One of the biggest challenges entrepreneurs face is making the best use of their time. Running a business takes a lot of effort, especially for a solopreneur or small- and medium-sized business owners with a limited team. You may end up juggling multiple roles that don’t necessarily directly contribute to your business’s growth.
The answer to how to delegate effectively is simple: it’s a matter of prioritization. Your in-house team should be working to drive sales, improve offerings, and take opportunities for overall growth. Routine and administrative tasks are best left to virtual assistants (VAs) who can dedicate themselves to getting things done.Â
VAs are highly-skilled and professionally-trained and have extensive experience under their belts. One of the major benefits of virtual assistants is that you can save as much as 78% in operating costs from hiring a VA instead of a traditional, in-house employee.
The infographic below will give an overview of some of the tasks you can delegate to a virtual assistant.
What to outsource to a virtual assistant?
Hiring a VA to delegate low-priority tasks to enables you to focus on core functions and strategies. As a result, your business can enjoy a boost in efficiency and a long-term increase in profits, since a VA can get administrative and non-core tasks accomplished while keeping costs relatively low.
Generally speaking, nearly any task can be done by a virtual assistant. It is a matter of finding one with the right skills to get the job done. Below are some of the more common tasks you can outsource to a virtual assistant:Â
Email Management
Email is one of the most important communication channels for your business. Sorting through your inbox, while necessary, can eat up a good portion of your day. Hiring a VA to manage your emails can help cut through the inbox clutter and allow you to address the most important ones.
You can instruct your VA to screen the contents of emails, alert you of critical or time-sensitive messages, keep the inbox clear of clutter, and mark spam appropriately. You can also direct a VA to respond on your behalf to low-priority emails.
Bookkeeping and Payroll
Keeping finances in order is vital in any business operation. So it goes without saying that bookkeeping and managing the payroll are tasks you can’t afford to do haphazardly.Â
You may be tempted to accomplish these tasks yourself just to keep costs low. But keep in mind that these can eat a lot of time and requires experience to get done right. A slight mistake can lead to costly errors.
Enlisting a financial service virtual assistant to take over your company’s bookkeeping and payroll needs would be the wiser option. A highly-trained and experienced VA specializing in this aspect can keep track of business expenses, maintain a budget, prepare the payroll, create financial reports for company use, and prepare paperwork for taxes.Â
Calendar Management
As an entrepreneur, staying on top of your schedule is crucial. A well-managed business calendar ensures efficiency as it allows you to keep track of meetings and other valuable business opportunities.Â
Having a virtual assistant to manage your calendar can be heaven-sent. A VA can boost your productivity, help you avoid overlooking critical business matters, and ensure fewer scheduling conflicts and errors. Your VA can take care of scheduling appointments, keep the company calendar organized, and reduce the need for back-and-forth coordination.
Social Media Management
In this increasingly digital age, social media platforms are excellent avenues for businesses to grow their brand and communicate with their target audience. Getting the most out of your social media accounts will require specialized knowledge to craft and implement effective strategies.
A virtual assistant trained in social media marketing has the know-how necessary to maintain your company’s social media profiles and use them to promote your business better. This includes creating and scheduling posts, responding to interactions on these pages, and providing strategies to better position your brand.
  Data Entry
Businesses deal with data in many aspects of operations, especially when it comes to customers. It can be tedious to encode all this information. As a business owner, your time can be better spent elsewhere to grow your business rather than encoding data. Hiring a virtual assistant to do data entry is the more cost-efficient way to get it done.Â
A VA can take over the time-consuming task of logging every type of data into spreadsheets or other programs to keep them organized for your reference. They can also be tasked to ensure that the data is accurate to avoid inconsistencies. Additionally, they can also maintain and update your databases according to your standards.
Customer Service
Satisfying customers doesn’t stop at providing quality products—handling customer queries and troubleshooting concerns are essential for any business. Virtual assistants have the training and experience to address customer service needs effectively.Â
Other benefits of hiring a VA for customer service include having consistent and uniform service and round-the-clock support over several channels. A customer service VA can field basic queries, provide troubleshooting solutions, and gather feedback from your customer base.Â
Online Research
No matter what industry your business is in, data is king. Getting the right data for various business purposes can ensure that your company is well-informed and competitive in today’s market. Unfortunately, research takes a while to put together, giving you less time to put the data into use through data-driven strategies and actions.Â
Hiring a virtual assistant will cut down the time on getting this done while giving you access to information quickly. VAs have the time to dedicate themselves to finding the information you need, whether it’s to understand your target market, observe industry trends, or provide data for your content.
Communications and Logistics
Communications and logistics are the two unsung heroes of business operations. Communications play a vital role in nurturing customer relationships and running a business, while logistics enable key processes like supply chains, deliveries, and other opportunities.Â
Having a VA working on these allows your team to focus on your business’s core functions without worrying about the minor details. Communication and logistics VA tasks include following up on clients, sending out invitations, e-cards, and other relevant messages, and planning travel and logistic arrangements.
Graphic Design
The right visual assets can give your business an edge over its competitors. Thus, having a professional create and design images is vital. After all, graphic design has the power to convey what your brand stands for in one glance.
Virtual assistants specializing in graphic design can create visual assets that your business can use to generate brand awareness. They can help your product photos, listings, website, and social media images look more polished and credible. A graphic design VA can also organize your library of assets to ensure that the right file formats are used for the proper channels.
Content Writing
One of the biggest ways your business can stand out from the competition is by producing content. Not only should this content be informative and position your brand as an industry expert, but it should also incorporate the right strategies to drive traffic to your website.
Hire a virtual assistant to write high-quality, relevant content for your page. You can also find VAs trained in SEO or Content Marketing to implement winning strategies to optimize your content for search engines, allowing your target audience to find them easily. Additionally, a VA can upload and format your content for your page and add images or other elements to enhance it.
Work Smarter with Virtual Assistants
In the current market, virtual assistants are helping small- and medium-sized businesses stay competitive against the bigger competition. The key to successfully adopt this strategy is knowing what to outsource to a VA and what to keep in-house.
Outsource Access provides top-tier virtual assistants for busy entrepreneurs who deliver professional work for a variety of tasks.
