Operating a successful construction business is hard. Not only do you have to worry about landing new projects and delivering them on time and on budget. There are also plenty of other tedious but necessary tasks to do, including admin work like document management, scheduling, and customer support to marketing tasks like lead generation, social media management, and more. However, while these tasks can easily overwhelm any business, hiring a contractor virtual assistant is the perfect solution to this problem.
Still, hiring a contractor virtual assistant to aid with your construction business isn’t always a sure thing. You have to know what you’re doing and how to best utilize their skillset to see the best results. So, just what is a contractor virtual assistant in the first place and how can you use them to maximize your construction company’s productivity?
What is a Contractor Virtual Assistant and What Do They Do?
A contractor virtual assistant is a virtual assistant that’s equipped with a skillset fine-tuned to aid with contracting and construction projects. Their job is to make your life easier by handling a wide variety of different tasks, including aiding in the management of projects, inventories, scheduling, estimates, submittals, documents, accounting, insurance, customer support, and even marketing tasks like social media management, SEO, and lead generation.
All of this allows you to free up more of your time to focus on the bigger picture while your contractor virtual assistant takes care of all the boring leg work. Still, this isn’t the only thing that contractor virtual assistants have to offer.
Regardless of whether you hire a contractor virtual assistant or an additional full-time worker, someone will have to do all of these tasks in order for your business to be a success. The main difference between the two is that hiring a contractor virtual assistant could potentially cost only about half of what hiring a new full-time worker would cost, allowing not only for increased productivity but also significant reductions in overhead costs.
At the end of the day, if you have extra work that needs to be done, there’s really no downside to hiring a contractor virtual assistant for your construction business. Especially if you know how to best utilize them.
How to Maximize Productivity With a Contractor Virtual Assistant
Now that you know exactly what a contractor virtual assistant does and how they can help you better run your construction business, it’s essential to learn strategies that will help you get the most out of them. So, if you recently hired a contractor virtual assistant or plan to hire one in the near future, here is everything you need to know about how to utilize them to maximize productivity.
Clear and Effective Communication
Communication is key when it comes to any successful working relationship, and it’s no different when you hire a contractor virtual assistant. You’ll want to make sure that you can quickly and easily communicate with each other no matter whether it takes the form of emails, messages, or video calls. This will make it much easier for you to effectively communicate your expectations as well as any impending deadlines.
Additionally, you should put effort into scheduling regular check-in meetings as this will prevent any problems from building up over time and keep both you and your virtual assistant well-informed of any new developments.
Utilize Technology and Project Management Tools
By nature, contractor virtual assistants are virtual, meaning that while they are a real person, they won’t physically be on the job site or in your office. This makes it incredibly important to leverage technology, apps, and websites like Slack, ClickUp, Trello, and Asana to facilitate communication and ensure the proper management of tasks and projects.
Prioritize and Delegate the Right Tasks
This one is completely on you and may take some time to figure out, but it’s also crucial that you prioritize and delegate the right tasks for your virtual assistant to take care of. This will require you to get to know your assistant in order to get a better understanding of their skillset and what tasks they particularly excel at and enjoy.
However, you should also make sure that the tasks you delegate to them are the ones that you and your team struggle with the most and take up the most time. This ensures that your team will get everything done as efficiently as possible.
Encourage Collaboration
Along the same lines as promoting clear communication, you should also encourage your virtual assistant to collaborate with you on your projects. While their focus should undoubtedly be on the administrative tasks that take up the most time, this shouldn’t stop you from asking them for their input and ideas. After all, no man is an island, and their input could lead to even more efficient and productive operations.
Invest in Further Training
Further developing the members of your team should always be a priority, but you should be sure not to forget about your new virtual assistant as well. While they may be busy with all the work you assign them, both you and your assistant could benefit from investing in new training that widens the scope of what they can do for you. So, if you already have development and training resources available to the rest of your team, make sure that you give your new assistant access to those resources, too.
Contact Virtual Construction Assistants Today
Are you looking for a virtual assistant specifically for the construction industry? Contact Virtual Construction Assistants. Their team is always there to answer your questions and will happily help you find the perfect construction project assistant for your business or next project.
Whether you need help with administrative work, project management, marketing, or anything else, the team at Virtual Construction Assistants will take the time to get to know you and your needs, ensuring that they find the best fit for your specific situation. So, don’t get bogged down by all tedious day-to-day tasks that are better left to someone else. Contact Virtual Construction Assistants and take your construction business to the next level today!