Ten Things to Outsource to a Virtual Assistant

Using a virtual assistant can shave hours off your work week, but knowing which tasks to delegate can be tricky, whether you're starting or growing a business. Most virtual assistants are contract or freelance workers who do their jobs from home and focus on administrative tasks that are similar to those of an executive assistant or secretary. Entrepreneurs can use virtual assistants for everything from making vendor or customer service calls to sending out thank you cards to prospective clients. It's important to build trust, just as you would with a permanent employee. "They become a team member who just happens to work remotely”.

Here are 10 ways you can use a virtual assistant to improve your business.

Bookkeeping: Keeping tabs on bills and other bookkeeping matters can be one of the easiest things to assign to a virtual assistant. Many small businesses choose to share their bookkeeping systems with their virtual assistants who can then follow-up on tasks such as outstanding invoices or unpaid bills. "You will need to hand over some control [including] passwords and access to accounts”, no need to worry though, here at Yateman International we ensure that your information is not only secure but all our agents also sign a non-disclosure agreement to protect the confidentiality of your information.

Online Research: You can easily farm out Internet research to virtual assistants. Common requests include finding information on corporate websites, exploring new products and vetting potential employees or business contacts. Be sure to send clear instructions, along with usernames and passwords so assistants can get access to specialty search tools or paid websites.

Database Entries: Whether it's a slew of new business cards picked up at a conference or updated information for existing contacts, keeping databases current is a suitable task for virtual assistants. Here at Yateman International, we ensure that our clients be specific about their needs and expectations, so there's less room for errors, Follow up is a huge thing for business owners. Sometimes clients will fax or scan business cards to us, and virtual assistants will plug them into the database.

Data Presentation: Turning raw data into a clear PowerPoint presentation or summarizing research findings in a Word document can be a huge timesaver when prepping for meetings, at Yateman International we do just that and many more just to make your workload less chaotic and stressful.

Managing Email: To keep you from wasting time in your email inbox, here at Yateman International we will filter your most important emails, prepare a draft response for the ones you must see and respond to the rest on your behalf. Such email management is easy to do remotely, however, what we do is ask our clients to provide guidance on how to pick out key emails and have a copy sent to them before sending out any responses to reduce the risk of errors.

Social tasks: Virtual assistants can be a good bet to handle tasks such as writing holiday cards or sending thank you notes. Such tasks can become "all consuming" for business executives, However, a good virtual assistant can take care of all of it.

Travel Research: Virtual assistants are a great resource for finding hotels, booking airfares and mapping out trip itineraries both for business and pleasure. The assistants can take advantage of the growing number of travel research tools and review sites on the Web. They can also deal with the hassle of navigating time zones when booking or researching international travel options on your behalf.

Scheduling: Because many scheduling tools are available online, virtual assistants are managing the calendars of many clients, Tasks include dealing with meeting invitations from others, scheduling appointments with clients and helping to plan events. "It's about being comfortable and letting go of that calendar" to a non-staff person working remotely.

Chasing business: Prioritizing potential business opportunities can be challenging, but virtual assistants can help with the process, by looking around for products that can be profitable to resell, they look for clearance items and other types of products. 

Industry knowledge prep: With limited time to keep up with industry news, some small businesses have turned to virtual assistants to keep tabs on the most important happenings. Many executives then use the industry information to update their Twitter feed or bring up interesting developments in conversation with customers and prospects. This helps "executives appear to have timely news.

Do you have any of these task or more that you would like to outsource to a virtual assistant? Contact us at 876-622-8916 for local calls and 1305-454-8631 for International. You can also email us at [email protected].