How to Know if You’re Ready to Hire a Virtual Assistant for Wedding Creatives
Hey wedding pro! I see you out there hustling to grow your business and create the lifestyle you’ve always dreamed of. As a wedding business owner, I know you wear many hats, from CEO to social media manager to salesperson to marketing manager… Not to mention doing the actual work you love of wedding planning, wedding photography, wedding catering, wedding videography, or maybe even a combination of wedding services. On top of all of that, you’re striving to be the best partner, parent, friend, and family member you can be while also managing to find time to relax and recharge!
It's a lot for anyone to juggle and as your wedding business grows, balancing all of these roles simply grows more and more challenging. So at what point should you hire a virtual assistant? How do you know when it’s time and when you’re ready to grow your team? As a fellow wedding pro with 10+ years of experience, I know how nerve-wracking it can be to hire and delegate, but as a current virtual assistant for wedding creatives, I’m here to give you peace of mind about it and make the process as smooth as possible.
In this post, I’ll outline how to know if you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant from both a business and personal standpoint. We’ll explore the signs that indicate it's time to hire a virtual assistant and how a virtual assistant can be a game-changer for your business.
Let’s dive in!
Hire a Virtual Assistant Before You’re Ready
If there’s one key takeaway from this post, it’s this: Hire a virtual assistant before you’re ready.
This means hire a virtual assistant before your wedding calendar gets full to the point where you’re pushing admin tasks to the back burner. Hire a virtual assistant before busy season kicks off, so that your virtual assistant is fully up and running prior to the craziness. Ultimately, hire a virtual assistant before you become overwhelmed and burned out.
Take it from a wedding planner turned wedding caterer turned virtual assistant for wedding creatives: To protect your sanity and propel your business forward, you’re going to need some help. You may not feel ready, but think back to when you first hit “Publish” on your website or when you first posted on Instagram to announce your business’ launch. Did you feel 100% ready then? Chances are, you didn’t, but you took the plunge anyway.
Sometimes, it’s good and even necessary to feel scared in order to grow.
So if your business is starting to experience growth, you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant.
If you find yourself missing out on family time because you’re working or anticipate a busy personal season coming up, it’s time to hire a virtual assistant.
If you’re getting caught up in emails and computer work and miss working on your actual craft, you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant.
If any or all of the above sounds like you, let’s chat! I’m at your service, ready to effectively manage your business’ backend, so you can focus on what matters most to you.
Evaluate Your Book of Business
If you’re like my Type-A self, you love a good roadmap. A step-by-step checklist to accomplish a task or goal is my productivity love language! So let’s explore tangible and practical steps you can take to determine if you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant.
Step #1: Evaluate the current state of your wedding business.
Start tracking the number of incoming leads you receive per day, per week, and per month. Do you typically exchange a large number of emails before making the sale? Are you currently following up with leads as frequently and effectively as you can?
Then, see how many booked weddings you have on the calendar. This will show you which months will be your busiest onsite and therefore, which months you’ll have minimal time to take on new leads and when your client response time will be longest.
After your evaluation, you’ll be able to clearly see your business’ growth trends and if you’ll have enough time during peak season to still keep up with your business’ backend. If you find that you’re experiencing an uptick in business volume and want to preemptively manage the chaos of busy season, hit the button below:
Conduct a Time Analysis
Step #2 in determining if you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant is conducting a time analysis. Begin tracking how much time you spend doing key tasks in your day-to-day schedule. Important tasks to track include:
Answering Emails
Handling New Leads
Drafting Client Contracts
Building Client Invoices
Creating Timelines and Room Diagrams
Photo/Video Editing
Marketing Efforts – Including creating IG posts, blogging and crafting email newsletters
Following up with Clients - Ensuring they meet payment deadlines, gathering client questionnaires on time, checking on leads who haven’t responded back yet etc.
After tracking your time for a couple of weeks, highlight the top 3 tasks you spend the most time on. Are these tasks eating up your entire day? Is there a way you can be more efficient with your time (aka do you have systems in place or tools you can use to cut down on this time)?
Then, highlight the tasks that you dislike or even dread doing. Start to think about what you’d rather be doing or what would be a better use of your time instead of these tasks.
Soon after you begin tracking your time, you’ll realize just how much time you’re spending on all of the above when instead, you could be using that same time to pursue larger pieces of business, develop another income stream, expand to new markets, or simply enjoy doing the craft you love, whether that’s photography, videography, or floral arranging.
On average, I save my clients 15 hours per week in admin tasks.
That’s 60 hours a month, or 7.5 full work days, you can be putting to better use!
Whether you would use the additional time to grow your business or spend more quality time with your little ones, time is the most valuable gift I can give to you.
What could you do with a whole extra week in your month?
Establish Your Goals
Step #3 in figuring out if you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant is establishing both your business and personal goals. It’s time to reflect on why you started your wedding business in the first place and where you hope it can go in the coming years.
Maybe you’re aiming to grow your family and have a more flexible lifestyle to spend with them. Perhaps you’re building your empire and have dreams of expanding to new markets. Whatever your goals are, start to brainstorm baby steps on how to achieve them. Then, assess if you can accomplish each step on your own or if you need help to do so while still running the daily operations of your business.
Figure Out Your Finances
Our fourth and final step in determining if you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant is taking a good, honest look at your business finances. I know numbers and spreadsheets can be cumbersome, so grab your favorite beverage before starting this step!
Now, with an iced caramel latte (or whatever floats your boat!) in hand, evaluate your monthly revenue, expenses, and profit with the goal of answering these 3 questions:
Is my revenue steadily growing month-to-month?
Are all of my current expenses necessary?
Am I making enough profit to support my lifestyle?
If you answer ‘yes’ to all of these questions, you just might be ready to hire a virtual assistant!
Ready to Hire a Virtual Assistant?
After following the steps in this post, you’ll know if you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant! If you’re ready to take the plunge, make sure to read my next post on how to hire a virtual assistant.
Remember your time analysis and the highlighting we did in step #2? Save these! They’ll be invaluable in your search for a wedding virtual assistant. The highlighted tasks (the ones you spend the most time on and/or the ones you dislike) make up your delegation task list and the average time you spend on these tasks represents a good starting point for how much time it may take a virtual assistant to accomplish these same tasks. Both of these things are key pieces of information for your virtual assistant to know upfront!
Meet Your Wedding Virtual Assistant
Hi, I’m Jessica Hetu! I’m a virtual assistant for wedding creatives, who specializes in expertly managing your business’ backend, so you can focus on what matters most. In my 10+ year career in the wedding and event industry, I have been a wedding planner and coordinator, venue manager, and catering director, planning events at national brands like Walt Disney World, Loews Hotels, and Ritz-Carlton Orlando, to name a few.
When you work with my team and me, not only do you get a like-minded wedding & event creative, but you also get a new best “friendor!” We have hearts for service and are chronic perfectionists, so you can be confident that we will get the job done right with the same level of excellence you give to your clients.
Connect with me by hitting the button below and get ready to make some magic together!
