What’s one way to leverage a virtual assistant to streamline your tasks and make yourself more productive?
These answers are provided by Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most successful young entrepreneurs. YEC members represent nearly every industry, generate billions of dollars in revenue each year and have created tens of thousands of jobs. Learn more at yec.co.
1. Pending Activities Tracking
Assigning the duty of keeping track of pending activities is an excellent way to take advantage of a virtual assistant. This way you can make sure that you complete all tasks in a timely manner and can work in a more organized and precise way in each of the processes related to the company.
– Kevin Leyes, Leyes Media & Team Leyes, by Leyes Enterprises
2. Tasks With Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
Digital marketing is full of repetitive, time-consuming tasks. Well-trained VAs armed with well-documented SOPs can give you back hours of precious time. Occasionally, they do much more than that. One of my remote VAs went above and beyond and ultimately proved himself invaluable — so much so, that he’s now my partner in several businesses. Talent is hard to come by, so be open to finding it anywhere.
– Matt Diggity, Diggity Marketing
3. Funneling Employee Questions and Concerns
Virtual assistants are great for funneling employee questions and concerns. Most business owners, especially those with very small companies, don’t have the time or manpower to individually address every question an employee has about their pay, healthcare and so on. A virtual assistant can act as the first contact if your team has questions that can be easily resolved.
– Chris Christoff, MonsterInsights
4. Content Marketing Work
As a business owner, you need content to drive traffic and boost sales. You can hire a virtual assistant to do the dirty work behind the writing, such as conducting keyword research, writing headlines and creating a content calendar. The technical aspects of content marketing matter just as much as the content itself, which you can hand over to a virtual assistant.
– Stephanie Wells, Formidable Forms
5. Scheduling for Meetings and Appointments
The most time saved by any virtual assistant is definitely when they are scheduling meetings and appointments. The amount of time people go back and forth to schedule a time and coordinate details can add up to significant time out of your week. Freeing up that time so you can work on your business or on coaching an employee will have a significant impact on the business overall.
6. Research
One way that a VA can help you is by doing research. It takes a lot of time and effort to find the right software, hotel or any other item that suits your needs. You can provide your assistant with a set of requirements and have them do the research you need to make the best decision. This is an incredible time-saver that will give you great results.
7. Monthly Subscription Management
I find that working with a virtual assistant to manage your monthly subscriptions is extremely helpful. If you use a lot of apps and have monthly subscriptions for them, especially ones with a limited-time offer, a virtual assistant can help make sure that you use them, or cancel the ones you’re not using. You can save a great deal of money this way.
8. Project Management
When hiring globally where a language barrier could be an issue, find a VA in the desired country who has great English skills and can act as a project manager. This VA can then manage others in their country who may not have strong English skills, but who might be highly skilled in website development, graphic design, etc.
– Josh Weiss, Reggie
9. Company Onboarding and Event Planning
I’ve found that virtual assistants are great for planning company-wide events, establishing pillar documents and helping new employees learn the ropes. Our virtual assistant reaches out to team members and helps them get comfortable with our workflow and procedures, and delivers curated resources for new hires.
10. Non-Productive, Repetitive Tasks
Non-productive and repetitive tasks can be delegated to virtual assistants who can be found on many freelance platforms. Tasks like attending unimportant calls, handling emails, data entry, administration, etc. can be assigned to freelancers on internet platforms. And the best thing is they are way cheaper than actually hiring someone on-site.
– Kelly Richardson, Infobrandz
11. Email Management
Virtual assistants can help with email and calendar management. As a business leader, I get a lot of emails from employees, colleagues and more. There’s just too much to handle efficiently while I focus on growing my business. A VA can help filter emails for me, prioritize my responses and reduce the time I spend on it overall, while still keeping me in the loop.
– Thomas Griffin, OptinMonster
12. Record Keeping
Delegating record keeping and follow-up tasks to a virtual assistant is a great way to bring more efficiency to your daily work routine. So much time is spent in CRMs and various reporting tools to record and analyze data that it can be overwhelming and distracting. Investing in someone that can manage that and prioritize those tasks for you can be a game changer in how you focus your day.
– Josh Awad, Depression Alliance
13. Client Follow-Up
Client follow-up can typically be one of the biggest time consumers of your day, especially if you’re a growing business. And while you may not want your VA to follow up with clients who have issues (that’s better handled yourself), if all you need is a quick check-in to make sure everything’s good, your virtual assistant is perfect for that role.
– Andrew Schrage, Money Crashers Personal Finance
14. Any Tasks You Hate Doing
Everyone loves to think they’re passionate about what they do. Although that might be true, there is always some part of your work that bores you to death. You hate it and dread doing it. Ask yourself, “What do I struggle to do well?” Find someone who is good at it and let them do that task. You’ll have more time to do the fun part of your business.