Time is undoubtedly one of the most valuable assets to the small business owner. Unfortunately, time is a constant variable. There is no way to add extra hours into your day or is there?

Many entrepreneurs are finding a new way to do just that. Hiring a virtual assistant gives you as a small business owner the power to dedicate extra precious hours to the unique facets of your business that only you can handle. Instead of trying to juggle your responsibilities as head of sales, development, marketing, hr and every other department of your company with the daily minutiae of administrative tasks, you simply outsource those details "virtually" to a reliable individual or company.

Couldn't you just hire an assistant?

Well, perhaps you could. But a lot of us are not fiscally able to take on additional full time help in our business' infancy.

In addition, hiring virtual employees allows you to find exactly the right match for your needs. For instance, you could find one person who specializes in web design and management to handle the online component of your enterprise. Unlike with a traditional employee, with a virtual assistant you could find a different person to handle your correspondence or newsletter writing. Instead of searching for the holy grail of assistants, the one who can meet all of your requirements, the virtual workforce allows you to contract specific jobs to separate entities who are most qualified to meet your needs.

There is another upside to hiring virtual employees. You cut out all of the costs associated with their full time or even part time in-office counterparts. The majority of virtual assistants work on a contractor basis. Essentially this means that you are not responsible for handling tax information for them, insurance or training. There is no paid time off, sick leave or workman's comp either.

When you own a small business, it's easy to become overwhelmed with all of the day to day details. You must weigh your desire to handle every part of your business yourself with how valuable your time really is. Just think where you could be today if you stopped sacrificing your marketing and networking time on typing and other administrative responsibilities. As Henry Ford alluded, the time you are wasting on tasks that could easily and cost effectively be outsourced is time that your competitor's are using to pass you by.