A common reason virtual assistants or affiliate managers don’t hire extra help is they think they’ll lose their clients. They reason that clients only want their projects completed by them and not someone else.

While it is true that some clients may tell you they only want your work on their most important projects, this doesn’t mean you can’t contain a multi-VA team to get some help.

When a client tells you this, it’s your opportunity to explain to her the benefits of working with a VA or affiliate manager that’s capable of directing a virtual assisting team, instead of trying to do it all herself.

In fact, if your client is already outsourcing to you, there’s a good chance that she’ll understand the benefits of outsourcing. She may need to be reassured that subcontractors will give her projects the same care and priority that you do.

Benefits of Working With Your Team

1. Each member of your virtual assistant team is an expert in a specific skill. She only takes care of that part of the project and so she can give it her full attention and talent. Instead of undertaking all kinds of work, she is master of one that will greatly benefit your client’s business. For example, if one of your team members is in charge of creating graphics for your client’s site, she’s not going to be worried about the HTML, WordPress or hosting. She’s going to concentrate her full creative repertoire on the graphics task at hand.

2. Everyone will be able to produce their specific work at a faster rate with more talented people covering different tasks on the project. How many times, when you know you have a huge project to do, have you hesitated getting started? Or maybe, it takes it takes you longer to do the work. Some people get overwhelmed when they realize a huge project is due at a certain time. But with several subcontractors working on certain parts of a project, productivity is definitely increased.

3. As the project manager, you’ll review every piece of the project, so it will be double checked. Most people who work alone in the service industry don’t have the luxury of providing more than one set of eyes to check projects for mistakes, errors and other fundamentals.

Once your client understands that you are mentoring a team of people and not just allowing anyone to help with projects, hopefully she’ll come around. She’ll probably realize that your subcontractors also benefit her and that you would only let talented and creative people work for you. If a client doesn’t understand that you sometimes need help, perhaps it’s time to find a new client and let this one go.

Leading Your Team

Now that you have your client’s trust, make sure you are leading your team. Only hire subcontractors who you trust and know will do the best job. They should be capable of maintaining or exceeding your standards and expectations.

If you’re concerned about subcontractors or your virtual assistant team taking your client’s work, you can always give only small parts of the project to each subcontractor. This way they won’t fully know what it’s about. Don’t tell them the client’s name. Also, make sure your contracts include confidentiality and non-compete clauses.

Virtual assistants offer many services to clients, which may result in a heavy workload. You also may have realized that you don’t have the required skills to complete every task your clients – or potential clients – need. One solution is to outsource some work to a subcontractor.

You may have already turned down clients when your project calendar filled up, sent clients to a colleague or tried to meet their needs and couldn’t fulfill their expectations. A professional subcontractor that complements your skills can ease the stress from these problems and help you stay on track.

Why You Need a Subcontractor Today

1. Subcontractors Can Take the Extra Work

A subcontractor can allow you more free time for other projects, which will increase your income. For example, let’s say you schedule twenty hours of work in one week for two clients. By hiring a subcontractor, you can schedule in two more clients or another twenty hours of work that week.

Even though it costs money to hire a contractor, you still make a profit on those extra hours you were able to schedule. Also, you’re not paying hourly or weekly wages but only for completed projects. You’re the project manager, quality control officer and client liaison. You assign projects, make sure they’re done correctly and communicate with both the client and subcontractor.

2. Subcontractors Can Add New Skills

Subcontractors or a virtual assistant team can help you expand your services because they may have specified skills. For example, if your virtual team specializes in writing blog posts for your clients, you could hire a web design contractor to set up new sites or change the design of existing ones. This gives you a broader range of services you can offer and a better opportunity to meet clients needs.

3. Subcontractors Mean Less Paperwork

There are several advantages of hiring subcontractors instead of employees. A subcontractor comes with her own office, her own equipment and usually previous training in different types of services. She often has her own service business and will ensure she keeps a good reputation by doing the best job she can do for you. A subcontractor is responsible for her own taxes, sets her own hours and is self-motivated. You only pay her for the work she completes.

The downside of hiring employees is they need to work from your office and you need to provide equipment and essential materials. While there are many excellent employees, you may also need to provide training because they’re not in business for themselves. You would have to set her hours and pay for the hours she’s on the clock even if she doesn’t do a good job. You’re responsible for withholding taxes, Social Security and taking care of all the paperwork.

Growing Your Business with Subcontractors

Hiring a subcontractor or a mentor with expertise can be a moderately low cost way to grow your business to grow your business. It benefits you, the service provider who gets the help she needs, and the subcontractor, and gets to work she and she needs.

If you are looking to add more to your business skills why not Become a Blog Consultant

A subcontractor helps you with work projects, which has a variety of advantages. The relationship between you, as a service provider, and your subcontractors is important for successful. The fact that you’re making your clients happy and your subcontractors are getting work is just the tip of the iceberg.

Growing Your Business with a Team

It can be difficult to grow your home business on your own. If you’re working alone, you can become overwhelmed if you take on too many projects. If you get sick, have an accident or just want to go on a vacation, you’re stuck, because you don’t have anyone to take care of necessary tasks.

If you’re busy doing everything in your business without help, you won’t find the time to do marketing and find more clients. You need more clients to replace those that move on and to continue to grow.

When you hire a subcontractor or mentor, that does high-quality work, you can outsource part of your projects, or even the whole project. A good relationship helps ensure you can trust this person to handle confidential jobs.

Your Management Role

If you are a virtual assistant, one of your job duties is to serve as a manager for your clients’ projects. You’re probably experienced and know who your target market is and realize that individual clients expect high quality work that’s delivered on time.

Your subcontractor may be new to the VA business but may have experience in secretarial or administrative work. She may also work in specialized areas such as blog design or media planning but needs to learn more about owning her own business so she can add more to her portfolio.

Likewise, let’s say you’re an affiliate manager, your responsibility is to make sure your affiliates have the materials and answers they need, and to find out what those are. Subcontractors or multi-VA’s with a variety of skills will work with you to create materials and come up with those answers.

So not only are you growing your business, you’re helping your subcontractor grow hers. It’s the perfect solution to help each other.

Increasing Profits and Capacity

As you become more comfortable working with subcontractors, you’ll be able to build a trusted virtual assistant team to help with all kinds of tasks.

For example, if you’re a VA who provides web content to your clients, you might subcontract to a VA who specializes in audio and video. The content you write is turned into a podcast and a video cast, which then helps grow your client’s business.

You could even outsource work to a VA with web design and SEO experience. This allows you to offer more of a variety of services. You’ll attract more clients if you offer many services, which means an increase in the amount of money you bring in.

Also, your productivity will be higher when you outsource projects because more work will get done. You may be able to only work 20 hours a week, but if you hire three subcontractors and each of them works 10 hours a week for you, you’ll be able to complete 50 hours of work per week.

When you bill your client, one option is to charge for the time your subcontractor spent working and for the time you spent managing the project. Some subcontractors charge by the hour or offer a flat fee for each project so you could setup a per-project fee that includes the amount they charge and the amount that you charge for your project management services.

Competent subcontractors or mentors bring their expertise to your VA business. More than one person working on a on a project, adds additional quality and makes it easier to meet deadlines.

As your business grows, you can accept more clients feeling confident that you can give them what they want. Your subcontractors will have more opportunities to grow their businesses with your guidance.