10 TASKS THAT CAN BE DELEGATED TO A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT

Enlisting a virtual assistant could actually relieve you from an administrative burden, allowing you to spend more time doing what is really passionate to you; to truly devote your time to managing your business and growing your customer base.

You can delegate numerous and various tasks to a Virtual Assistant - whether it be making calls to your suppliers or your customers or sending thank you cards to potential customers you have met.

Do you know you need help, but do not know where to start and what you could delegate?

Here are just a few suggestions for you:

1. Your book-keeping

Managing invoices and everything linked to your accounting is a task you can easily let your Virtual Assistant handle for you. It is possible to share access to your accounting software with your Virtual Assistant (which means sharing your access code and passwords, but don’t forget that Virtual Assistant work is founded on a trustworthy relationship and integrity). The Virtual Assistant can also make follow ups on invoices to be paid and payments to come in.

2. Online research

Why not delegate online research needs to your Virtual Assistant? The Virtual Assistant can find information on corporate websites, do research on new products or screen your potential customers or professional contacts.

The Virtual Assistant can also do research in order to provide blog subjects or information for blogs, provide a first draft of a blog or even revise it. Being active on the internet is an important part of being a Virtual Assistant, so she can provide you with information that is trendy and highly sought after.

3. Data entry

Whether it is a pile of business cards gathered during a conference or networking event, or simply an update of current information, keeping your database updated is crucial to your business performance. It is a task that can be given to your Virtual Assistant. It may be information about a new customer to enter, or contact details of a supplier received by email to update. The Virtual Assistant will make sure your data base is kept up to date and accurate

4. Creating presentations

Transferring raw data into a clear and succinct PowerPoint presentation, or summarizing the results from a study in a well formatted Word document could be an important time saver for you. A Virtual Assistant can put together and create presentations for you, putting your notes into an easy-to-read order and summarizing all relevant information.

5. Managing emails

In order to reduce time spent going through your emails, you can delegate this task to a Virtual Assistant. This will reduce your inbox to the number of emails that truly require your attention or an answer from you. She can also answer customer service emails, stop spam or junk mail, and so on.

6. Social tasks

Why not delegate writing greeting cards, wish cards or thank you notes to your Virtual Asssitant? These are tasks that are time-consuming yet something a Virtual Assistant can easily do for you.

7. Travel arrangements

The Virtual Assistant is a good source of information to find a hotel, to book plane tickets or to layout a trip itinerary, for business and leisure trips. The Virtual Assistant has tools to assist her on the internet to process reservations, validate hotel sites and optimize your travel, making sure all goes smoothly.

8. Managing agenda

With so many tools available to manage agendas or calendars in the virtual world, it is easy for your Virtual Assistant to assist you with this tedious task. She can manage your invitations, meetings with customers and help you plan events. Knowing what you have in your meeting agendas, the Assistant can prepare the required documents for the meetings, allowing you to travel or work on more important matters.

9. Business opportunity research

Prioritizing business opportunities can become a true challenge for small business owners. A Virtual Assistant can keep up to date what is important and ensure follow ups on actions to be taken. You can ask, for example, that she does research on resell websites if you were looking for a piece of furniture to refurbish for a customer. She could also assist with the online auctions or do any required research on different websites.

10. Market and industry knowledge

With your time being already highly booked with meetings, deal closing or reports to be analyzed, it can be quite difficult to keep up with innovations and trends in the industry -  even simply reading all the magazines that we are subscribed to to keep abreast!

Your Virtual Assistant will be able to identify relevant articles for you to read or make a summary of the news every week, allowing you to share on social media your knowledge or use the information in meetings with customers or suppliers.