What tasks can you assign to a virtual assistant?
Using a virtual assistant (VA) can save you hours throughout your working week, but knowing which tasks to delegate can be challenging. Whilst virtual assistants often focus on administrative tasks, similar to those of an in-office executive assistant, increasingly our professional VAs are taking on various other functions to help businesses grow and improve.
Here at blueumbrella, our executive-level VAs are able to take on the more traditional tasks such as diary and email management, as well as assisting with things such as social media, marketing campaigns and personal tasks. Blueumbrella VA’s have a wide and varied skillset and utilising them can hugely benefit your business. We’ve covered a few areas below to help you understand how a VA can add value to you and your business.
Email inbox management
It’s likely that your day is consistently interrupted by a constant stream of emails. Just when you’ve got into your flow, a new email comes in and you’re immediately distracted. You answer the email and then try to get back to your task, but it takes a while to get back into your previous workflow. Your virtual assistant can handle most emails for you, and if any required urgent attention, your assistant would let you know.
Calendar management
Arranging meetings and appointments can end up becoming a tedious task that requires focus and organisation. If there are places you need to go and people you need to speak with, it’s best if someone reminds you to do it, and puts the meetings in your diary in the first place.
Creating and managing spreadsheets
Excel or Google sheets are widely used for recording data, storing information, and creating reports which can be quite a time-consuming task. A knowledgeable virtual assistant will easily be able to take this essential task off your hands and will ensure the data is expertly managed and maintained.
Preparing presentations and slides
PowerPoint presentations are often an integral visual business tool used in business meetings and project plans. Again, this can be a very time-consuming task but one that can be easily outsourced to a skilled virtual assistant who is adept at preparing these presentations, giving you peace of mind to focus on the key deliverables.
Transcribing audio files
There might be times when meetings and interview recordings need to be transcribed. This is because they may need to be published or documented accurately or simply filed for office purposes in the form of a written document. Virtual assistants naturally have good listening and writing abilities so they are able to handle this job effectively.
Online research
As long as you can provide clear instructions for a research project, this is all your virtual assistant needs to know in order to get the job done swiftly. They can take care of researching and comparing costs of a particular product, travel, hotels, and restaurants, as well as conducting valuable competitor analysis research to help you build stronger strategies and stay ahead of the competition.
Blog writing
Blog posting is one of the biggest components of successful content marketing, but it also happens to be time-consuming. Before you can begin writing, you also need to research the given topic beforehand, and then comes the writing, formatting, and uploading to the relevant platform. A virtual assistant can help you with the parts that you hate, or they can do all of it for you.
Social media posts
It’s likely that you have a professional profile on at least one of the leading social media platforms; namely LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. It’s important to have a strong presence on these platforms and a virtual assistant can help you to regularly share updates about your business, as well as manage any comments and messages.
Email marketing
Hiring a virtual assistant to create and manage contact lists in your email marketing software can be hugely beneficial. Only when you consistently build up your email contacts will you be able to create the impact you want. They can add and remove subscribers from the list and ensure that everything runs smoothly. A VA can also create interesting, targeted, and concise newsletters that have the right amount of lead generation potential.
Bookkeeping
Most businesses use bookkeeping software packages such as QuickBooks or Xero as an excellent alternative to traditional paper accounting. Bookkeeping is not an easy task but having a virtual assistant prepare invoices and expenses will save an additional few hours each week and ensure that your accounting is up to date at all times.
Personal tasks
Sometimes your personal calendar is just as important, if not more important, than your work-related commitments. A virtual assistant knows this and can help you keep on top of your personal life by arranging appointments, handwriting thank you notes and holiday cards, and arranging deliveries to name but a few. This then frees up your time to focus on the core tasks of your business.
To find out more about how blue umbrella Virtual PA Services can help your business, please contact us anytime on 020 3021 0503, or info@blueumbrella.co.uk
“Master your strengths, outsource your weaknesses.”