Time is a luxury most of you don’t have. However, it is not a permanent hindrance in achieving what you want in life. There is an option to turn things around and make life easier for you.
Recently, more and more physicians are giving outsourcing a try. Outsourcing allows you to delegate tasks to virtual assistants so you can free up your time and finally do whatever it is you’ve been wanting to do.
In this article, we talk about what virtual assistants are, why more and more entrepreneurs and physicians want them, and how they can positively impact your life.
What is a Virtual Assistant?
A virtual assistant (VA) is someone who can help you with your daily tasks in a remote setup. They function as an assistant, but with more convenience, a broader set of skills, and low-cost. Many VAs are freelancers and have particular expertise. You can significantly benefit from this if you are looking for a specific service that you want to delegate.
Outsourcing a task to a virtual assistant is pretty simple. You can acquire their service full-time, part-time, output-based, or seasonal, depending on your needs. Likewise, hiring a VA is straightforward, and you can quickly relieve them if you don’t need their service anymore.
Virtual assistants are literal lifesavers for many individuals. They offer an extra hand for busy professionals such as entrepreneurs and medical doctors. With their aid, you can go on with your typical day minus the unnecessary stress of having too much to do.
Benefits of Hiring a Virtual Assistant
With a clear perspective of what a virtual assistant is and what they do, let us move on to the top 10 benefits they bring to the table.
1. Free up time
One of the best benefits of having a virtual assistant is getting your time back. With someone doing most of the time-consuming tasks for you, you can enjoy spending your free time with your family, discovering a new hobby, or even taking more extended vacations without worrying about unfinished tasks.
The main goal of outsourcing is to free up your time and get more things done without sacrificing the quality of work. So start planning your next trip and make it happen with the help of a VA. What tasks on your To Do list can be outsourced?
2. Get things done quickly
Doing all the tasks on your own makes it impossible to be extra productive. But with one or many people collaborating and doing tasks for you, increasing your productivity will be easy. In addition, you get more things completed with VAs working for you.
Synonymous to productivity is more time to tend to other essential things such as that research paper and/or side hustles, or how about buying some time to be unproductive and truly be off? Value your time by spending it on something that will highly benefit you, your personal life and career. Let your VA help you handle things that encroach on your free time. For example, in Episode 7 Is Medicine A Good Career For Moms? Interview with Dr. Miriam Michael, Episode 10 Leave Work at Work & Other Tips with Dr. Miriam Michael, and Episode 13 Life Hacks With Dr. Miriam Michael of DocWorking: The Whole Physician Podcast, Dr. Miriam Michael mentions what a huge difference having a VA has made for her, how she has her VA help her with putting together recommendation letters for students and residents, and even helps her prepare and address Christmas cards. In Episode 29 Building Businesses Outside of Your Day Job with Dr. Saira Ahmed and Episode 31 Real Estate Investing With Dr. Saira Ahmed, Dr. Saira Ahmed, who runs a busy physician practice, works full time in utilization management, has an eCommerce business, and manages multiple real estate properties offers her simple advice: “So one thing I would invest in, and this is a tip that I would give to any entrepreneur, especially if you have multiple things going on: Get an assistant.” And of course, that applies to busy physicians who always have multiple things going on.
3. Start working on your side hustle
Now is the perfect time for you to work on your side hustle. Make use of your spare time and other skills to earn more and achieve financial independence.
Make a fortune out of the hundreds of side hustles that you can do. You can start with telemedicine, writing blogs, content creation, real estate, or establishing your dream business. With a VA, you can do almost anything while preserving your time.
Have your VAs set up your side hustles and let them help you operate them. With this, you get to maximize their services and your skills in running different sources of income.
4. Delegate tasks you don’t like doing
The repetitive and time-consuming tasks that being a physician now requires are likely not the reason being a doctor appealed to you when you embarked on this journey, and getting lost in those can lead to burnout. You must listen to your body and take the necessary breaks that you need. It is possible to assign some tasks to others. Examine the long list of tasks that cumulatively suck up significant time day after day, and determine which of those can be done by someone under your supervision. What can be outsourced?
It can be administrative tasks, preparing presentations, organizing your schedule, or running personal errands. Delegate these tedious tasks, and you can just oversee the process or output. Taking the time to determine what you can take off of your plate will help you avoid burnout.
5. Work with experts
The great thing about the freelance or outsourcing market is that they are full of brilliant individuals. Working with freelancers allows you to utilize their expertise in different fields, plus it is much cheaper than hiring an expert full-time.
Assess areas of your business where you’re not an expert, areas that you don’t enjoy, and find someone who can do it for you. Aside from its convenience, you get to widen your network of industry experts when you decide to outsource tasks. Grow your business with these people and actualize your goals with them.
6. Increased quality
Since you have experts working for you, you are assured of the quality of work they produce. Having someone focused solely on a specific task will put your mind at ease and relieve you of worrying if outputs are of quality. Increased productivity without sacrificing the quality of work is possible with the help of VAs.
7. Save costs
The benefits of hiring a virtual assistant do not stop at the quality of work but extend to the costs. It is much more efficient to have them than a full-time office-based employee mainly because of costs.
For context, a regular office employee will cost you the base pay plus additional expenses that you have to comply with, such as taxes, office equipment, healthcare, compensations, etc. But with VAs, you only have to pay the hourly costs or the rate that you both agreed on, plus bonuses if you feel like it.
The hiring process is also less expensive with virtual assistants since you only need your computer to communicate with them and facilitate the onboarding.
8. Increased flexibility
Outsourcing entails flexibility. You can negotiate everything with your virtual assistant and arrive at a decision beneficial to both of you. For example, you can talk about different salary rates, hours of work, time zones, and services to be offered.
Since your VAs work remotely, you can have someone work for you any time of the day without sticking to the 9-5 working hours. As a result, your business can operate even when you are asleep with your virtual assistants taking shifts. This flexibility allows your business to grow significantly and increases your overall productivity.
9. Hire according to your needs
With a virtual assistant, you are free to hire according to your needs. If you only need assistance for a particular task, you can hire VAs on an output-based setup and relieve them once the project is done. If you require 5 hours of work from them, you can negotiate the schedule and not stick to the regular 9-5 working hours.
You can also hire according to your budget and get significant results without overspending. The arrangement is beneficial to you and your VAs, for you don’t have to stick with the traditional office setup where flexibility is out of reach.
10. Quality output
The goal of freelancers and virtual assistants is to provide convenience and high satisfaction to their clients. So, you can be assured of the quality of work they produce. In addition, you can rely on them in growing your business, for they make sure to provide the best output in every transaction.
Conclusion
In a study done by the International Journal of Medical Education, many residents only have a vague idea of financial education, making it hard for them to achieve financial stability when they begin practicing as attendings.
Change this and be part of the emerging number of physicians that achieve financial independence through side hustles and the aid of outsourcing. Maximize the opportunities around you, such as new knowledge, to improve your financial situation.
Take outsourcing courses from reliable online platforms like Outsource School and learn from the best in the industry. Utilize your time and skills wisely in bettering yourself and achieving financial independence.
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Connor Gillivan is currently an Owner of OutsourceSchool.com. He has been building businesses with virtual teams for the past 10 years and recently exited FreeUp.net in 2019. He regularly shares his advice on scaling companies online and has been featured on 200+ websites. He resides in Denver, CO.
