The #1 Advantage of Virtual Assistant Support
Most would argue that time is a business owner’s most valuable asset.
I disagree.
Your most valuable asset is your brain space–your capacity to think, create, and grow in a way that helps people and imparts your passion.
The REAL advantage of virtual assistant support is giving you a lighter mental load by reducing decision fatigue, the stress of task-switching, and clearing mental clutter so you have more brain space for what matters most.
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What is Mental Load–And Why Does it Matter in Business?
The mental load is the amount of unseen, sometimes forgotten, work that you have to do in order to keep your life running. I first saw the mental load used to refer to the extra tasks that women (I personally believe this can be either gender) take on in the household, often without notice from their partner, and that contribute to overall cognitive and emotional health. Your cognitive load and the emotional labor you incur isn’t limited to what is happening in your household–it extends into your business, too.
What Does Your Mental Load Look Like?
The mental load isn’t something that can’t be seen and oftentimes isn’t considered actual work in typical U.S. culture. And when your main job involves a lot of strain on your brain, it’s often seen as not as valuable as physical labor or traditional work roles.
For example, like many couples, my husband and I often try to outdo one another when talking about who had a busier day. He has a job that is physically demanding, but doesn’t require a lot of brain space. My job is mentally, emotionally, and socially demanding, but doesn’t require a lot of physical labor. So who should be more tired at the end of the day?
Well, both of us. It’s different kinds of exhaustion. You can see the results of my husband’s work more than you can see the results of mine as so much of mine occurs in my head.
How Does That Relate to Business?
Business owners like us carry a ton of invisible work that other people don’t see. In case you need some extra stress, here is an example:
You have a meeting today at 2pm. You know you need to get xyz done by 1:30pm so you can then have a pre-meeting break to clear your head and be mentally ready for your meeting.
You spend 15 minutes at the start of your day thinking about this, 15 minutes mid-morning, 5 minutes around lunch, and the 30 minutes before your meeting.
This was all unplanned and undocumented thinking time, but still time that your brain was racing and working through what did and didn’t need to be done in order for you to be best prepared for your meeting.
Plus, you’re waiting on an email from a potential client about their decision on a proposal you sent.
The whole time you’re working to prepare for your meeting, you’re also looking for an email and wracking your brain for what you might say to the potential client if they have an objection and what your next steps will be, even if you have a documented system and process in place.
Let’s pretend that you also work from home.
Your dog wanted out 6 times from 9am-11:30am. Each time you let her out you had to stop what you were doing, let her into the backyard, and come back and get reacquainted with your work.
Your son is sick and it could be the flu because his best friend missed 3 days of school this week and in the back of your mind, you’re thinking about what you might need to do to get him into the doctor this week to get him tested and at what point you’ll need to make that decision.
AND: Even if you have your to-do list written down, it’s always on your mind somewhere and you’re always thinking about what’s next and making sure you don’t forget anything or putting pressure on yourself to get everything done on time.
Honestly, just writing this made me exhausted.
Why Should Understanding Mental Load Matter to YOU as a Business Owner?
You have to understand the mental load and its effect on both your mental and physical wellbeing. Being cognitively overloaded can lead to burnout and decision fatigue. That leads to poor decision making and slower business growth. It can even lead to just giving up on it all altogether. Are you beginning to see how the biggest advantage of virtual assistant support is reducing that mental load?
Being aware of your mental load and finding ways to reduce it is essential for long-term sustainable success as a business owner. Being overwhelmed is only going to get you so far because you won’t have the time or bandwidth to create and grow.
The Key Advantage of Virtual Assistant Support
Yes, we all need more time, but there isn’t more time to be had. We can’t extend the day. 24 hours is all we get. But, a virtual assistant can give you the mental capacity you need to do more creative tasks and work on growing your business.
When a virtual assistant comes into your business, they may take on a handful of tasks. And while that is helpful, the real advantage of virtual assistant support is that those are tasks you are never going to have to think about again. And when you don’t have to think about them, that frees up your brain to think about other things that are going to allow you to make moves in your business.
Examples of How a VA Reduces Your Mental Load
It’s one thing to tell you why reducing your mental load is an advantage of virtual assistant support, but it’s another thing to show you. While this is not an exhaustive list of tasks a VA may do for you, it is some fairly common tasks and how having a VA complete these tasks will reduce your mental load and be your favorite reason for hiring one.
Calendar Management
When a VA owns your calendar management, they will typically be the only person managing your calendar. This means that instead of worrying about scheduling meetings, making sure your meetings don’t overlap, and making sure that you have time to pick up your dog from the vet, your VA is doing that and you never even have to think about it once. All you have to do is show up to meetings. The benefit of hiring a virtual assistant for calendar management is that instead of being something you think about constantly throughout the day, a VA will come in, own your calendar, and that’s one less stressor on your brain.
Inbox Management
When a virtual assistant takes over your inbox management, it’s like literal magic. Have you ever seen inbox zero? It’s not a myth! And your virtual assistant can get you there. And that will lighten your mental load because instead of checking your email 5 times a day, you’ll know that someone you can trust is taking care of it daily, getting rid of what you don’t need, and putting what you do need in a special place for you to focus on later. So instead of using your brain space thinking about those hundreds of emails accumulating all day, you can focus instead on something that deserves your brain power, like planning your next launch with your OBM.
