I’m going to let you in on a little secret this week. Make that a big secret. A big ol’ timesaving, money-making secret – the secret to how a business-grade virtual assistant can save you 15 hours a week (and boost your earnings more than $1,500 weekly!).
What?, you ask, How is that possible? It’s simple. By delegating the following five tasks to your VA, you’ll hand off about 15 hours of weekly work. That’s 15 extra hours to do what you do best. Translated to potential revenue, that’s $1,500 weekly in extra billing hours if your hourly rate is $100. And if your time is worth $250 an hour, that’s an extra $3,750 extra a week – or $195,000 in increased yearly revenue! Without a doubt, your virtual assistant can really earn her keep.
Of course, the first step is hiring the perfect VA and the second is forcing yourself to delegate effectively. But once you have a well-tuned system in place, here are five daily activities to outsource to your virtual assistant – saving you 15+ hours a week:
1. Let Your Virtual Assistant Serve as Your First Line of Email Defense (5 Hours a Week)
As your business has grown, so has your email inbox. And as you become more successful, all those inquiries that once made you jump for joy now peck away at your motivation and joie de vivre. Two quick questions: How long does it take you to sift through the morning’s influx of email? How much time do you spend responding to the same types of inquiries, questions, and customer service issues?
Chances are, the correct answer is, “My inbox is a time-suck.” You spend 20 minutes here and 15 minutes there – often more than an hour a day – sieving through endless emails. In the process, you lose time and get distracted from your tasks that require your unique expertise. And that’s where your virtual assistant comes in: she can serve as your first line of defense in email management by zapping spam, deleting the junk, filtering emails and responding to standard inquiries, exactly the way you would. So when you open your inbox every morning, just the priority emails – the ones only you can answer – await.
Weekly Time Saved: 5 hours
2. Delegate Social Media Management (5 Hours a Week)
If you’re still managing your own Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other social accounts, stop right there! Social media is another time-suck that absolutely does not require your expert skill set. And by the time you’ve sifted through your Twitter feed, uploaded photos for Facebook, and made the LinkedIn rounds, you’re an hour poorer. Instead, outsource your social media to your virtual assistant, who can match your style, promote your business, and probably do it faster than you could, anyway. (Thanks, Hootsuite!)
Weekly Time Saved: 5 hours
3. Turn Over Your Calendar (1 Hour a Week)
Scheduling is a part of business and everyday life. You have to arrange for meetings, book services, block off meeting times, and schedule in haircuts, visits to the tailor and other necessities. Except, you don’t have to do it: your virtual assistant can do all the legwork, from sourcing service providers to actually scheduling your appointments. And thanks to Google Calendar, both you and your VA can have collaborative access to your schedule, anytime, anywhere.
Weekly Time Saved: 1 hour
4. Assign Blog Post & Newsletter Uploads & Scheduling (2 Hours a Week)
If you’ve ever labored over tagging, categorizing and SEO-optimizing a new blog post in Wordpress, or designing tomorrow’s newsletter in Mailchimp, take heart: your virtual assistant can do that for you. In fact, the right business-grade VA has expertise in your specific blogging and newsletter software, so she can not only take over this task, but can likely do it more efficiently. That means fewer headaches for you and a better final product for your business – plus hours and frustration saved, every week.
Weekly Time Saved: 2 hours
5. Hand Over Bookkeeping & Accounting Tasks (2 Hours a Week)
Bookkeeping is one of those tasks that goes on and on and on: there are always new bills to pay, more expenses to note, and more accounts receivable to add to the books. But your contributions to bookkeeping should stop at handing over your receipts – nothing more. Let your virtual assistant take care of the spreadsheets, tackle the accounting software, record cash flow, track expenses, and handle other bookkeeping minutiae. With online accounting software, you’ll have one-click access to your books without wasting any time actually keeping them.
Weekly Time Saved: 2 hours
These are just a few ideas to whet your appetite; with a business-grade virtual assistant, you don’t have to limit your delegation. Hand over complex, time-consuming tasks, even complete functions, and free up your time even further to focus on your strategic priorities.
What would you like to get off your plate, and hand over to a skilled virtual assistant?
