Saving time is frequently at the top of most entrepreneur’s wish lists. They appreciate that outsourcing some of their workload to a Virtual Assistant would save time, but one of the top questions they have around outsourcing is ‘What can I actually outsource to a VA?’
Routine and repetitive tasks
We all have lots of routine and repetitive tasks that eat into our time. Whether its organising meetings or updating databases, these tasks can easily passed to a Virtual Assistant. And, more often than not, they can complete these tasks a lot faster than we can!
Typical tasks we consider mundane and repetitive that can be passed to a VA include:
- Accounts, income and expenditure, invoice creation and management
- Diary management, booking in client calls, dealing with general inquiries and scheduling group meetings
- File organisation and set up – including file sharing facilities etc.
- Qualifying potential clients
- Mail outs – physical and online
- Database management
- CRM management and client relationships (i.e. birthday cards, thank you cards etc.)
- Report printouts and summaries
- Marketing analysis
Website-related tasks
Virtual Assistants can also help you with general web-related activities too – although you do need to remember they’re not IT gurus, so may not be able to help with coding and design – although they will probably know someone to recommend!
Web-related tasks include:
- Updates on page information
- Blogging, podcast and video – researching blog ideas, finding sources and gathering information
- Writing blogs and/or uploading content
- Creating text versions of videos and podcasts
- Emails for your auto-responder sequences
- Updating plug-ins and themes
- Newsletters and offers
- Sourcing guest bloggers and speakers
Social media
Social media platforms can sap so much of our time and energy on a daily basis – especially if you’re using more than one social medial account. You’ll be amazed at how much time you could save if you just passed the following activities to your VA:
- Social media creation and scheduling
- Group management, creation and administration
- Page management, creation and administration
- Adding friends and fans
- Following influential people in your niche
- General interaction with connections
- Responding/filtering private messages and replies
Projects and launches
Creating new products and launches can take a lot of time and focus. A VA can help, by taking some of the workload off your shoulders. Look to pass over:
- Launch sequence set up
- Project timelines, organisation and management
- Video editing and uploads
- Project management – using software like Asana and Trello etc.
- Sourcing and researching potential JV partners
Creative tasks
This is another area that can eat into your day. We know free downloads, social media images and ebooks can help raise our profile, but they take time to create – so hand the legwork over to your VA:
- Creating free downloads
- Social media image and quote creation
- Ebook and PDF creation
- Checklists and reports
- Image sourcing
- Creating flyers, leaflets and download images etc.
When you sit down and start writing out all of the tasks you take on during any one month, you’ll be amazed at how much you’re doing yourself! Once you have that task list written out, you’ll soon see how much you can actually pass over to someone else – and how much time you’ll recoup as a result!
Is hiring a VA on your wish list or do you already have one? What is your biggest barrier to hiring a VA? Maybe you already have a VA – what advice would you pass over to someone who is looking to hire their first one? Why not share your advice in the comments box below.
Images © Unbreakable (feature image), ileizhun & rafo/Dollar Photo Club
