Aug
17
2010
Why Learning Spanish Is So Important For Virtual Assistant
Author: Johns SmithIn the business industry, there are certain trends which come and go while others continue to flourish. Take outsourcing as an example. The act of outsourcing a task, job or project to a third party provider to lower a business’ operational costs started out in the late 1990s, but it still persists up to now. This simply means that the system works.
The same thing holds true for hiring Virtual Assistants or VAs. With the proliferation of the Internet and the easy accessibility of advanced communication tools, it has become easy for independent workers, solo business owners and online entrepreneurs to hire a VA to perform some daily tasks for them.
Whether you need someone to act as receptionist during the odd hours that you are out of the office, if you need a personal secretary or if you just need someone to handle the paper works for you – you can hire a virtual assistant to do just that. Not only will you be able to save on labor and equipment costs, but you will also save time and energy which you can use to focus on the core of your business.
The Ever-Widening Scope of the Spanish Language
Now, whether you are a virtual assistant yourself or if you are planning to hire one, an important trait that you should posses is being able to read, speak and understand the Spanish language. Although this is not necessarily a requirement, it will be a great addition on your part to learn Spanish.
As you may already know, Spanish is one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world. The Latino population is one of the largest minority groups in the United States, and the figures are seen to increase over the years.
Currently, there are more than 390 million Spanish speakers in 22 countries in the world. Aside from the United States, Central and South American countries are the areas where you will find majority of the population speaking Spanish.
Why Learning Spanish is so Important for Virtual Assistants
Now, why does it pay for virtual assistants to learn Spanish and those who are hiring VAs to consider someone who knows how to speak Spanish? Perhaps the number one reason is that the needs of Spanish speakers are not necessarily being catered to these days.
Let’s take a look at the Customer Service department of businesses as an example. If you’re a Spanish speaker and you are calling the customer support hotline of a big company, chances are you will get a Spanish option on the calling menu. However, it is only the bigwig companies who can afford to hire a team of Spanish speakers to answer calls that have this option. If you’re calling a small to medium-scale business, there’s a big possibility that your call will not be entertained if you do not know how to speak English.
So as an entrepreneur who will hire a virtual assistant, it will give you that big business image if you have a Spanish speaking virtual secretary who will answer calls for you. Not only that, but you will also save on labor costs while catering to the non-English speaking market at the same time.
More importantly, it is the virtual assistants themselves who will benefit by learning the Spanish language. Your ‘marketability’ as a VA will be given a boost if you know how to speak Spanish, because there are many entrepreneurs who are looking for such skill. You can also increase the per-hour or per-project rate for your services as a VA because of your skills in speaking Spanish.
Finally, being an able Spanish speaker will open up entirely new career opportunities for you as a virtual assistant.
This post was contributed by Nick, you can read more of his posts on his twitter link at: http://twitter.com/OffshoreAlly
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