Are you questioning whether now is the right time to bring on an assistant? If so, take ten minutes or so and read through these 5 red flags that scream, “I NEED A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT NOW!”

You’re trading in too much of your time

You’ve haven’t taken a vacation in months. Your family and friends are starting to say that you barely have time for them anymore. You know that you’re under water, but you’re too nervous to take off some extra time. Sure, you love setting your own hours but if you aren’t enjoying that time freedom, you need some extra hands. When growing your business, it often seems like there aren’t enough hours in the day. This is a good sign that it’s time to hire a virtual assistant.

You know, there’s a difference between entrepreneurship and self-employment…

You are lacking the skillsets that your business needs

For me, I am not an analytical person. When it came to handling my business finances, I had to hire a CFO to manage it. Sure, I could keep my clients organized and I can knock out spreadsheets in my sleep, but I am not the jack of all trades — and I’m okay with that.

…and you aren’t the jack of all trades either. Look, don’t beat yourself up for not perfecting every aspect of your business. It’s impossible to be proficient in everything. Even if you were, who really wants to work 20 hours a day, 7 days a week? If your business is lacking due to a lack of skillset, it’s time that you bring someone on board.

The time spent on administrative tasks surpasses the time that you spend on your products/service offerings

If your day is tied up with handling multiple email inboxes, invoicing, bookkeeping, and other administrative tasks, how could you possibly have time to create content and material that adds value to your service offerings? Face it, admin tasks are necessary, but they are also huge distractions when building content and providing services are just as important. If you don’t have time to execute the services that people hire you for, who is going to do it? That question is much harder to answer than asking yourself, “If I don’t have time for admin tasks, who is going to do it?” Hire an assistant that’s training in a variety of admin tasks and you free up hours to focus on driving revenue within your business.

Your business is an unorganized mess

Missing deadlines, ghosting or running late for appointments, not collecting payments on time…sounds familiar? If you’re a one man (or woman) show, this is bound to happen. As your business grows, the demand for you attention grows. Add that to the fact that you have a life outside of work and at some point, you’re going to hit a glass ceiling. When you’re putting out fires all over the place, it shows in your client experience. If you’re feeling more overwhelmed versus strategic, it’s time that you hire some help!

The vision is there. The plan is not.

Great! You have a notebook full of ideas, you’re brainstorming on ideas, and you have screenshots of content saved to your gallery. You know that once you hit the ground running, you’re going to be a showstopper. Coming up with good ideas is only a piece of the pie…you have to be able to execute it! If you’re great at being the visionary but your execution needs a little work, it’s time that you hire your assistant.

When you’re ready to hire, it’s best that you find a virtual assistant that best fits your needs. Here at The Buddy Effect, we employ all U.S-based virtual assistants. That way, you don’t have to worry about language, cultural, and time-zone barriers. Also, we test our Buddies before onboarding them and provide consistent training. We don’t want you to spend all of your time training an assistant, which is why we do our part in ensuring that our Buddies come equipped with the skillsets needed so that it’s minimal training on your end.