I didn’t really intend for this to be virtual assistant week… it just slipped into that way. Originally Beachgirl asked me how I found my virutal assistant and then Blogging Banks did the same. When I gave a quick write-up on how to find a virtual assistant, Single Ma thought that the idea of hiring an assistant is silly. That naturally leads to today’s topic of why one might hire a virtual assistant.

The most obvious reason why anyone would hire anyone is efficiency. Let’s pretend that I like being a software engineer and I’m good at it. People in Silicon Valley would easily paid $100 and hour for this. Let’s also say that I’m really bad at changing the oil in my car and mowing my lawn – especially because this is true. Together these tasks would take me an hour easy. However, an oil change is around $25 (though it takes a few minutes of my time for the quick change place) and mowing a lawn could also be $25 (depending on the size of the lawn and the neighborhood kid I hire) and might take none of my time. Each job is done better than I could have done it. The key factor is that I can write software for an extra hour… and come out $50 ahead, and feel less stress. This is especially true when it comes to hiring some housekeeping services. I’m really inefficient in cleaning and I don’t really care to be more efficent – it doesn’t interest me.

The same concept holds in the virtual world. While I might be able to format, edit, add a picture, and publish my own content relatively efficiently (I do for all Lazy Man branded sites), there are some cases where I can practically be in more places at one time due to the virtual assistant. It goes back to the classic stand-by… time is money. Well, I’m buying more time for my money. That comes down to the value that you are getting for your money. Without a virtual assistant, I would have to be much less Lazy… and that’s a bad thing.