Methods To Keep Your Virtual Assistant Costs Low

Virtual assistants are the best way to alleviate some of your own administrative and executive burdens. You get someone to help you out with administrative tasks so that you can focus on more pressing matters. If you’re a specialist, your hourly rate is pretty high, and if you’re a leader or an entrepreneur, it’s near-invaluable. This is why spending time on menial tasks (like answering emails, making small corrections to your own schedule, and managing your social media profiles) is an inefficient use of your resources. In general, virtual assistants are supposed to save you money, but if you’re not careful, you might end up spending more than you have to. With that in mind, and without further ado, here are a few methods to keep your virtual assistant costs low. 

---

Hiring through an agency

The simplest way to control the costs of your virtual assistants is to hire via an agency. Sure, on paper, the costs are supposed to be higher because you’re hiring this same assistant and also paying a fee for the agency, but by just eliminating the need to hire directly and identify people who are perfect for the job, you’re already saving a lot.

Also, hiring through an agency or getting a Rocket Station virtual assistant means that you’re getting people with prior experience in many different fields. The process of hiring these people directly, identifying them, and managing their payroll and benefits would already be quite significant and an administrative burden. It would mean expanding your accounting team, which also costs quite a bit. 

Most importantly, you get to customize what you need with different pricing plans fully. Getting someone part-time or full-time is not the same, and you won’t be charged the same. The fact that you’re getting uniform pricing up-front makes cost control fairly simple. 

---

Assessing their rate

There’s no such thing as a universal rate for a virtual assistant. Expecting to find such a thing would be like saying that you want to get an average rate for a scientist. What kind of scientist? A scientist working where? So, when assessing the rate that you should pay your virtual assistant, you need to make sure that you use the right factors. 

• Experience: The more experienced they are, the more you pay them. However, they need to have industry-specific experience or experience that’s relevant to your industry. The fact that they’re an assistant for years doesn’t mean much if it’s not in a relevant field.

• Scope of work: Having someone send emails and handle data entry is not the same thing as having someone handle customers and engage in more complex administrative tasks. The level of responsibility will determine the amount of money that you pay them.

• Market rates: Just check what others are paying. If you are paying too little, you won’t be able to attract top talent. You need to be competitive, but then again, you can’t afford to pay as the top dogs of your industry. Only compare yourself to other businesses your size. 

• Feedback and reputation: If you’re hiring via regular job-finding sites, you’ll find that all of them have some sort of ratings and review system. Naturally, this needs to be factored into their rate. 

Excluding any of the four major factors would be just unfair.

---

Be realistic about the number of work hours you need

In theory, having someone work fewer hours will cost you less, but in practice, things are not always the same. For instance, let’s say that you want to hire someone to work for you 12 hours per month. You would be able to afford to pay them quite a bit and not break a budget. However, what if you needed them 40 hours per week? 

In this scenario, the negotiated cost would be a lot higher, but you would no longer be able to afford this same rate.

When negotiating early on, make sure to keep in mind that you may need them more in the future. While lowering their hourly rate and giving them more work hours may be a concrete pay raise, it will never feel this way. Sure, at the end of the month, they’ll end up with a heftier paycheck, but, in practice, they’ll be paid less per hour, and this is bound to sting.

So, if you expect that you’ll need them more in the future, factor this in before making an offer. Always plan for growth. 

---

Going too low is never a good idea

Sure, you want to lower the costs, but going too low will hurt you in so many ways. First of all, if you go too low, you’ll never attract top talent. In fact, you’ll only get a tenuous grasp on the subject matter (people who can’t find employment anywhere else and for a good reason) or people who are desperate. The first group has incredibly low productivity and makes mistakes, while the latter is there only temporarily. 

Even if, by some miracle, you do manage to attract someone decent, they won’t be particularly happy to work for this low fee, and their productivity will drop. Now, keep in mind that costs are never just about costs. It’s about value for money, and their value will dip (due to low motivation). This means that you’ll get even less than you pay for.

The biggest challenge comes from the fact that the majority of people don’t understand the complexity of tasks that they’re hiring virtual assistants to do. This means that they assume that it costs less than it actually does. Hiring without doing research (at least rudimentary) is never a sensible plan.

---

Wrap up

At the end of the day, a virtual assistant is just another regular employee in your organization. The only thing that’s different is the nature of their employment. Therefore, the real questions are “What are their services worth to you?” and “How much can you afford to pay them?” Once you have answers to these two questions, it just comes down to cost control.