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The most valuable asset to your business is you. You want to invest your time in high level responsibilities, not day-to-day chores. You realize your business has grown past the point of a one man (or woman) show and you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant to crank out the office work.As with an in-house office assistant, there are hundreds of jobs you can delegate. Here are 7 routine tasks to assign to a virtual assistant:
Review and answer routine correspondence – What are your hours? Do you have any blue scarves? Can we sell you insurance? A virtual assistant can screen emails and flag what you need to see. A VA can manage junk mail and reply to others on your behalf.
Layout and send e-mail blasts – You may be the builder of your brand, but there’s no law that says you have to hit every key to get the word out to your target audience. Craft your own message, but let an assistant deliver it for you.
Follow up on an unpaid invoice – Cash flow is king in a small business. Prepare a “nice” email template and phone script for your VA to follow. Often, non-payment is simply an oversight.
Research locations for your next event – Do you really want to call every banquet or conference facility to get pricing for your next event? Simply prepare a sample “request for information” that a virtual assistant will email to your list of preferred vendors and then capture responses.
Layout and copy edit a PowerPoint presentation – Let’s face it; you’re the content creator, but you can’t spell! It’s always better to have a second set of eyes to review your slide deck before it is released.
Copy edit and schedule blog posts – Nothing turns me off more than reading an article to find multiple spelling and grammar gaffes. I usually don’t make it to the end of the piece and I’m surely not the only one who feels this way. A VA also knows your blog schedule and will remind you if holes need filling to ensure continuity.
Populate your social media feed – A virtual assistant can coordinate your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ streams. Some say it’s a time-suck, but I say if you aren’t fishing where the fish are, the fish will move on to other waters. Have an arsenal of generic tweets, Facebook posts and other messages ready for your VA to schedule.
As your relationship with your virtual assistant develops, you’ll find many more ways he or she can bump up the value of your time by freeing you up for the high level load.
Let’s hear it, what routine office tasks will you hand off to a virtual assistant?
Those sound awesome, Sonia. I will have to look into getting a VA, soon. Thanks for sharing your knowledge about this.
Thank you Martina! I enjoyed your article for Melinda Emerson’s blog — How to Make Sure You Take A Vacation From Your Small Biz in 2013 – http://succeedasyourownboss.com/12/2012/how-to-make-sure-you-take-a-vacation-from-your-small-business-in-2013/
It’s important for entrepreneurs to schedule downtime, too!
Thanks for these info, Sonia. Now I know what other tasks I can assign to my VA. Currently, she’s only doing collection calls and a few marketing tasks online. But I was hoping she could do more like what you’ve presented here, so I’m going to see if she has these skills and might refocus a few of her weekly tasks. If she’s capable then I might bring back her 40-hour work week quota as she was asking for this several months ago.
Kevin — If you’ve got a VA who is capable and wants more hours, you’re in a good position to boost productivity. Thanks for weighing in.
Sonia, I find that one of the most valuable uses of time with a VA is the streamlining as well as integration of skill sets on tasking. So often most popular blogs, tweet stats, traffic stats as well as routine exec assistant flows can be so much more smoothly handled when a VA is involved and other staff, who may have erratic schedules (travel, clients, etc) don’t have to worry about such important key tasks being completed.
You’re a champion of just such things as well as keeping the flow of multiple teams flowing!
You RAWK!
Sweetie
Thanks Sweetie. You are pretty awesome yourself. Some folks are glued to the details and some folks are better suited to other tasks. That’s why it’s so important to know what and when to delegate work in a small business. The value added can mean a significant bump in productivity, which translates to income for the business owner.