Over the past few years, an increasing number of businesses have moved to models of online, remote, and hybrid working. This more flexible approach to work location is often good for employee work-life balance and can also reduce premises and on-costs for businesses. It has also facilitated new means of business support, including the hiring of virtual assistants.
Why working with Virtual Assistants (VAs) is great for businesses
We’ve written before about the advantages of working with virtual assistants, such as:
– Routine costs (equipment, accommodation, holiday/sick pay, etc.) rest with the VA rather than the business.
– VAs are a fully flexible resource and businesses only pay for the support they need.
– VAs are easier and more cost-effective to recruit than traditional staff.
Some industries were quick to capitalise on these benefits and have been working with VAs for years, whereas others are only starting to move towards virtual business support after the pandemic.
How VAs can support skilled and professional business sectors
Businesses in professional sectors like law, property, finance, and medicine, work hard to develop a reputation and earn the trust of their clients. It’s important therefore that they’re represented by skilled and experienced staff. This is where hiring a VA can help.
An experienced VA will have spent many years working in a professional firm. They’re used to following (and developing) processes and protocols, have outstanding organisational skills, and are used to working with senior staff members.
Our founder, Kellie, worked in the legal sector as a PA for 20 years before starting Kellie Simpson Business Support. Many of our team have followed similar paths, developing the transferrable skills that make VAs such valuable assets.
Transferrable skills a VA could bring to your business
Many core VA skills are transferrable and so can add value to any business, these include: audio typing, executive assistance (diary, travel management), setting up processes, onboarding clients, copywriting, and wider business support. To find out more, check out our services.
Our specialisms – Legal, Property, Finance & Medical
As well as transferrable skills, our Virtual Assistants all have their own specialist areas of experience. These are the sectors where they have niche knowledge and skills. We like to call these ‘our zones of genius’ and it’s where we can really go the extra mile in supporting your business. For us, these sectors are legal, property, finance & medical.
Why specialist sector support matters
Working with a VA experienced in your sector is important. Professional sectors have their own language (e.g. medical or legal terms), specific documents that are created to a set format and style, and ways of working that can be difficult for those not familiar with the industry to grasp. By working with a specialist VA, you’re working with someone who understands your business, its priorities and specifics.
Legal virtual business support
The legal sector is where it all began for our Director Kellie Simpson. It’s no surprise then, that we’ve supported many legal firms since we started.
Services we can help legal businesses with include: Client onboarding, legal transcriptions, legal CRM and business development, legal document creation, minute-taking and much more – check out 5 tasks that you could outsource to a legal PA or 11 top tips for organising your law firm for details.
Expertise and experience: As well as Kellie, our associates Nicola, Fabienne, Jacqueline, Tracey, Cheryl, Tracey, Maggie, Katryna, Sophie, Phoebe and Kay all have legal support backgrounds, working in law firms of varying sizes in a range of roles, including EA, PA, Paralegal and Legal Secretary.
Legal clients we’re currently supporting: Law firms (boutique and traditional) and legal consultancies.
Virtual Assistant support for the property sector
The property and real estate sectors are great examples of areas where virtual assistants can add a lot of value. It’s an admin-intensive area of work that requires great organisation and being able to track multiple workstreams – all core VA skills.
Services we can help property businesses with: Preparing listings, marketing, form submissions (HMRC/HMLR), completion statements, client liaison and property management.
Expertise and experience: Our associate Fabienne is an experienced Paralegal and Property Management VA. Fabienne supports property clients with marketing and listing properties, viewings, drafting tenant agreements, referencing and credit checks, inspections, property management, liaising with tenants and property developers, and dealing with disputes and S21s. Our associate Phoebe is an experienced property administrator with over five years of experience in conveyancing. She offers support to professional service providers including lawyers, conveyancers and accountants.
Property clients we’re currently supporting: Party wall surveyor and a property auctioneer.
We also support one of our legal clients with property management, including:
- Organising filing cabinets, archiving, and arranging document collection.
- Researching utility providers.
- Researching and liaising with other suppliers and potential suppliers.
- Researching and buying office equipment.
- Arranging and overseeing maintenance jobs on the property.
Virtual Business Support for Finance businesses
Supporting clients in the financial sector requires great accuracy and attention to detail – qualities that VAs are known for.
Services we can help financial businesses with: data entry, issuing and tracking invoices, reconciling accounts, legal financial documents (estate planning and wills) and preparing financial reports.
Expertise and experience: A number of our associates have worked with financial businesses and supported businesses with financial processes. This includes helping with estate planning, wills, invoicing, bookkeeping and financial reports.
Finance clients we’re currently supporting: Independent financial advisor.
Virtual assistants and the medical sector
Businesses in the medical sector are perhaps some of the newer firms to start working with virtual assistants. However, VAs are used to working with sensitive and personal data and can effectively support busy medical professionals in their business.
Services we can help medical businesses with include: Audio transcription of reports, letters, telephone notes and writing notes of court hearings.
Expertise and experience: Our associate Tracey is an experienced Medical and Legal PA supporting medical businesses with audiotyping and data entry.
Medical clients we support: A neuropsychologist and a clinical negligence firm.
Start working with a VA in your business
No matter what sector your business operates in, we can provide you with a skilled and professional virtual assistant. They’ll get to know your business and help with whatever business challenges you’re facing. If you operate in one of our zones of genius, you’ll be matched with a VA experienced in your field.
Want to find out what it’s like to work with us? Check out our blog post; Want to lighten your workload? What it’s like to work with us…
If you’re ready to get started, book a call with Kellie today.
