The modern virtual assistant (VA) model was championed by Tim Ferriss in The 4-Hour Workweek, presenting outsourcing as a strategic lever to reclaim time. Today, learning how to hire a virtual assistant is critical for efficiency, yet the landscape of global freelancers, agencies, and managed services is complex. This complete guide cuts through the noise, providing a step-by-step framework to find the right virtual assistant for your business.
What Is a Virtual Assistant?
A virtual assistant (VA) is a skilled remote professional providing administrative, technical, or creative support. The “virtual” denotes the remote nature of the work, not artificial intelligence. Evolving beyond basic tasks, today’s VAs function as integrated, strategic partners, offering businesses flexible access to specialized skills without the overhead of a full-time hire.
Want to learn more about how a VA can help your business? We'd be happy to talk you through it!
Why You Need a Virtual Assistant: Signs & ROI
Growth often stalls from limited bandwidth, not opportunity. If you’re working “in” your business more than “on” it, a VA becomes a strategic investment.
Key signs you need to hire a virtual assistant:
- Working nights/weekends on administrative tasks.
- Perpetually postponing important, non-urgent projects.
- Slowing customer response times due to overload.
- Missing opportunities buried under daily operations.
The Data-Backed Case: Executives spend roughly 40% of their week (about 16 hours) on tasks a VA could handle. Reclaiming even half of this time can boost revenue-generating work by 20% or more. Unlike full-time hires (costing 1.25-1.4x their salary), VAs offer scalable flexibility, where you pay only for productive output.
Why hire a Virtual Assistant?
Modern virtual assistant services span four critical business areas:
- Executive & Administrative Support
- Sales & Marketing Support
- Back-Office & Operational Support
- Specialized & Technical Support
Executive & Administrative Support
Executives often spend 16 hours each week on routine tasks that take away from activities that drive their businesses forward. This makes up 40% of their week focused on administrative work.
General admin tasks include:
- Intelligent calendar & email managemen
- Travel planning,
- Expense reporting,
- Document preparation.
Impact: Reclaims up to 16 hours per week for leaders, eliminating the cognitive drag of constant context-switching.
Sales & Marketing Support
Using a virtual assistant to support sales and marketing teams clearly shows how VAs can drive real, team-specific impact. These departments are often weighed down by repetitive, time-consuming tasks that limit their ability to perform at their best.
Research consistently shows that sales professionals spend only 11% to 36% of their time actually selling, with the majority of their workday taken up by non-sales activities (Insidesales.com: 36%, Proudfoot Consulting Group: 11%, Pace Productivity: 22%, Salesforce: 30%).
This means that in most organizations, sales teams are spending less than half of their time on revenue-generating activities—a major inefficiency that directly affects growth and performance.
General admin tasks include:
- CRM management
- Lead research/prospecting
- Campaign coordination
- Social media scheduling
- Sales enablement
Impact: Frees sales teams from the 65%+ of their time spent on non-revenue activities, letting them focus on closing deals.
Back-Office & Operational Support
Back-office tasks are critical behind-the-scenes activities that keep your business infrastructure and systems running smoothly, even though they often require significant time and ongoing attention.
General admin tasks include:
- Data entry
- Light bookkeeping,
- Invoicing
- HR administration
- Compliance support
Impact: Secures business infrastructure, preventing cash flow and compliance issues that stem from neglected operations.
Specialized & Technical Support
Using a virtual assistant for sales and marketing is an excellent example of how VAs can benefit specific teams! Both teams often get bogged down with tedious tasks that can hinder their success.
Multiple studies show salespeople spend just 11%-36% of their time selling, while most of their time is spent on non-sales tasks. (Insidesales.com: 3
General admin tasks include:
- Graphic design
- Content creation
- Basic Web/SEO updates
- Project Management Support
Impact: Delivers specialized skills cost-effectively, avoiding the high cost of agencies or full-time specialists.
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Final Thought: You Don’t Have to Settle for “Good Enough”
We get it—money is tight, time is tighter, and doing more with less is the new normal.
But that doesn’t mean you have to settle for second-rate help or inconsistent results. With the right approach to quality control, outsourcing can be one of the best decisions you make for your business.
It frees up your time, reduces stress, and gives you access to real talent—without the overhead of hiring full-time staff.
So if you’re ready to delegate smarter and ensure excellence from day one, MS Partners is here to help you get there—without the guesswork, without the overwhelm.
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Find the right people
Need help finding the right VA and keeping quality high from the start?Let’s talk. Visit MSPartners.LLC and take your first step toward better support—and better business.
