COMPARISON
Virtual assistant, executive assistant, or staffing agency?
A virtual assistant completes tasks you assign. An executive assistant owns outcomes. The real question is who manages the work.
The short answer. A virtual assistant completes tasks you hand over. An executive assistant owns an outcome and decides the tasks themselves. A staffing agency introduces you to a candidate and leaves the managing to you. The real question is not which title you want, it is who is going to manage the work.
Task takers and outcome owners
If you can describe the job as a list of steps, a virtual assistant will do it well and cheaply. If the job is really an outcome, that no lead waits more than an hour, that the calendar is protected, that nothing is dropped, then you want someone who owns the outcome, and the instructions become their problem rather than yours.
Where a staffing agency fits
An agency is a matching service. It finds the person and hands them over. That works when you already have a manager and a documented process. It fails when the owner is the manager and the documentation lives in their head, because the new person needs the very thing the owner has no time to make.
The comparison that matters
- Who writes the process. You, or the provider.
- Who checks the work. You, or a supervisor.
- What happens when they are sick. You cover it, or a trained backup does.
- Where the knowledge lives. In one person's memory, or in a document.
- What happens when they leave. Start again, or continue.
How to choose
Take the thing that eats the most of your week. If handing it over means writing three pages of instructions you have never written, you do not need a task taker. You need somebody to build the process and then run it.
That is the model Loxif runs. The about page covers how it works, and the services page lists what an assistant takes on.
Loxif maps your workflows, trains a dedicated assistant on your own tools, and supervises the work. The first call is a free thirty minute session that ends with a delegation map you keep.
Book the free sessionCommon questions
What is the difference between a virtual assistant and an executive assistant?
A virtual assistant completes tasks you assign and describe. An executive assistant owns an outcome and determines the tasks required to deliver it, so the owner stops writing instructions.
Is a staffing agency the same as a managed assistant service?
No. A staffing agency introduces a candidate and leaves the managing, training and quality control to you. A managed service documents the workflow, trains the assistant, supervises output and provides backup coverage.
What happens when a virtual assistant is unavailable?
With unmanaged help the work stops until they return. A managed service keeps a trained backup who already knows the documented workflow, so coverage continues.