Having good office support staff can be a key ingredient in growing an audiology practice. Without office help, the practitioner not only is required to serve as specialist and owner but also as an administrator. While this certainly helps cut down on initial overhead, it actually can prevent business growth by forcing you to waste your time doing extra work when you could be seeing (and billing) patients.

This is a scenario that most small business owners know well, and it has aided the growth of the burgeoning field of virtual assistants (VAs), contracted entrepreneurs who offer administrative services from a home office without the financial complications that come with a traditional assistant.

"What happens when money gets tight is people try to do everything, and then everything suffers," says Stacy Brice, founder of the VA profession and CEO of AssistU, a virtual organization committed to training, coaching, supporting, and certifying VAs. "Even in these tough economic times, one of the smartest things people can do is get the administrative support they really need, so it frees them up to work with more clients and make more money. Getting a VA is a great way to do that, because you don't have to deal with all the additional expenses that come with a traditional assistant."

The concept of a virtual assistant may seem cutting edge, but it's actually been around since the mid-90s. Brice, a Baltimore-based travel agent, pioneered the profession when she grew tired of working for agencies and started her own home-based business in 1992, expanding her offerings to cover administrative tasks.

While training to become a professional coach at Coach U, Brice began to see the possibilities of virtual assistance, and so in 1997 she combined her experiences as a VA and coach and formalized the profession by creating AssistU.

Since then, AssistU has trained over 1000 people in its 20-week program, and the profession has grown legs of its own. Other programs, such as the VA Technical School, and even a Virtual Assistant Chamber of Commerce (VACOC), have been developed.

"My original thought was this could really be an industry-this could be something of its own," Brice says. "It's really been a very organic growth. I think we've really settled as an industry."

As Brice puts it, a VA can do all the things an administrative assistant does, but from a distance. This includes handling calls and e-mails, making appointments and travel arrangements, ordering supplies, bookkeeping, creating newsletters, and so forth. However, many VAs also have developed areas of expertise, making it possible to find one with the specific skills that match your needs.

"You're not limited to a local talent pool," Brice says. "The best VA's for any particular business owner may not be sitting right down the street. The person could be in a different state, in another country hypothetically. And that may be not only the person who has great skills, but the person that fits with you and your ideas about how you want your business to run."

Virtual assistants can go beyond administrative tasks; some have experience in creating and maintaining various multimedia, including podcasts, webinars, blogs, and Web sites. This can be a great service to small business owners, who often don't know how to develop a presence on the Web.

"What often happens with 'solo-preneurs,' especially when they're starting out, is that they know they want to have a Web site, but they don't really know the first thing about what to do," says Kristy Schnabel, virtual assistant and owner of It's Virtually Done, LLC. "It's so great for them to be able to delegate tasks like that."

Although not being able to see one's assistant can be a hard sell for some people, the evolving role of technology as a mainstream entity is constantly making it easier to adjust. With people using the Internet to connect on social networks, pay bills, shop, and even find dates, virtual assistance is hardly a stretch.

"It's surprising how many tasks can be accomplished off site nowadays with computers. There are a lot of tasks that the VA can do that an audiologist has been meaning to get around to for a long time and that don't need an audiologist to perform," says Kristy's sister-in-law Beverly Schnabel, AuD, CCC-A, owner of Lovejoy Audiology in Portland, OR.

Dr. Schnabel utilizes Kristy's services to produce mailing labels and assist with computer problems. Although she hasn't required much help beyond that, Dr. Schnabel said she would definitely recommend using a VA to other audiologists.

"It's perfect because they are independent contractors," she says. "You don't have to hire an employee, which gets rid of a lot of the liabilities of having an employee."

Their status as independent contractors is what makes VAs so affordable. Unlike traditional employees, you don't have to get involved in medical benefits, vacation and sick time, insurance, or even office furniture and equipment-you just pay a straight hourly fee for services. Annualized, these fees might be higher than the typical administrative assistant's salary, but you only pay for actual hours worked instead of a standard 40-hour work week. You also escape employment costs like mandatory contributions to Social Security and unemployment insurance. Some financial analysts estimate that employing someone full time actually costs 25 percent more than the employee's actual salary. With VAs you avoid these extra costs, and because you can contract on hourly or retainer rates, you pay for 100-percent productive time, which can be especially helpful for small practices that can't afford to guarantee full-time wages for minimal need.

"If a professional needs assistance for two hours one month, maybe five hours the next, the hourly rate contract is a great fit for them because it can really help with their budget and looking at what's going to work well for their business needs," says Kelly Johnson, virtual assistant and owner of Cornerstone Virtual Assistance. "They don't have to worry about paying for office space and office equipment for that assistant, a 401K plan, insurance. It's literally just paying for the time to have that project completed."

Working with a VA also can save money in the long run since a VA is not only an assistant, but also a fellow business owner who has experience dealing with a wide variety of other businesses.

"It helps them quickly understand some of the things their clients are talking about," says Brice. "You don't need to explain to them, 'Look, I need to find E&O (errors and omission) insurance.' They know what E&O insurance is; an employee may have never even heard of E&O insurance, what it is or why it's important."

This understanding of the practical and legal aspects of forming, running, growing, and marketing a business can result in your VA acting as a de facto consultant. "Our clients realize that because we're business owners, we can be sounding boards for them and can help share some of our experiences and perspectives as a small business owner and really help them," says Johnson.

On an individual basis, saving on supplies or benefits for one employee may not seem like much, but when taken as a whole, it can be a huge cost-cutting technique. And that doesn't even include the money you can save by having your administrative assistance, multimedia development and business consulting all come from the same person. Brice, who began using a VA several years ago, has experience on both sides of the relationship and, although she sometimes goes over her 10-hour retainer, she has never spent more than $700 a month.

"The only downside that I've ever, ever, ever found is that there are some things that VAs literally cannot do. They cannot go into the kitchen at your office and make coffee," she says. "Otherwise, I get all the great administrative help, so I can do what I'm really good at, while my VA makes me look brilliant by handling everything else."

Frank Visco is editorial assistant for ADVANCE for Audiologists. Contact him at fvisco@advanceweb.com.