A typical day in the life of a startup founder is not your normal wake-up, go to work, and go back home. In the midst of managing a business are sleepless nights, admin tasks, client meetings, financial responsibilities, and more tasks that make you constantly doubt if there are enough hours in a day. Tasks keep on piling up, creating holdups that slow your progress. This is where a general admin virtual assistant comes in.
They serve as your remote administrative backbone, handling all the time-consuming tasks that hold you back from focusing on your core business. From managing schedules to basic bookkeeping, general admin virtual assistants help you keep your business running smoothly. In this article, we explore why startup founders need a general virtual assistant (GVA) to keep their business running efficiently.
Signs You Need a General Admin Virtual Assistant
You may not know it yet, but the signs are always showing. Founders tend to ignore the signs and often shy away from asking for help, fearing being viewed as weak or unable to sustain a business. However, the real power lies in realizing when you need help and what getting someone to assist you can do for your business. Here are signs that a general admin virtual assistant is the answer you have been looking for;
1. You are always overwhelmed with admin tasks
If 80% of the work you do is managing admin tasks such as scheduling meetings, booking calendars, managing general enquiries, managing emails, preparing invoices, or managing data entry, you are losing money and time. These tasks are meant for assistants who can take time-consuming, repetitive tasks and grant you more time to focus on core tasks such as product development, strategic planning, and market expansion.
2. You have no time to strategize for your business
Burying yourself in these repetitive tasks leaves you with no time to make strategic plans for your business. When you are constantly firefighting admin issues, you lose sight of the bigger picture and miss the opportunities that can scale and grow your startup effectively.
3. Your customers are unsatisfied
Customer service inevitably suffers when you are stretched beyond your capacity. At first, it may be difficult to recognize. But as time goes on and tasks pile up, response times slow down, communication becomes inconsistent, and the quality of your customer service deteriorates.
4. You are always missing deadlines
A jack of all trades can often become a master of none. If you are always running to perform every single task in your business, then you might end up achieving nothing. Imagine this: it is the end of the month and you are juggling between processing the payroll, closing books, preparing invoices for expenses, and conducting an analysis of the month’s sales performance to come up with better selling strategies. In the middle of this are customers that need to be checked on, marketing budgets that need to be approved, and new customer discovery calls to be scheduled. Most certainly, deadlines will be missed, misprioritization will happen, and your business will be affected greatly. A general admin VA will take on the admin tasks, leaving you with fewer and achievable tasks to perform.
5. You are struggling to keep a healthy work-life balance
If you spend 16 hours a day working just because you are an entrepreneur, this is a sign to hire a virtual assistant. When tasks consume your evenings and weekends, personal time becomes non-existent. Unknowingly, this takes a toll on your productivity and health, leaving your business in more danger and affecting your ability to effectively lead your company.
6. You are experiencing burnout
The constant pressure of managing every aspect of your business leaves you extremely burnt out. When the physical and mental exhaustion sets in, productivity is greatly affected, and making decisions for the company becomes harder. An admin assistant steps in as a relief for you as a founder and allows you to reenergize and refresh when needed.
7. You have to reject new clients to keep up with work
No business owner plans to turn away new clients. But when they dread the admin tasks that come with new clients from frequent status check-ins, bookkeeping, client support, and meeting management, the nearest solution becomes turning away new ones to keep up with existing customers. With the help of a general admin virtual assistant, you can scale and take in as many clients as possible without compromising on quality.
Key Tasks That General Admin Virtual Assistants Can Perform For Your Business
Understanding the scope of tasks that a general virtual assistant handles for you and your business helps you maximise the value of your partnership. Although they can take a wide range of tasks, understanding the current needs of your business and the virtual assistant skills they possess positions you for success. Here are some tasks these professionals can support startup businesses with;
1. Administrative Tasks
These form the foundation of what your admin virtual assistant can manage. Admin tasks often include data entry, document preparation, organisation, research, information gathering, and more admin tasks that consume your valuable time.
2. Social Media Management
GVAs keep your online presence active and engaging through activities such as posting on your social media platform, community management, and monitoring simple metrics that help maintain your brand actively in the online space.
3. Customer Support
This task involves ensuring that clients receive timely professional assistance. The general VA handles initial customer enquiries, processes orders, manages support, and follows up on customer satisfaction while maintaining a detailed database of customer records.
4. Basic Accounting
By undertaking basic bookkeeping tasks, general admin virtual assistants keep your finances organized without requiring a full-time bookkeeper. These basic tasks may include preparing invoices, expense tracking, categorization, basic financial reporting, and maintaining organized financial records.
5. Email Management
Through email management, an assistant can transform your chaotic inbox into an organized system. They sort and prioritize emails, respond to routine enquiries and schedule meetings based on requests. They also maintain email templates and ensure no important messages are missed.
6. Calendar and Appointment Management
This is one of the core tasks for any virtual assistant. They streamline your scheduling and eliminate double-bookings. They coordinate meetings with multiple stakeholders, including customers and internal teams, manage your daily schedules, send appointment reminders and maintain an organized calendar system that maximizes your productivity. This also includes your rest days to make sure you are refreshed and energized to maintain momentum for growth.
Benefits Of Having A General Admin Virtual Assistant
For startup founders, hiring a general admin virtual assistant is not any other addition to the team or a sign of a growing business. Here are some benefits of hiring a virtual assistant as a startup founder.
1. Increased Time Efficiency
This is the most noticeable and immediate benefit of engaging a GVA. When routine administrative tasks are handled by a skilled professional, you reclaim precious hours each day that can be directed toward high-value activities that directly impact your business.
2. Improved Turnaround of Time-Consuming Tasks
This means that projects move faster and deadlines are more achievable. Tasks that previously took hours can now take minutes, owing to the expertise that your assistant brings and the utilization of Virtual assistant tools that were not utilized before.
3. Increased Scaling of Operations
Scaling becomes possible when administrative hurdles are eliminated. With the reliable support of your general admin remote assistant in handling the repetitive tasks, you can take on more clients, plan on product development and strategize on market expansion plans.
4. Renewed Focus on Core Business Services
By hiring a general admin VA, you can channel your expertise where it matters most. Instead of getting drowned in admin tasks, you can concentrate on generating more sales, expanding your business and marketing your business to foster growth.
5. Improved Customer Service
By having dedicated attention to clients through professional and timely communication, support and responses, the general admin virtual assistant creates a better customer experience and handles each customer uniquely.
6. Better Task Organization
This creates a system and workflow that benefits your business as a whole. Your virtual assistant brings structure to chaos by implementing automated systems that improve efficiency, reduce errors and create sustainable processes for long-term success.
Hire Your Next General Admin Virtual Assistant with Remote Raven
Finding the right candidate for a job is not an easy task. Seeking one as a startup founder is even harder, as you are required to dedicate time and resources, which are often rare. At Remote Raven, we understand the weight of the recruitment process for a growing business as well as the significance of finding the best match for the job.
We take the task of finding you the right general admin virtual assistant seriously by considering your needs, vetting our database of qualified candidates and interviewing them for you. We let you focus on your core business while we present you with an employee who becomes your partner in business and growth. Are you ready to scale your business by finding the right help? Contact us for a free consultation session with our recruiters.
