Can Hiring an Assistant Help You Grow Your Business? Work Better Now Exec Says Yes
Business owners do a lot of things they shouldn’t be doing, and administrative tasks are at the top of the list. Every hour scheduling or rescheduling calls and meetings, adding people to your contacts or CRM, answering the phone, checking email and all the other stuff that someone else is better and faster at doing than you are, is an hour not being spent on high-value activities like business development, refining the customer experience and building up your team.
Among the common attributes of successful entrepreneurs is one simple don’t: They don’t build companies that rely only on themselves. Of course they may join the brainstorming for the company’s new post-COVID branding or get involved in a big sales opportunity. And certainly they stay in close touch with the whole team in the burgeoning work-from-home revolution.
But they fully understand the strength of empowerment and delegation.
It’s tempting, for some, to believe “it will take longer for me to explain than to do it myself” or convince yourself you’ll “hire someone when I close the big deal that I’m working on.” I speak from experience—I was once one of those hands-on business owners in denial over my delegation shortcomings.
Over the course of my career, some of it as owner of a media company that served small businesses, I have met and spoken with more than a thousand business owners. I know CEOs and presidents that have built nine-figure businesses and many more that have capped out at $1 million to $2 million after 20 years.
I also know that most business owners spend more than 10 hours per week on administrative tasks. That is over 500 hours per year or around 25% of work hours.
Here is the simple math. If you are earning $100,000, your time is worth at least $50 per hour (based on 2,000 work hours per year). If you are earning $200,000, your time is worth $100 per hour. Would you pay someone $50 or $100 per hour to do administrative work?
By the way, when doing this simple calculation, use the amount of money that you want to earn, not what you are earning right now.
Making the Switch
There are very few business situations where having an assistant doesn’t make sense. Whether it is a personal assistant for the company owner or an assistant for employees to offload administrative tasks, enabling them to focus on higher-value activities right along with you, an assistant is an investment that delivers a killer ROI. And in our new world of remote work teams, your company’s virtual assistant is as integrated as your work-from-home sales director and VP of finance.
This is why I co-founded Work Better Now (WBN) which helps you find an assistant for your business.
My partner and I launched WBN because we believe so enthusiastically that every business should have an assistant (at least one). We wanted to find a way to make having a great assistant affordable to just about every business. For $1,750 per month (less than $11 per hour), you can have a full-time, dedicated assistant enabling you to spend more time on high-value activities (including more focus on family and personal pursuits).
We often hear, “I know I should get an assistant, but I don’t know where to start.” I said the same thing when a friend suggested I was overdue for an assistant about six years ago. This is why we have a 15-minute consultation in which we can help you determine how an assistant can revolutionize your business and your life. We also have an onboarding process that ensures that our assistants are freeing up your time from Day 1. For more specific ideas, check out: 56 Tasks a Virtual Assistant Can Do For You.
Contributed by, Rob Levin, Chairman, Work Better Now