Unleashing the Power of Executive Virtual Assistants (EVAs) in Modern Business

Discover the power of using an EVA in your business. Find out how they go beyond standard virtual assistants, offering strategic support, superior communication, and exceptional project management.

Modern executives need professionals who can help them manage their operations effectively. Getting everything done alone is challenging. 

Unfortunately, many people in the C-suite bear the burden of responsibility alone, doing everything themselves. This approach leads to burnout, exhaustion, mistakes, and missed opportunities to work on higher-value tasks. 

That’s where executive virtual assistants (EVAs) can help. These professionals do the donkey work for you, allowing you (and your team) to manage operations more effectively. 

The EVA Market

The demand for EVAs is growing substantially. Data suggest the market will expand by 28% annually through 2030, reaching a projected value of $68.71 billion (£54.93), with UK users searching for it on Google up to 140 times per month. 

How the EVA market assists busy CEOs and C-suite executives in several ways explains these services’ newfound popularity. For example, imagine the CEO of an energy technology startup with an ever-growing list of unopened emails in their inbox. In this situation, they could benefit from an EVA going through their mail, filtering out the unimportant correspondence and scheduling appointments where necessary. It might only take an hour, but it frees up the CEO to focus on other tasks and prevents them from switching between activities as often. 

Likewise, consider the CEO of a travel company who feels disconnected from his business. Instead of focusing on strategy and managing his fifty global locations, he spends all his time catching up on staff issues and writing reports. Again, an EVA could free him up by taking over report writing and staff emails, allowing the CEO to focus on where to invest next.

Benefits of Hiring an EVA

The benefits of hiring an EVA are substantial. Companies that make the right choices can see improvements across the board. 

Enhanced Productivity

For example, hiring an EVA can lead to enhanced productivity and time management. Virtual assistants free up executive-level professionals for high-value tasks, like strategic thinking. 

EVAs help managers in numerous ways, including: 

• Assist with project management. EVAs can manage communications and deadlines, coordinate teams and liaise with external contractors, ensuring projects proceed logically. 
• Generate reports and analysis. EVAs can create reports for senior management on request, summarising key data and providing busy senior professionals with incisive overviews. This work eliminates the need for C-suite executives to do the number-crunching, saving time. 
• Prepare for meetings and public speaking. EVAs can create scripts, PowerPoint presentations, and slide decks for public events like conferences or public relations stunts.
• Do the admin. Finally, EVAs can do executives’ admin work, such as filling out timesheets or entering details into calendars. 

Strategic Support

Incredibly, EVAs can also provide executives with strategic support, going beyond the role of conventional virtual assistants. This work involves becoming a resource for the firm’s top people, helping them make better decisions. 

EVA strategic support involves various forms of research and analysis. For example, EVAs might provide executives with market analysis, highlighting recent trends they don’t know about. Understanding these can help with decision-making, allowing execs to use the information to decide whether to stay on track or pivot to a new strategy. 

Strategic support also sometimes involves gathering intelligence on rival firms. Peering into their operations and following their news can help executives develop optimal response plans.

For example, if a company is switching to a new technology platform and finding success, the EVA may suggest doing the same. Likewise, if an organisation sees progress by advertising on social media, that may strengthen the case for the executive to follow suit (even if the industry doesn’t usually use it as a marketing channel).

Time Freedom

Finally, delegating tasks to EVAs gives executives time to focus on high-impact projects. Company leaders gain the freedom to stand back and gawp at the big picture (and figure out what to do next).

How executives use this extra time is a matter of personal choice. Some leaders use it to build stronger relationships with senior managers, employees, vendors, suppliers, and customers. For example, Elon Musk famously takes breaks from Tesla’s factory floor to introduce his audience to new vehicles, like the Cybertruck. 

Leaders can also use the time to sit and think. Taking time out of the day to consider the firm’s next moves can be highly productive without emails or notifications pinging in the background. 

Finally, time freedom also helps executives lead and motivate their teams. Leaders can spend more time congratulating employees on a job well done or providing insights to help them progress on projects. These extra interactions can enhance interpersonal dynamics, improving corporate culture and motivating employees to strive for more.

