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Tell someone you’re a virtual assistant, and a quizzical look is sure to follow. Perhaps images of the annoying Microsoft Word “paper clip” assistant come to mind?

Mary Havlicek is far from a paper clip, and her business, Hours by Design, is far more helpful.

“Virtual assistants are so new, but they are becoming so mainstream that people are starting to hear about them that don’t know a whole lot about them,” Havlicek said.

Hours by Design aims to give businesses, small business owners and entrepreneurs an option for outsourcing tasks that detract from primary operating functions – and in the process create more time.

Havlicek works from her home, and is contracted as a virtual assistant for a variety of tasks, including social media assistance, data entry, invoicing, and e-mail management. She also offers a variety of writing services, including editing, press release writing and Web site copy writing. If there’s an office task to be done, she can probably do it.

“It takes it off of their plate; it creates time for them so they aren’t spending time at night or on the weekends,” Havlicek said. “They can focus on what they do and what they love to do.”

Havlicek works on approximately 10 projects per week, and has three or four long-term clients, but hopes to continue establishing long-term relationships. She said there is plenty of demand out there for her services and not a lot of competition between her and other virtual assistants because of the amount of work available.

“The more that word spreads, the more that business owners and entrepreneurs are educated about what we do, the more they are discovering that it can really be to their benefit to work with virtual assistants,” she said.

Havlicek feels that she offers advantages over a part-time or temporary employee because along with not paying for benefits, businesses aren’t buying an employee on an hourly basis. This means businesses don’t have to spend time trying to find them more to do once they finish a task, or worse, leave them to sit doing nothing.

“Whereas with me it’s ‘Hey, I need X and Y done.’ OK, no problem, and that’s it,” she said. “You are not paying for my coffee breaks; you are not paying for any phone calls I make.”