Kids Back at School? Now Might Be the Perfect Time to Hire a Virtual Assistant

The summer holidays are nearly over. The uniforms are (hopefully) sorted, the school bags are ready to go, and you can practically hear small business owners across the country breathing a collective sigh of relief.

You love your kids, obviously. But trying to run a business while simultaneously keeping children entertained for six weeks? That's a bloody challenge.

September often feels like a fresh start for small business owners. The kids are back at school, your normal routine is returning and, suddenly, you've got those precious working hours back.

But here's the catch...

Having more time to work on your business doesn't necessarily mean you suddenly have more time to do everything in your business. In fact, September can be the perfect time to think about hiring a virtual assistant.

More working hours often means more work

You've spent weeks squeezing client calls around days out, replying to emails while the kids are occupied and generally doing your best to keep everything ticking over.

Now they're heading back to school, you might finally have the capacity to take on those extra clients you've been putting off, increase your appointments, work on new products or start pushing for more sales.

Brilliant! Except all that lovely extra business comes with more work.

Your social media still needs content. Your mailing list still needs emails. Your website could probably do with a fresh blog post. There are graphics to make, captions to write and approximately 473 other things sitting on your to-do list.

Suddenly those extra six hours don't feel quite so generous.

Your time is probably better spent elsewhere

One of the hardest things about running a small business is accepting that just because you can do something yourself doesn't mean you should.

Could you spend an hour making graphics for Instagram? Of course.

Could you sit down and write your own email marketing campaign? Absolutely.

Could you spend an afternoon researching and writing a blog post?

Yep.

But is that really the best use of your time?

If you're a therapist, beautician, coach, consultant, online retailer or any other type of small business owner, chances are the thing that actually makes your business money is the service or product you provide.

Every hour spent faffing around trying to think of an Instagram caption is an hour you could potentially spend with a client, processing orders, developing your services or simply finishing work on time for once.

This is where a virtual assistant comes in

Hiring a VA doesn't mean handing over your entire business and disappearing into the sunset. Although that does sound lovely. It means choosing the tasks that are eating into your time and giving them to somebody who actually wants to do them.

At Pryer Assistants, my three main areas of support are:

Social media management – helping you keep your business visible online without having to constantly think about what you're going to post next.

Email marketing – creating and sending emails that keep your business in front of your audience, rather than letting your mailing list gather dust for another six months.

Blog writing – keeping your website updated with useful, relevant content that showcases your expertise and gives potential customers another way to discover your business.

I also offer additional virtual assistant services depending on what your business needs. The goal isn't to add another complication to your business. It's to take some of the bloody work away from you.

September doesn't have to mean doing everything yourself again

There's something about September that always feels a little bit like January 2.0.

New routines. Fresh motivation. Time to get organised and finally tackle all those things you've been putting off. But before you fill every newly available hour with more work, think about which parts of your business genuinely need you.

If you're hoping to take on more clients, increase your orders or simply give your business a proper push as we head towards the final few months of the year, outsourcing some of your workload could give you the space to actually do that.

Because getting the kids back to school might give you more hours in the day...

But that doesn't mean you have to fill every single one of them with your to-do list.

If social media, email marketing or blog writing is already making you think, "I really need to sort that out...", I can help. Visit the Pryer Assistants website to find out more about my virtual assistant services and how I can support your small business remotely.

Let's get some of that shit off your to-do list!