Skills of an EVA

EVAs will only deliver the benefits discussed in the last section if they have suitable skills. Therefore, you need to be careful while hiring. The talent of these professionals can vary tremendously. 

Here’s what you should look for as a minimum: 

Exceptional Organisational Skills

EVAs should have world-class organisational and time-management skills. Top candidates must be able to manage several tasks concurrently, addressing the needs of multiple stakeholders simultaneously.

Intelligent EVAs achieve this by prioritising the most valuable tasks first. These individuals look for what the executive values the most and move down the list. 

Naturally, this process involves developing proper project management skills (as discussed in the previous section). EVAs must understand everyone’s progress and join the dots, knowing precisely when initiatives will come to fruition. 

For example, suppose a busy CEO has scheduling conflicts on their calendar. In this situation, the EVA should ensure these disappear while enabling the exec to use every minute of the day productively. EVAs must understand current progress while coordinating travel arrangements and filtering emails. Company leaders should only see the most valuable communications. 

Clear Communication

EVAs must also possess extraordinary communication skills. These allow them to shuttle between executives and stakeholders efficiently without confusion.

Part of this process involves drafting clear written communications (such as emails) on behalf of the management team. EVAs must understand what leaders want to say, even if they put it in their own words. Getting this right requires attending to executives carefully and (sometimes) reading between the lines. It also requires understanding the executive's voice. High-quality EVAs mimic the leader’s emphasis and word choice, becoming a more effective conduit for their communications. EVAs can use web chat for website audiences for these purposes. Chat for website services enables EVAs to reach stakeholders through more channels, avoiding excessive use of slower mediums, like phones. It also helps them build rapport on behalf of leaders, allowing them to get on with strategic decision-making.

Being sensitive to the audience is another critical part of effective communication. EVAs must understand the skill level and expertise of their audience. For example, clients may require a less technical communication style than employees. 

Lastly, on this point, EVAs require active listening skills. Top performers always ask for clarification to ensure they understand the executive’s intent. For instance, an EVA might ask an executive to confirm whether they want to communicate with all employees or just a subset. 

Problem-Solving and initiative

Finally, EVAs require adept problem-solving abilities. Professionals must have a creative spark that enables them to see problems from different perspectives, allowing them to think independently and solve problems. 

This aspect of the role includes predicting when things will likely go wrong. For example, the best EVAs often know when a business meeting isn’t going to work (or when the opposing side might not show up). 

Problem-solving also involves adapting to changing circumstances. EVAs must know how to respond if something goes wrong at the last minute. For example, they might book a new meeting venue if an existing one isn’t available. 

Lastly, EVAs should demonstrate problem-solving initiative on the strategic level. The most talented professionals can provide insights for executives to help them see past apparent roadblocks. 

For example, suppose the EVA notices website traffic numbers crashing. Instead of waiting for instructions to fix the problem, they look for the cause immediately and correct it. This approach prevents the issue from ever reaching the executive’s consciousness (except in the form of a report after the fact). Consequently, the senior leader can pursue the high-value tasks described earlier.

Conclusion

EVAs are essential in modern businesses because they free up C-suite executives to focus on non-repeatable tasks that push the organisation forward. Over time, they may improve productivity, efficiency, and operational success. 

Critically, their expertise extends beyond conventional administrative tasks. EVAs are unique in their ability to provide company leadership with strategic guidance (for improved decision-making) and comprehensive project management. Many have specialised legal, technical, finance and marketing skills that let them pursue urgent tasks when executives can’t. 

As you can imagine, business leaders leveraging EVAs gain significant competitive advantages. While rival CEOs are in the trenches dealing with staff and operational issues, intelligent leaders with virtual assistants can focus on the factors that matter most to their long-term success. 

Are you rushed off your feet or don’t have time to pursue the projects that matter most to your business? If so, consider hiring an EVA for your business needs. These professionals do the donkey work, freeing you up for the highest-value tasks. 

Executive Virtual Assistants (EVAs) offer superior support, communication, and project management skills to modern businesses. As the demand for EVAs continues to grow, their role in enhancing productivity and facilitating strategic decision-making is undeniable.

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