Virtual assistants - accessible, but not a quick fix.

Most people in business are familiar with the concept of offshoring and outsourcing. Large international corporations have outsourced for decades, such as manufacturing, call centres, and online chat assistants, saving millions of dollars in wages and gaining operational efficiencies; allowing them to make billions of dollars in profits.

Fast forward to 2021, the adoption of cloud computing that most businesses now operate with, such as cloudbased accounting systems (Xero, Quickbooks), cloud storage (Dropbox), and other systems like Evernote, Trello etc, gives rise to the perfect environment for offshore virtual assistants to be accessible and effective for smaller businesses and individuals - they aren't just the secret weapon of big business anymore.

Websites such as Freelancer, Upwork and Fiverr allow easy connection to potential candidates, allowing businesses of all sizes to benefit from these models that big businesses have been enjoying for decades.

But, for small business owners, the biggest hurdle in this process is not finding & connecting with a potential candidate; that part is easy now. The challenge is onboarding them to your business and having a clear task list relevant to your business needs. Clear processes and accountabilities, (a "Blueprint") are required, to ensure that adding a virtual assistant doesn’t create more headaches than it aims to solve.