Why You Need a Virtual Assistant for Your Music Business

The music industry and business world are changing rapidly, especially as we face these challenging unprecedented times.

Even in the best of times, many musicians and musicpreneurs face an overwhelming workload and stretch themselves thin learning all the things that are involved in running their career or business from bookkeeping to marketing to social media and everything in between. They don’t have time to strategize and grow the business because they’re working in the business on routine tasks.

But now, as we face the uncertainty of COVID-19 and stay at home orders around the country (and world!), many musicians and business owners are trying to figure out the nuances of running an online business. From setting up a website to understanding what platforms work best to host courses and livestreams, many musicpreneurs and business owners are looking for help in bringing their business fully online to serve their audience.

If you’re stretched thin, performing routine tasks that prevent you from growing your career or business, or need help bringing. your business online, then you might want to consider hiring a virtual assistant.

What is a virtual assistant?

A virtual assistant (VA) is just that - an assistant (think personal assistant, executive assistant, admin, etc.) who works remotely and handles specific tasks. They help handle various tasks so you can focus your time and energy on other things - from client meetings to big picture thinking that will help you bring in more revenue.

They can also help you navigate through new technology and platforms, help you bring your business online (especially right now as all non-essential businesses are shuttered), and give you peace of mind when you need to focus on something else or even take time off from your business for personal reasons.

What can a virtual assistant do?

Think of a task and there’s probably a VA out there who can do it for you. Virtual assistants have specialties in all things ranging from general administrative work including but definitely not limited to: data entry, email management, calendar management, social media management, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), website maintenance, copy writing…

You name it and there’s a VA out there who can do it for you.

Why hire a virtual assistant?

If you’re anything like me, I’m sure you want to do all the things because only you can do it right, am I right?

But I can guarantee you’re probably overwhelmed with day-to-day tasks, figuring out how to make a particular platform work, and not able to spend time on the big picture. A virtual assistant can help with all of that.

And I’m sure you’re thinking “But a VA costs money and I just don’t know if I can afford that!”

I know, I get it. Sometimes you’re just not making enough income to bring in an employee. But first, I want you to think about this:

If you could eliminate the day-to-day tasks that take up all your time and focus on the big picture - connecting with new clients, launching new services and products, and doing the activities that will help your business grow and scale - what would your revenue and profit look like then? Could you now afford a VA?

I’m not saying hire a VA full time. Many VAs (myself included) offer packages of hours anywhere from just a few hours a month to nearly full time. Some are also flexible, allowing you to 1. purchase a package and rollover any unused hours to the next month or 2. create a custom package of hours based on your needs.

You also don’t have to worry about office or (most) technology overhead with a VA. We bring our own laptops, phones, hardware, and often software. You only need to provide access to the particular platforms or software you use for your business (think WordPress, ConvertKit, Canva, etc.).

Still not sure if you need a virtual assistant?

Here are three reasons to consider hiring a virtual assistant to help you with your music career or business:

1. You’re working hard every day, but your business isn’t moving forward

Think about all the things you do in a day: it’s a lot, isn’t it?

Tell me this: do you have time to grow your business with all those repetitive day-to-day tasks?

Now think about this: if you could take even half of those tasks off your plate, how much would your business grow?

A virtual assistant can take all those day-to-day tasks off your plate so you can work on your business instead of in your business. You’ll have time to grow and scale, to meet with clients, to write and record, and to work on the things that truly matter to you. You won’t be bogged down by the intricacies of uploading and publishing a blog post, optimizing your website for the best SEO, writing out the show notes for your podcast episodes, or sorting through the junk emails to get to what’s important.

With a virtual assistant handling the repetitive and day-to-day tasks, you’ll be far more productive and have time to build out the important parts of your business or music career.

2. You don’t have the expertise in a particular area of your business

Virtual assistants are often specialists in their field or in particular online platforms.

There are virtual assistants that specialize in general tasks such as email management, calendar management, or basic research. There are virtual assistants that specialize in particular online platforms such as Leadpages, Squarespace, Dubsado, Teachable, or WebinarJam. There are virtual assistants that know the ins-and-outs of copyrighting, royalty splits, navigating merch web stores, and adding your next LP to TuneCore or DistroKid.

While you’re a specialist in the core of your business or artist career, whether you write, produce, manage, or create in some other form, you probably don’t have the experience or knowledge (or even patience for) of other tasks that keep your business running or get your name out there. So why waste your time learning or using those platforms when you can delegate that task to a virtual assistant (and thus use your time wisely)?

This is incredibly important (and needed) right now as pretty much everyone transitions their business online during the stay at home orders to fight COVID-19. Businesses, consultants, and musicians who previously had a minimal online presence are finding it necessary to operate entirely online or risk losing everything. Many people don’t understand how to set up live streams, get their merch online, run webinars, or put together an online course. But there are VAs out there who know how to do some, if not all of these tasks.

Figure out what you don’t like to do, what you’re not good at, or what you just don’t have the time for and then find a VA who has experience or knowledge in that area.

3. You’re completely overwhelmed

Running a business is hard but doesn’t it feel like there’s just that much more to running a business in the music industry? The industry changes in an instant, there are countless pieces to releasing an album, and you’re making sure you’re not infringing on someone else’s copyright while planning out social media content for the next month…

This does go along with the first point, but even if you strip away the day-to-day tasks, you might still be overwhelmed with all there is to running a business or managing your artist career - and that can happen whether it’s your full time gig or your side hustle.

While some virtual assistants specialize in particular tasks or platforms, others are experts and can fully take on your social media, your website or web store maintenance, your customer service, or preliminary client interactions.

Think of what could happen if you handed off one piece entirely. You’re still there to guide the process - to keep the brand consistent, to launch a new product, or to guide the overall feel of the social media content - but with an entire piece of the pie handled by someone else, you now have time to focus on the important parts of your business, the pieces that will ultimately help you grow, scale, and succeed.