One of the most obvious ways a Virtual Assistant can help your business involves your word-processing. It’s also one of the ways that I think is most underrated.
I bet most of you have at one time or another decided to “knock something together” because anyone can type. Right? Well, I hate to tell you, you’re probably a wee bit delusional – in the loveliest way possible of course.
Here’s 5 ways that a Virtual Assistant can help with your word-processing that make us more efficient and effective than doing it yourself:
1. We probably type faster than you
Even though these days most people can touch type quite quickly, we’re not only touch-typing dynamos, we’re also super smart shortcut setter uppers. What does that mean? It means that we know keyboard shortcuts, we’ve probably already setup autocorrect for words and phrases we use a lot and we know how to get things done with a minimum number of keystrokes.
2. We know how to format properly
I’m sometimes surprised by the number of documents I receive from people with words spaced across to wherever they’re supposed to be on the page – as if pressing space 32 times was easier than hitting the “centre” button. Or they have something tabbed across 5 times with however many extra spaces are needed to align several rows, rather than set 1 tab and align everything to that. We insert page breaks instead of hitting enter 8 times. We know how to set tabs, we know how to do borders, how to bold, we can even do blinking text if you really want it and our taste buds are on holiday. It might not seem important to you, but it can make a huge difference when documents are being edited and it’s definitely a major issue if you’re planning on putting anything on the web.
3. We know how to work the numbered headings and can occasionally edit a whole document without the numbering (and us) going crazy
You know what I mean? You spend two hours numbering a document then move the cursor and BOOM! the numbering seems to have been put through a randomiser. Now really, wouldn’t you rather someone else has to deal with that? We’ve been there, done that and have the stress eating waistlines to prove it. Not to mention, it probably happens a lot less to us than it does to you.
4. We know a lot of other Virtual Assistants – one of whom can always be relied on to know how to do whatever it is we need to do.
Mostly, I do better at learning if I have to figure something out for myself. But with a huge network of Virtual Assistants to ask for help, it doesn’t matter if you’re document is super urgent – someone will be able to tell us how to do it. Or if it’s outside our skill area – there’ll be someone who can do it for you. And it won’t be like you’ve had to find a random Virtual Assistant to take over, it will be someone who is part of a network of professionals that we recommend, and of course your regular Virtual Assistant will double check it before it’s returned.
5. We understand document structures.
Which means we know how to set up headers & footers so they do what you want them to do. We can put section breaks in AND we can edit a document with section breaks without making them go all wonky. We know how to use text boxes and tables and how to do watermarks and borders. Most importantly, we can do things so that in future a document can be edited rather than retyped or repurposed without causing major problems.
So that’s my top 5 list of favourites – what about you? Do you have any word-processing problems you’d like help with? Ask away and I’ll see if I can answer.
