How A Virtual Assistant Can Improve Your Workflows

Workflow: The steps taken to reach an outcome, in the order they need to be taken and by whom.
System: The tools, triggers, and infrastructure needed to complete the workflow.

Even in the earliest days of your company's existence, developing and documenting procedures for your business workflows is essential. Every business, regardless of size or age, should have systems for every area of operation. 

Systems create consistency, and consistency is key to building consumer trust and loyalty. 

DO THE WORK TO DOCUMENT YOUR SYSTEM

Documenting a workflow can feel like a difficult task. To capture the entirety of the effort, you must move simultaneously in all directions - from the end result back to the beginning steps. You have to be able to see the entire forest as well as each individual tree. Many business owners fall into the trap of just doing and not documenting.

However, getting the "how this gets done" out of your head and capturing it in a document, Loom video, or process map can help your business succeed faster.

Why?

Because systems streamline the business tasks that repeat daily or month after month. Having a step-by-step workflow minimizes errors and increases efficiency. 

Having systems also allows you to outsource the workflow and trust the outcome will be the same as if you did it yourself.

And outsourcing your workflow to a talented, professional Freedom Maker virtual assistant can lead to a more efficient and effective system.

WHAT THE RIGHT VIRTUAL ASSISTANT CAN DO FOR YOU

At Freedom Makers Virtual Services, our military spouse virtual assistants are skilled at executing workflows and identifying any problems, friction, or repetition that the system may contain. From the smallest detail to the most critically complex process, Freedom Makers can take over those tasks and get the job done.

They can also make it better.

A Freedom Maker virtual assistant can also be tasked to identify new software platforms, cloud-based technologies, and automation techniques to improve your system and the individual steps within your workflow. 

You might be asking yourself, "why would I want a virtual assistant to change my business workflow? It took me forever to document this system; why would I want to change how we do business?"

IF IT ISN'T BROKEN. . . DO PREVENTATIVE MAINTENANCE AND LOOK AHEAD

History is riddled with failed businesses – successful, massive companies – that struggled to adapt to changing technologies and industry trends.

Take Kodak, for example. Despite inventing the digital camera in 1975 and producing a white paper that essentially foretold the future's reliance on digital camera technology, Kodak couldn't – or chose not – to pivot. A company that practically invented consumer photography and grew to have over 140,000 employees over a century in business did not adapt to 21st-century emerging technology or the disruptive focus in their business environment. They didn't change. And in 2012, Kodak filed for bankruptcy.

You can more easily adapt by constantly looking for ways to improve your business systems through emerging platforms. Every business environment goes through upheavals at some point in time due to market forces and changing consumer needs. To stay in business, a company has to ride the wave of innovation. 

Being willing to change can make your company more agile, more productive, and more competitive – and help ensure its survival.

As a business owner, you need people on your team who are continually looking for ways to streamline systems both for efficiency and cost savings.

A Freedom Maker virtual assistant can do that for you. 

HOW FREEDOM MAKERS HELP YOU IDENTIFY AREAS FOR IMPROVEMENT

If you've brought a Freedom Maker onto your team to help you execute some of your established systems, you may have assumed that she would simply take that workflow off your plate and execute it as you would have. And they will do just that.

You have "Se It And Forget It" triggers and workflows, and your virtual assistant will execute those to the highest degree of professionalism and efficiency.

And then they can do so much more for you.

Because virtual assistants sit outside of your business and likely have other clients, they often perform different types of support endeavors in divergent industries. To remain competitive in the burgeoning virtual assistant career field, they must know and train on a wide variety of platforms. Freedom Makers have a range of skills and depth of technical acumen, making them capable in many areas.

They have their hands in many pots.

Freedom Maker virtual assistants have a bias toward learning that can be an extraordinary benefit to small business owners who don't have the time or capacity to be forward-looking themselves. 

Working for multiple clients affords a Freedom Maker to experience different management styles and learn the ins and outs of different workflows and business systems. They see how other businesses work.

Why not take advantage of that "insider" knowledge?

Your Freedom Maker may be able to identify other methods or technologies that could help you improve your workflows and streamline your systems. You did the heavy lifting, getting your business up and running and creating the processes that make your business work.

Your Freedom Maker virtual assistant can help you with your second draft.

Freedom Maker virtual assistants are independent professionals providing critical support services to businesses and entrepreneurs from their remote environments. They are highly-skilled contractors that can help a company with a variety of tasks, ranging from administrative and technical to marketing and creative work.

They are hard-working customer service specialists, executive assistants, social media creators and blog writers, and data and operations managers. They have extensive experience on platforms and like:

• Asana, Process Street, Trello, Clio, Microsoft Planner, etc.
• Zoho
• MailChimp
• Salesforce
• Streak
• Quickbooks
• Google Suite
  
  

Some of the more experienced Freedom Makers know which online platforms would work best for you and can assist in setting up and managing them. Once a project management platform is set up, we have virtual assistants who can help with the business's operations.

Contact Freedom Makers Virtual Services today to start documenting, streamlining, or improving your business systems.