One of Boldly’s longest clients is a well-known author, speaker and serial entrepreneur. His project management assistant helps him run all his major projects including managing a team of developers that build his company’s complex systems, managing his events and speaking engagements etc. Her work alone in the last 3 years has contributed to a significant growth in his business and net worth.
Another client, Mark, runs 5 very popular ecommerce sites that receive thousands of orders every day. While one of our assistants has been handling the customer service and day-to-day management for him for the past year, Mark has always been nervous about taking a vacation because of the more complex technical aspects of the integration between his sites, his order processing system, and his fulfillment company. This year Mark got married and missing his honeymoon was not an option! So with the help of our technical team Mark was able to train an assistant in the more complex issues around the business, and was able to take 3 whole weeks off without once having to be in touch. While he was away we handled a major influx in traffic and kept everything running smoothly.
The reason I’m telling you this, is that you’ll hear me regularly talking about business-grade virtual assistants.
We love to talk about business-grade virtual assistants, but not as some catchy phrase dreamed up by a marketing department: business-grade is our term to describe virtual assistants with the expertise and experience to handle skilled business tasks. So when we say business-grade, we’re talking about VAs who go far, far beyond typical virtual assistance (admin, email management, calendar scheduling, etc.) and take on skills-required-expertise-needed-maturity-essential tasks you’d normally have to hire a specialist employee to fulfill.
We’ve already touched on 5 tasks to delegate to save 15+ hours a week, which we followed up with 5 more ways to save 15+ hours a week, so we thought we’d move on to some meaty, specialized tasks that you can delegate to your VA.
These duties are business-essential –important to your reputation and your bottom line. The kind of task you would never, normally think to delegate to a VA. But you can. And you should. Save yourself time and headaches by turning these duties over to a virtual assistant who is both capable and responsible enough to handle them as you would.
Complex Travel Arrangements
Sometimes, we forget how complicated travel can be. If you are like our client Glen, the director of a large international non-profit, who is constantly crossing the globe visiting some pretty obscure places, your assistant is your lifeline – seriously. Complex business or leisure travel requires more in-depth planning than a quick visit to Travelocity! Your virtual assistant will do research, book your flight, hotels, and transportation and make sure you are setup with the apps you need to travel effectively. She’ll wrangle rewards points; help you make tight train/flight/shuttle connections; book a rental car or car service; make reservations for business dinners and meetings (complete with WiFi connections, access to printer/fax equipment, and more); and any other complex details related to your upcoming travel.
Project Management
Most businesses juggle multiple balls at once – diverse projects that require coordination between employees, consultants, goods & service providers, and other team members. Your detail-oriented project VA is the perfect choice for project management: she can plan complicated events; book and strategize speaking engagements; and even manage diverse projects within your company, like system development or new branding design.
Reviewing Google Analytics
Speaking of Google Analytics, when was the last time you logged in and really dug into your results? Hand over the task to your VA. Whether you require daily, weekly or biweekly reports, your VA can explore your analytics for salient, essential takeaways –delivered straight to your inbox, and easily scanned in minutes instead of the hours Google usually requires.
Content Strategy & Development
You know that SEO and marketing in 2014 means developing and implementing a content strategy, but you may be struggling with finding the time or developing the expertise to do it. A skilled Marketing VA can help. She’s current on content marketing and knows how to create content that will help your company get the visibility you need.
Web Development
Web development is one of the most arduous, time-consuming, and stressful tasks for any small business: there are key decisions to make, and major headaches if things go wrong. It can be daunting if you don’t have a technical background. Instead of focusing on the details of web dev, like how to write a bulletproof PHP script or create a customer survey, focus on the big picture – like the functionality you want. Your VA can manage one of Boldly’s in-house developers, or she can manage your existing development team.
Graphic Design
Logos. Colors. Fonts. Branding. Everything your company creates, from your website to your PPC banners to the tiny labels you stick onto your product packaging, benefits from good design. Design is such essential aspect of the way your customers perceive your business, that you can’t let it slide. A business-grade VA can manage one of Boldly’s in-house designers and get your design projects rolling.
It’s 2014 and more and more businesses are thinking bigger about what a virtual assistant can do for them.
