• Regardless of how savvy and multitasking you are as an entrepreneur, there is simply no way you can manage everything on your on while running your business.
• There are a many tasks that are better off assigned to a virtual assistant. You may even find a very talented VA that can offer up their skills in niche areas of your business.
• If you want to know what the exact benefits of a virtual assistant look like and the types of tasks you can outsource, then keep reading.

For today’s entrepreneurs seeking to grow, they need to be thinking and working months in advance, like all big businesses do. This means stepping away from the day-to-day functions in their business that are holding them back, and focusing on their genius creative zones.

Too frequently entrepreneurs are getting stressed out because they are trying to do it all in their business, this leaves very little room to creation and seeking potential growth opportunities.

If you’re finding yourself swamped, stressed, flooded and overwhelmed with managing your business, leaving no room for creative growth, then it’s time to take charge and make the necessary changes.

It’s time to look at outsourcing and growing your virtual team - one of the most fundamental things you should be thinking of.

For example, if you’re charging clients $200 an hour and spending that time on administration work, then you’re throwing money away.

But if you allow yourself to have a team dealing with your day-to-day tasks for $30 to $50 an hour, then you’re giving yourself room to grow and create more revenue for your business. This is especially important when you’re doing the things you do best, while allowing your team to manage the rest for you.

It’s important to know that there is no point hiring a virtual team if you don’t have the workflow already happening, don’t hire on a ‘vision’ or ‘potential possibility.’ 

Sadly I have had many rising entrepreneurs with great goals and visions only to fall on silence, and embarrassingly have nothing to show or offer, perhaps just a small scale of embarrassment that what they expected didn’t take off as expected immediately (not to say it didn’t eventually happen).

What are the benefits of outsourcing to a VA?

Firstly, you need to identify what you want and need for your business before you decide which tasks to outsource. 

There are 2 main reasons why business owners outsource tasks to a virtual assistant:

1. It’s not your areas of expertise

Don’t spend copious amounts of hours doing things, that a virtual assistance can do for you in 30 minutes. You need to weigh up the cost of your time compared to the expense of having an expert doing it.

2. You don’t have the capacity to do it

You should be working in your genius zone and creative business growth, not spending time and money on manual tasks. Outsourcing to a VA frees up your time to do so.

What tasks can you outsource to a virtual assistant?

Although you can outsource pretty much anything, there are 10 common tasks business owners outsource to a VA: 

1. Customer Enquiries
2. Diary and Email Management
3. Project Management
4. Social Media
5. Event Organising
6. Graphics
7. Bookkeeping
8. Website Design and Maintenance
9. Newsletters
10. Blogs 

1. Customer Enquiries

You can hire a virtual receptionist, so when your business receives calls (whether you’re in a meeting or on holidays you’ll have someone answer them on your behalf). This maintains professionalism and prevents the loss of potential customers.

2. Diary and Email Management

Diary and email management can be very time consuming, especially when liaising back and forth between parties to arrange meetings or attend to matters. A virtual assistant can attend to all standard emails (such as customer enquiries) or even liaise as your assistant with clients.

3. Project Management

Running multiple projects in your business can be extremely demanding, especially when trying to keep on top of team members, suppliers, tasks and updates. A virtual assistant can do all this for you, and then give you the updates/progresses.

4. Social Media

For many businesses, Social Media is vital in maintaining customer connection. However, creating content, liaising with enquiries and ensuring social media targets are being meet is yet another time-consuming task.

A social media virtual assistant is in the forefront of what happens with social media and makes it their jobs to know what is the latest creative way businesses are utilising platforms to keep growing and connecting with their audience. A social media virtual assistant makes it their role to know your branding and key messages, and communicate this with your audience. 

5. Event Organising

With every event comeorganising details;

• sourcing venues,
• invitation,
• advertising,
• registrations,
• running sheets,
• suppliers, etc).

A virtual assistant can do all this for you. How great would it feel to have the creative brain for your event and your virtual team make it all happen?

6. Graphics

Some virtual assistants have desktop publishing skills in their repertoire. For some businesses, once a graphic designer has created their business branding, a virtual assistant can assist with creating all additional content such as social media posts, eBooks, presentations, flyers, and make sure they're all aligned to the branding.  

7. Bookkeeping

A virtual assistant may not be your accountant but they can assist you with your day-to-day management from;

• generating invoices,
• entering expenses,
• reconciling and
• debtor management.

8. Website Design and Maintenance

Some virtual assistants can build websites. Many entrepreneurs spend good money on getting the perfect website built, however, when they need ongoing maintenance or minor updates made, this is something a virtual assistant can help with.

9. Newsletters

Creating and preplanning newsletters to your customers is another function a virtual assistant can assist you with. Some virtual assistants specialise in certain packages, such as MailChimp, Aweber, Infusionsoft, Ontraport which enables them to also assist with automation setups.

10. Blogs

You can have your ghost writing virtual assistant research, draft and finalise your blog. Along with sourcing image, uploading and formatting your blogs on your website, as well as adding in your SEO, your virtual assistant can then take this one step further and add it to your newsletters and social media.

Commonly there is a misconception that virtual assistants just type documents or enter data but that is far from the truth. Every virtual assistant is different and for some there are no limitations on what they can offer you, such as;

• Facebook Ads
• Google Adwords
• Webinars
• Launches
• Courses
• Workshops, and the list goes on

You may be fortunate to find the virtual assistant that can do it all for you, but these can be as rare as finding a leprechaun’s pot of gold. So, don’t be afraid to create a virtual team, this will also enable you to have ‘backup’ team members if one member isn’t available.

The most important factor in any successful business relationship is communication. Never expect your virtual assistant to be able to read your mind, especially when starting out.

It’s time for you to grow your business and what better way to gain back your entrepreneurial creative space than to start building that virtual team.