in general, is a really interesting option that only requires a change of mentality (the most difficult). Why will I pay someone to spend 3 hours looking for information on the Internet when I can do it myself? Because in those three hours you can dedicate to seek for more clients or improve processes and dealing with those clients you already have, which after all is what makes your business run. Since we are talking about professionals who you do not have in your company or business to perform this function, a Virtual Assistant solves many problems.

The trick is in knowing who you hire and where. There are companies in India (Brickwork, for example) that for less than 7 euro/hour are able to do absolutely everything: writing reports, finding information, organizing events, booking tickets, writing articles, answering emails, etc. Brickwork is the kind of company that works well if you work in English, because the cost is infinitely inferior to the benefits and are a great company exclusively dedicated to this (there are many more).

For those who are in the Latin American market, the ideal is to look for companies in countries where in addition to quality, are conveniente in price per hour. In this case, for those who work in Spain, hiring a virtual assistant in Argentina or Venezuela, is more than profitable. There is nothing more to do than a little searching on Google to find 3-4 companies with experience in the field. It is the philosophy of "new rich", to dedicate yourself only to what is important and do what you like, and delegate everything else.

I already have a list of things I can delegate in the RESPECT blogs management, etc, and I will tell you more when I investigate a little more about the options.

Source: David González
July, 2008