Have you ever wished you could duplicate yourself? Maybe you don’t love yourself enough to have a mini-me, but most of us wish we could do more in less time.
More and more people are taking steps in this direction by turning to virtual assistants (VA) to offload administrative tasks so that they have more time to focus on promoting their businesses.
One question managers often ask, silently or out loud, is whether they have enough work for a virtual assistant.
Typical managers spend 16 hours a week on admin work – most of which can be delegated to a VA.
Let’s take a look at the long list of virtual assistant tasks you can outsource.
General administrative tasks for virtual assistants
Just because technology has enabled managers to do their management work, doesn’t mean they should. A general virtual assistant can perform many administrative tasks, giving you more time for higher-value work.
Scheduling meetings
it’s not taken for granted. It takes about 25 minutes to schedule a business meeting, thanks to the back-and-forth “ping-pong” messages you send to find a time that works for everyone.
The time required increases with the size of the group. Give a VA control over your calendar, and you’ll get that time back.
Meeting confirmations
Appointment confirmations are a powerful way to prevent no-shows and the wasted time they create. Approvals are essential for in-person meetings that are off-site, where you may lose much more time. VA can eliminate no-shows from your life.
travel planning
Planning business trips can be exhausting. Finding the right flight, price, hotel, car and meeting takes about 12 hours per trip. That’s a huge chunk of time you can get back and an ideal virtual assistant task.
Give your VA access to your loyalty programs, document your preferences for airlines, seats, cars, hotels, and contact meetings, and your VA can plan it all for you. And when the trip goes wrong – the flights are delayed or canceled; Your virtual assistant will fix everything in the background. his mouth!
expense reports
Everyone loves expense reports. Wrong. It’s tedious to collect receipts, scan or copy them, sort them by categories, etc. Easy for a virtual assistant.
Professional networking
80% of managers said networking is essential, and 49% say they don’t have time to do it. A virtual assistant can make sure you’re up to date with critical contacts and make you aware of any changes in their professional and personal lives so you can communicate accordingly
Inbox management
About 10% of your email is relevant to you, and you usually forward a lot of messages to a more appropriate contact.
A virtual assistant can learn your communication priorities, delete spam, forward emails and organize your inbox folders so everything is always in the right place. Once you turn to an email management assistant, you’ll wonder why you never did it sooner.
answering the phone
Just like with email, a virtual assistant can filter your phone calls to ensure only the right ones get through to you. They can also clear your voicemail box and monitor calls that don’t need your attention.
data entry
Structured data that goes through standard fields is another task of a perfect virtual assistant. Examples include:
- Real estate listings for agents
- Resumes and job postings for recruiters
- Contact details for sales referrals
- CRM data entry projects
Sales and marketing support tasks for virtual assistants
Salespeople spend only about 38% of their time selling. Most of the rest of their time is spent on administrative work, much of it tasks that a virtual assistant can offload.
administrative work
The same administrative work that virtual assistants can do for managers—scheduling meetings, planning travel, and filing expenses—can be done for salespeople.
Search Search
Salespeople spend hours scouring LinkedIn and other contact databases to find leads that meet the criteria of their target audience. Record these criteria, and a virtual assistant can perform the search and generate lists.
Email campaigns
VA can load these lists into your email marketing platform and launch outreach campaigns. No problem.
Social media and blog posting
A virtual assistant can take your social media, blog calendars and schedule the posts. VAs can also find relevant images, add hashtags, build and test links, and check SEO boxes. They can take over the day-to-day social media management for you.
Basic graphic design and video editing
When you need to do basic graphic design and basic video editing, a VA can take the pre-made templates and update them as needed.
Call scheduling
When a potential client contacts you through your website or email, a virtual assistant can take the 25 minutes it takes to set up an appointment.
Sales tracking
78% of buyers choose the first company that answers them. Tracking inquiries is critical. A dedicated virtual assistant can be a vital asset here, getting you to call the phone or inbox first.
CRM cleaning and maintenance
A healthy CRM works wonders, giving you clarity about your lead flow, qualification process, funnel status and revenue projections. A strong CRM requires keeping the data consistent and up-to-date.
Set the rules, and a virtual assistant can enter the data, update contact information with recent activities, and run reports.
Research
When there is a standard set of information you need about businesses, contacts or markets, a virtual assistant can do this research for you.
You might have specific details you want to know about potential customers before a sales call, for example, or you might want to catch up on any news stories about a customer or market. VA can do the research and prepare the report for you.
Back office support tasks for virtual assistants
About 28% of the back work consists of routine tasks. A virtual assistant takes on many of these to provide administrative support that frees up staff time for more valuable work.
Bookkeeping
40% Some of the entrepreneurs say that bookkeeping is the worst part of their business. A virtual assistant is not a CPA and will not be able to prepare your taxes. But a VA can enter accounting data into applications like QuickBooks so your financial records are always in order.
Invoicing
Invoicing on time is critical to cash flow. Business owners spend 20 hours a month chasing unpaid bills. A virtual assistant can Send digital invoices And make for you a pursuit of mockery.
Payment processing
As with invoicing, VA can process payments and enter the data into your accounting platform.
preparing documents
Many back office tasks involve customizing template documents for specific recipients. A virtual assistant can prepare invoices, proposals, contracts, protection certificates and more.
purchase
A virtual assistant can order standard office supplies and equipment and other scheduled and routine purchases for your business.
Personal tasks for virtual assistants
A virtual assistant can also perform many personal and family tasks for managers, making their lives easier and giving them more time for what matters most.
Shopping
Give a virtual assistant a shopping list and he will be able to purchase anything that can be ordered online and delivered to your home or office.
timing
Car maintenance, home improvement work, hair styling – a VA can schedule appointments online or over the phone.
holidays
Planning a vacation can be as tedious as planning a business trip. A virtual assistant can order everything based on you and your family’s preferences—including dining out and activities.
Reminders for important dates
Need to remember someone’s birthday or anniversary, or other important milestones for someone in your life? A virtual assistant will not forget and can even order appropriate gifts.
read more: How much does a virtual assistant cost?
What virtual assistants don’t do
Over time a virtual assistant will learn your business, and some may have skills that allow them to contribute beyond the administrative tasks. Some have developed expertise in digital marketing tools and social media tools, for example.
However, virtual assistants are not ideal for specialized tasks that require specialist training and deeper business experience.
Examples include:
- Advanced graphic design and video editing– A virtual assistant can upload a photo or graphic to a template but probably can’t design your annual report or edit an award-winning documentary.
- Web Development– Making edits to existing web pages is not a problem, but coding is probably not in the skill set of a virtual assistant.
- accounting– Accounting is easy, yes, but extensive accounting experience is unlikely.
- Personal arrangements-Making an appointment with your doctor is one thing, but they won’t be able to pick up your lunch for you.
Virtual assistant task processes
This list of tasks to give a virtual assistant is not exhaustive. A virtual assistant can do any job that can be documented as a repeatable process and does not require subjectivity. They are able to take over your administrative duties so you can save time and focus on what you do best.
Most businesses and managers have specific tasks unique to them that are easily converted to virtual assistant tasks.
To get the best VA for your needs, be sure to choose virtual assistant services that proactively work with you to offload more and more of your tasks.
Assistants you don’t need to manage
Prialto offers fully managed virtual assistants. For more information on how Prialto Assistant can offload administrative tasks from your premises, read our guide.
