Why It Makes Sense to Outsource your To-Do List
We live in the internet era where learning just about anything is as easy as watching a YouTube video of the same. You can learn some great social media marketing tools and take the world by storm, solve all of your computer’s hardware and software issues, perform any number of Pilates exercises, or make multiple travel bookings, manage appointments, shop groceries, and more – all with just a few clicks of the mouse. But just because it all seems easy, should you absolutely be the one doing all this? While doing some of these tasks yourself could be good, others could land you in a not-so-favourable situation. Either way, trust us - some things are best left to the experts. You’d be better off making time for the work that really matters rather than spending it DIY-ing stuff that you can easily delegate, that too at a fraction of the cost your time is worth.
Technology today has made it easier to find skilled workers for just about any task you’d like to outsource – professional and personal both.
Thank god for that. Well, internet too.
Gone are the times when you would have to hire employees to get work done. You now have the world’s workforce at your disposal at a cost that you’d like. Yes, we are talking of virtual assistants who are remote workers from anywhere across the globe and who handle tasks that you choose to delegate. The best part is, you can hire them for a few hours, days, or as per your need at a budget that suits your pocket – most virtual assistant services have a plethora of packages one can choose from depending on the level of assistance required. Goodbye to employee hiring hassles, the struggle to maintain their productivity, fearing attrition, human resource management, and the stress of managing it all yourself or paying for more resources to do so.
Now that the case for hiring a virtual assistant is clear, what tasks do you delegate when you have one on-board? Here are 10 tasks we think you should not spend your time and energy trying to ‘Do-it-Yourself’.
#1 Administration: Getting the office engines fired up and running smooth is no mean task. Creating and compiling documents, business memos, filing invoices, responding to emails, managing appointments, and the planned schedule as per calendar, etc. are all tasks that though mundane, consume much more time than you would imagine. All these can be easily delegated to a virtual assistant who can shave hours off your work day.
#2 Website management: Given the social media frenzy we all witness day in and day out, having an up-to-date website is one of the most critical prerequisites for success. Whether you are an individual, a start-up or an established business, it pays to hire a virtual assistant to manage your website and regularly update it with valuable content, embed share widgets for easy distribution of content to social media platforms, optimize the site for high search engine ranking, manage graphic design, update statistics (if any) and even track the website performance in terms of page visits, drops, and average page time per user. With Google changing its search algorithms every now and then and levying heavy penalty on websites that fail to toe the line, this is one task best left to the experts. Don’t have a website yet? Outsource that too. Look for specialized virtual assistants who are experienced in website creation and management.
#3 Social media marketing: Social media is sure a channel well worth your time but with its trends changing at the blink of an eye, handling it all alone could spell disaster or no results at all. An experienced virtual assistant can help you make impactful social media profiles on channels that matter, post share-worthy content and images frequently, engage with target audience to grow your online community, respond tactfully to negative comments/complaints, and pretty much do everything it takes to boost your social media presence effectively.
#4 Customer support and reception services: This is one of the most frequently outsourced tasks globally as small businesses often lack the infrastructure, time, and investment required to maintain a contact centre. A virtual assistant (or a team of assistants in case of higher volume of calls) can help you manage inbound calls 24x7, answer customer queries, manage complaints, keep a record of interactions, make follow-up calls, schedule outbound calls for lead generation and gathering customer feedback, chase vendors and suppliers for payments, etc.
#5 Online Research: Another frequently outsourced task, online research can get time consuming if done by yourself. Most good virtual assistants are not just trained at doing research faster and more effectively, they can also scout for good deals and packages. Leverage a virtual assistant’s expertise to help you find information on a particular industry, key players, market size, competitor analysis, research new products or innovative ideas, create a database of prospective customers with their numbers, email and other contact details, etc. Neck deep in work with no time to meet family/personal commitments or plan an outing? Get your virtual assistant to find the ideal place for a budget/luxury vacation, book your salon appointment, reserve a table at one of the best restaurants, and even send flowers to a special someone. Be it professional or personal – get the work done on time, enjoy the best rates, and most importantly, kiss goodbye to stress.
#6 Travel management: With the advances in technology, the world is literally your oyster today and your target audience could be located just about anywhere. This is making entrepreneurs and executives undertake more and more business trips and they are increasingly relying on virtual assistants to seamlessly manage their growing itineraries. Be it business or pleasure trips, you can count on a virtual assistant to research and compare airfares, navigate time zones for international travel, book accommodation and local travel arrangements, make a list of must-visit sightseeing places, get the best rates for foreign currency, manage on-the-go appointments, and map out detailed itineraries to ensure hassle free travel. What’s more – an assistant can also give you wake-up calls and reminders to ensure you never miss a flight or important meeting!
#7 Home management: Now this is one task that needs a lot of attention, time, and patience for home is where the heart is. But ensuring the home and hearth run smoothly while you conquer new heights as a professional can be very tough. Thankfully, we now have virtual assistants who can do it on our behalf, albeit with a little hand holding to begin with. Start by outsourcing grocery shopping, pet care, finding good and affordable home cleaning and pest control services in your area, researching online to find cooks who can home and prepare healthy meals for the family, and once you are comfortable with outsourcing these tasks, move to other specialized ones like telling your assistant to find the best deals to renew your home mortgage, insurance policy, get home repairs done, or scout for good property deals in the neighbourhood, should you plan to expand your footprint.
#8 Taxes and accounting: Whether you are an individual or a company, account keeping and filing taxes is a time bound task that requires specialized skills. Get hold of an experienced virtual assistant who is well versed with standard accounting practices and governing laws in your state/country and outsource financial statements’ preparation, payroll management, financial record maintenance, and other book keeping tasks.
#9 Data management: Accurate data is the backbone of any business and with exploding data volumes that we have today, getting a virtual assistant to manage and sort it all can be a real boon. Get help from a virtual assistant to generate periodic reports on key metrics, create and update databases with latest statistics, manage manual data entries, convert word documents to PDF files, make impactful power point presentations with embedded videos, summarize minutes of the meeting/research findings and share the same, and many more time consuming tasks that can easily be done someone other than yourself.
#10 Event management: Whether it’s a webinar, an online talk show, or an offline event – managing one requires you to pull multiple levers at the same time to ensure everything moves as planned and on-schedule. A virtual assistant can come in handy to scout for event locations, manage registrations, handle enquiries, co-ordinate among stakeholders, participants, and vendors, etc. In a personal event, you could outsource any part of your party planning, benefit from getting the best deals on flowers, catering and arrangements, be relieved off sending out invites and thank you notes by yourself, and much more. The time you save by outsourcing these tasks could prove valuable in creating an outstanding and memorable event.