Client or Customer Inbox Ownership
Some business owners choose to have a dedicated client or customer inbox and after they bring on a virtual assistant, that inbox becomes the VA’s responsibility. Imagine thinking the advantage of a virtual assistant managing your client inbox is having that time to work on something else and realizing that once your VA takes on that responsibility that you also have more brain power because it’s no longer something you have to think about constantly. That’s pretty freaking amazing.
Lesser Known Advantages of Hiring a Virtual Assistant
Let’s be real, there isn’t just one advantage of hiring a virtual assistant for your business. There are a ton. It’s just that some of them are not talked about as frequently on the internet and in the business sphere, but that doesn’t mean they can’t make a big difference in your business.
Hire More for Less
One advantage of virtual assistant support you may not have thought of is that you can hire one VA to do a specific skill and another VA to do a different specific skill and it will cost you less than hiring a full time person and training them to do both tasks.
With virtual assistant support, you can hire VAs based on the skills they are best at. They will focus solely on that skillset within your business and you will hire a different VA or freelance based on their specialized skills.
Thinking about hiring two people may sound more costly, but it isn’t. First of all, you will be hiring them to only do what they are good at. This means they will be quick and efficient at it and they will not need a lot of direction in doing the task. Also, you will most likely be hiring them as contractors rather than employees and that’s going to save you money overall.
Save on Overhead Costs
When you hire a W2 employee, there are a lot of things you are expected to provide: benefits, office space, technology, software, and so on. But one main advantage of virtual assistant support is that they provide their own resources and workspace. They work remotely from wherever they are and you do not have to provide them anything in order to do the work. This in turn saves you money.
Flexible Support as You Scale
Since VAs are typically contract workers or businesses providing you a service, they are fairly flexible in the number of hours they can work with you. This means that many VAs can start with you for a small number of hours a month and as your business grows you can add more and more hours. And, if something happens that your current VA is not able to take on more hours, you can hire an additional VA who will be able to take on the increased hours you need. And this is all without having to hire someone full-time and trying to find something for them to do all day because you just don’t have the work yet.
Access to Global Talent Pools
The last advantage of virtual assistant support I will share with you is the ability to hire anyone in the world. When you are looking for a remote assistant, you do not have to hire only people within driving distance of you. You can hire anyone, anywhere who can do what you need them to do.
This means that if you prefer to work late at night, you can hire a virtual assistant in a time zone opposite of yours for whom it is day-time. Likewise, if you have a client who is in another time zone and needs someone to be available for customer support for them during their time zone, hiring a VA makes it pretty easy to do.
Ready to Unlock the Advantage of a Virtual Assistant?
While the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant is a mile long, the real, largely unthought of advantage of a virtual assistant is being able to get back your brain space so that you can focus on work that will actually move your business forward instead of repetitive tasks that keep you bogged down.
There is nothing better than being able to completely forget about 5-10 tasks because you know someone else is taking care of them behind the scenes without you. It’s a huge relief and allows you to focus that attention on something more deserving of your time.
At Bohannon Virtual Solutions, we have a team of virtual assistants ready to assist you with your business tasks. If you’re ready to lighten your mental load, click the link below to schedule a Sales Call with me and discuss how Bohannon Virtual Solutions’s VAs can support you.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is an advantage of a virtual assistant?
There are innumerable advantages of a virtual assistant, but the one I believe often gets overlooked and is most powerful is lightening your mental load so that you have the brain space to take on higher level tasks in your business that only you can be the one to do.
How much does a virtual assistant cost?
Virtual assistant costs vary greatly depending on what skills you need, who you are looking to hire, and where you are looking to hire. In the U.S., Canada, and the U.K., virtual assistants typically range from $30-$50 per hour. You can hire an overseas virtual assistant for a fraction of that cost, but please weigh the ethics of that decision before you make it. At Bohannon Virtual Solutions, we believe all humans deserve a living wage based on their skill and human worth regardless of where they live in the world.
How do I train one effectively?
The best thing you can do is have all of your SOPs completed and ready for your virtual assistant. That’s what a perfect world looks like. I don’t know about you, but I do not live in a perfect world.
I suggest having a minimum of video directions for each process you need a VA to complete and giving that over to them. Some VAs are then able to document that in the form of a written SOP for future use and reference.
You should expect a VA to need 2-4 weeks to become comfortable with you, your style, and working with you in a manner that works best for you. This should be extended if you are looking for someone to do writing or marketing for you in your brand voice and tone.
Should I hire locally or overseas?
I believe in equity and fairness. Personally, I have nothing against hiring people overseas, if you pay them a living wage for the area you are from.
I would never pay a VA, regardless of where they are from, less than $20/hour for tasks. And that is rather low these days.
I do like to have VAs on my team who are overseas because they are able to provide support to clients in different time zones and because we value diversity at Bohannon Virtual Solutions. I believe that we cannot grow as people or businesses without listening to people who are different from us. I value having the voices of people who are different from me in my business.
So ultimately, the decision is up to you, your needs, and your values.
