7 Tasks an Online Virtual Assistant Can Handle for You
Credit: Ryantron.@Flickr
I’ve been working with an online virtual assistant for almost a year now. My current virtual assistant is a whiz at getting repetitive tasks off my desk and letting me focus on the creative work my clients pay me the big bucks for. If you’ve got a growing freelance practice, a virtual assistant may be able to help you handle the work load. These tasks are all relatively easy for virtual assistants to take on, letting you focus on landing and completing projects that pay.
- Clean out your inbox. There are probably newsletters, junk mail, and piles of other emails sitting in your inbox right now, hiding all the worthwhile client emails that will actually make you money. A VA can clear out the less useful items and, if you give him some autonomy, answer the more basic emails.
- Handle the nuts and bolts of starting a new project. While you need to be hands on to actually land a project, all the back and forth necessary to get the project set up (getting approval on a contract, getting basic information, and so on) can be handed off to a virtual assistant. Depending on the size of your client’s company, you can bet that the head of the company isn’t handling details on his end.
- Send nagging emails. With some clients, having to send reminders is a fact of life. You need to send reminders about invoices, about information you need and everything else. You may just need to cut and paste an email and send it, which is not a particularly effective use of your skills.
- Schedule appointments. It seems like it can take days of back-and-forth emails to schedule an appointment sometimes. When you’re giving a virtual assistant some autonomy to handle your email inbox, hand over your schedule as well. As long as you tell your virtual assistant when not to schedule appointments, she can handle getting them set on your calendar.
- Research potential clients. It’s good practice to do some due diligence on any clients you’re considering working with. A good virtual assistant can run those Google searches that we simply skip when we get busy.
- Double check your work. After you’ve been staring at a project long enough, your eyes can start to glaze over. A virtual assistant can step in and make sure that you’ve got all the bits and pieces that the client initially asked for before you send it on.
- Repetitive parts of your work. I have one client who I need to set up blog posts for in a fairly repetitive manner (employing SEO techniques, adding graphics and so on). Rather than taking time away from my writing, it’s easy to hand these repetitive and formulaic tasks off to a virtual assistant.
At the end of the day, there are plenty of tasks you can shift off your desk to a virtual assistant’s. For most freelancers, the question isn’t what could you have a virtual assistant do, but rather how are you going to pay one. But there are ways to resolve that question quickly: it’s rare that you’ll need a full-time assistant and there are many virtual assistants based in other companies who are available for a lower rate than you might pay for a U.S.-based virtual assistant.
Photo credit: Ryantron.@Flickr
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Do you have any recommendations about services that provide VAs for short- or long-term work?
I use to work years ago with a company that offered virtual assistant services. It is convenient and can save money for a client. I think in terms with my business that a virtual assistant may help out in some occasions. When I worked at that company they had people who spoke different languages handling clients, SEO/SEM handling, graphic design, posting craigslist ads and would even help out with shopping.
I have a great virtual assistant but never use her — I simply have trouble figuring out what to send off to her. I know that there are things she could do to clear my schedule of the picky bits but this is more difficult in practice than in theory.
I really appreciate this list. It makes sense and I think they are all items I can hand off and not constantly worry that I should have kept them on my plate.
I can add another thing to the list as well (discovered as I was catching up this weekend): Have him or her enter your expenses into your accounting or invoicing software. This is painful for me but is set up to the point that anyone can do it. I realized this weekend how important it is to stay up to date with these things. Ugh.
Virtual Assistants can be a big help or a big headache. While getting them to do all of these tasks is nice once they are completely competent… the process of training and trusting them can take a long time and a lot of work/$$.
I’ve found with the VA’s I’ve worked with the money is always worth it. Go get yourself a reputable va with lots of experience (even if they charge more) and let them get to work. Paying more for someone who knows what they are doing is worth it. I just think of it as paying for someone who is already trained (which otherwise would be more expensive).
There are lots more that a virtual assistant can offer than just daily administrative support. A virtual assistant can also help on your marketing, help translate your work in different languages and even do your bookkeeping for you.
A virtual assistant can add great value to your freelance business.
These are all great ideas. Thanks for the list. Do you have any recommendations as to where to look for a VA? Thanks
I would recommend submitting an RPF to the International Virtual Assistant Association http://www.ivaa.org. They also have a full directory of the certified virtual assistants.
Of course I would also recommend myself.
I’ve never worked with a VA and won’t in the near future. Right now I need to spend as little as possible and earn as much as I can. On the other hand my business, though growing nicely, is not yet that demanding so that I cannot take care of my own stuff. Not to mention I am a too private person to actually let a stranger into my own stuff.
Would love some recommendations for where to find good VAs.
This is a nice article that outlines only a smidgen of what us Virtual PAs can do. The most important thing we do is enable a client to spend less time doing the day to day, monotonous bits and enable them to use more of their time concentrating on pushing their businesses forward and gaining more revenue.
Some say that they can easily do everything themselves, but have they ever thought about what they would be doing if they didn’t have to worry with the small bits? And the expense is definitely worthwhile. Some of my clients consider me almost like an employee but instead they can choose exactly how much or little I do, don’t have to faff with holiday pay, sickness pay and avoid all the admin involved with recruitment. I just invoice them with an unbeatable rate for a VPA and then that’s it!
As¸a freelance translator, I’ve never worked with a VA and don’t think it would ever be possible.
Most of my clients require that I sign an NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement) by which I agree not to disclose, give away, copy, etc any of the material I receive for translation. Most of the time those are technical documentation papers, highly sensitive and revealing the contents to an VA would be a breach of NDA.
The same goes for decluttering my inbox. It also contains sensitive attachments, intended “for-my-eyes-only”.
I’ve gotta say, the tasks you list don’t really seem to steal that much time. (Or like the client handling require good skills on the VAs side)
But I still think a VA is a great thing to have. Tasks I love to outsource:
1!!!) Research for articles & e-books
2) going through comments on blogs
3) handling other outsourcers (article writers) and my tech/graphic guy
VAs are really big help to your business they can help you manipulate headache work that even can’t handle it because of no time, but as long your VAs are there they help you expand your business with minimal cost.
I agree with this, VAs is a big help to any kind of business, they handle all the work, and you have time now to your family without worry.
It’s great how you kept the list of tasks a VA can do very compact when actually a VA can do almost anything. The only real question is – what can’t a VA do for you?
The emergence of VA’s and the industry has created wonders for entrepreneurs with respect to productivity and getting things done.
I definitely agree on you, Virtual Assistant is a big help specially on business, I have VA on my own, he is the one handling all the task, and guess what I received lots of calls regarding my business, great article.