I have this conversation quite a bit with prospective clients of my firm. We talk about what’s eating away the hours, we talk about the benefits of outsourcing part of their to-do list to a virtual assistant, we talk about how it works to have a VA as part of the team, we talk about who makes a good client candidate for a VA and who doesn’t, and we talk about the goals the client is trying to achieve.
Then we talk numbers.
I have this handy little chart I’ve started sharing with potential clients. It’s pretty elementary, but does a good job of easily outlining where they’re leaving money on the table by not getting the support they need for their growing businesses.
This is especially easy to determine if I’m working with coaches, consultants, speakers and other billable-hour business models.
If your time is worth $75/hour, and you spend 4 hours a week on non-revenue-generating tasks, you’re giving up potentially $300 a week in billable hours…or $1200 a month … or $14,400 a year. You’ll never bill for those hours because, unfortunately, nobody will ever pay you for those tasks or the time you spend on them.
If your time is worth $100/hour, and you spend 4 hours a week on non-revenue-generating tasks, you’re giving up $400 a week … or $1,600 a month … or $19,200 a year!
Now…
Say you had a virtual assistant for $35 an hour to tackle those 4 hours of non-revenue generating tasks every week (or, for simplicity, 16 hours a month). Your VA sends you an invoice for $560 at the end of the month.
If your time is worth $75 an hour, and you just gained back 16 hours of billable time in a month, you’ve just earned $640 in potential revenue after paying your VA.
That $640 per month … or $7700 a year …. will remain out of reach until you have help because you’ll continue doing it all yourself. Nobody will ever pay you for that time or those tasks.
If your time is worth $100 an hour, you’re leaving more than $1000 on the table each month; more than $12,000 each year.
Business owners need to spend their time growing their business, generating revenue and focusing on their clients — not implementing their marketing touchpoints, maintaining their social media, sending follow-up packets, or handling other systems-based tasks. They need a team member who understands the ins and outs of small business, is a qualified sounding board for brainstorming and ideas, and who understands the goals that are trying to be acheived.
By investing in the partnership with a virtual assistant, these clients are investing in themselves and the growth of their businesses.
Filed under: Lessons from the virtual playground, Virtual Assistance: Industry Tidbits | Tagged: virtual assistance, virtual assistant | Leave a Comment »
