The real question you should be asking is, “what can’t you outsource to a virtual assistant?” At Outsourcery, we tend to always say that the only thing your virtual personal assistant cannot do, is to bring your coffee!
However, that is somewhat true, as they could order you a cuppa and send it to your offices! But that aside, you should delegate anything that you may be doing that is not generating growth or revenue for your business to your virtual assistant.
Virtual assistants are there to offer you the support you most need as a small business owner, especially tackling the smaller tasks that are taking up most of your time. You’ll find that without a virtual assistant, you are bombarded with distractions and can’t get to the major things that will help grow your business.
A good virtual assistant will take the time to get to know you and your business. By doing that they will, in turn, save you time and money and remove distractions – adding real value to your small business.
It is always a good exercise to note the number of hours you spend on the nitty-gritty throughout the day. You’ll find a dramatic change when you start using a virtual assistant.
Outsourcing work to your virtual assistant will help you to become more efficient, streamline your business, manage your personal life and save you time so you can focus on the things you enjoy doing.
There are three categories that your virtual assistant can tackle:
Personal Tasks
These tasks may not be related to your business at all or could simply help you to take control of your work life:
- Calendar Management – attaching details to each meeting, confirming with attendees, preparing an agenda, working out travel time.
- Proper online research through multiple sources, compiled in an easy to read format.
- Travel Management, this involves research, negotiating the best deals, managing things like air miles, looking for fun activities to do, and so much more.
- Finding and booking personal trainer – with all the time you will have on your hands you may as well get in shape. Exercising will really help to get the creative juices flowing.
- Handling Credit card and bank statements.
- Managing Loyalty cards.
Business Admin
This pertains to your business. All the admin and filing tasks that take-up so much time can now be handed over to capable hands. Here are a few more tasks, yet not limited to:
- Headhunting – using your LinkedIn account to network and potentially headhunt people.
- Email Management: Sending personal replies to each person and making sure that you are aware of any urgent emails.
- Business process driven tasks.
- PowerPoint presentations for meetings and conferences.
- E-filing, because they are virtual and cannot do any physical filing, besides, everything is online these days!
- Document formatting – making everything look a lot more professional.
- Transcriptions and minutes of meetings.
- Customer Interaction Management
Family Tasks
It can be very tough being a small business owner, especially because you may miss a few birthdays due to the lack of time you have. However, by hiring a virtual assistant, you can make up for lost time and treat your family – with all the planning being done by your virtual assistant. All you need to do is show up! They are can also take care of…
- Researching and planning family vacations – you simply just need to pick one!
- Making family videos and albums to store all those precious memories that you are now able to make with your extra dose of time.
- Restaurant bookings – making sure that you don’t skip a meal or a birthday!
- Finding a babysitter
- Buying gifts for your loved ones – we know this can take up a lot of time.
As previously mentioned, virtual assistants are jacks-of-all-trades, thus this is simply just a summary of the many things they can do for you and your business. But possibly the most important thing is that they can help with your productivity by giving you back the time you used doing all the tasks they can do.
To find out more about virtual assistants and how you can find the perfect fit for you and your business, try our free consultation. You will not regret hiring a virtual assistant.
“My most valuable asset is my time and you give me back 30 hours a month. Thank you!” – Michael Lutzenkirchen, Managing Director at Whatever Mobile.
