5 Tasks To Delegate To A Virtual Assistant

1.  Email 

We all know how much time is wasted trawling through email.  Allow your Executive Assistant to screen your email and prioritise customer enquiries ensuring you are drawn to the most important ones. Set up an Admin email account for your VA to manage as well as a personal email account using your business domain so that your PA can answer in your company name.

2.  Calendar 

You don't need to be wasting time managing your calendar appointments.  Let your VA manage your calendar and schedules. If you have a good PA, that person will be adept at managing the back-and-forth calls and emails required to set up and confirm appointments. If you use Google calendar, it can sync directly to your iPhone.

3.  Invoicing 

Timely invoicing is crucial to any smart business to ensure cash flow doesn't become an issue. Your Virtual Assistant can prepare, send, track, record and receive your business invoices. H/she can even pay your invoices via online banking if you have already developed a long-term trusting relationship.

4.  Expenses  

Expense reports can be a business professional's least favourite task. By allowing your VA to organise your expenses and receipts, you will immediately lose the stress they can cause and end up with a neat spreadsheet showing each item, totals and summaries, set out in date order. To simply share receipt images, use Dropbox, a great invention for sharing documents.

5.  Travel  

Maybe because the word itself is appealing, in our 

experience most people are reluctant to release control of travel arranging. Take a tip and record how much time you waste looking at flights and hotels (even without getting distracted and ending up on other more appealing sites) to secure the right deal at the right price.  You may be surprised!  When delegating, ask your Virtual Assistant to have a look at TripIt a free tool which can sync your travel itinerary to your mobile device.

Don't Be Afraid To Delegate To Your VA

You will save time which can be better spent working on your business. 

If you want more time for yourself and / or your business, it’s time you relinquished your administrative tasks to a virtual assistant.
Hesitancy to release control of your tasks in itself is a sign that you need some help. In many cases, a VA can perform your administrative tasks more quickly, professionally and more effectively than you can because these are jobs a good Virtual PA does every day and your Assistant will instinctively know where or which contacts to go to for the fastest and best results.

Delegate - You will save time which can be better spent working on your business.

Check back soon to read our next blog on "Which Social Media Tasks Should You Delegate To A Virtual Assistant - Part 2"

Which Social Media Tasks Should You Delegate To A Virtual Assistant

CJ Virtual PA
06-02-2014

Part One

In a recent online survey 460 small business owners, 63% admitted they spend between one and hours on social media each week. The remaining people spend even more time, with some spending as many as 21 hours a week just on their social media management!
It doesn’t take much to work out that’s around half a working week – we wonder how on earth they are getting anything else done to create revenue! 

If you're not careful, the majority of time spent on social media can be totally unproductive and should be delegated to a Virtual Assistant for them to manage the promotion and scheduling, leaving you free to focus on what you’re good at, i.e., the client-facing role in your business.

If you've been on Facebook for a while, you'll know that due to all it’s various options it can be difficult not to get sidetracked.  However, social media, if used in a  productive way, can do amazing things for your online business marketing.

Letting Go

If  you have already made the decision to delegate your social media to a Virtual PA, you are to be congratulated! 

As an owner of a business built on hard work, blood, sweat and and sometimes tears, we understand only too well that it is not easy letting go, but by delegating you will save yourself a lot of valuable time which can be so much better spent on increasing revenue.



Once you have made your decision to "let go", you’ll need to give your VA access to your social media accounts and share your login details with them. You will also need to make them administrators of your social profiles. 

Social Media Marketing Model

Firstly, you need to evaluate which networks you will focus on, based of course on your business. For example a clothes manufacturer might use Pinterest to portray their colourful images, whereas service-based businesses like corporate coaches might be better off utilising Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to network in their areas of expertise. 

Some businesses fail in their social media efforts because it just is not possible to build an online presence overnight. You need to create a social media marketing strategy which summarises your goals, recurring tasks and the different achievements you're aiming for.

Social Media Tasks for Your Virtual Assistant to Manage

It’s really important to give your VA an overview of how you have managed your social media to date. This will allow him or her to understand your thought processes as you will want to ensure consistency when your Virtual PA is posting / blogging etc., on your behalf.

Drafting Content  

Your followers expect you to provide them with valuable information, which is why they chose to follow you in the first place.  This is where links and quotes come in as they are extremely popular on LinkedIn and Facebook.

Sourcing quotes, images and links to share across your social media platforms can be time consuming. This is where your Virtual Assistant can really add value by devising a document on a weekly basis, containing draft posts for your approval. As soon as you've authorised them, your Virtual PA can schedule them via HootSuite to be posted when you want them to go to get the best readership for your business.

Increasing your Network

Ask your VA to follow / friend / connect with new people based on your specific criteria. 
Liaison is crucial when it comes to social media, and sharing and commenting on content which is not your own is really important if you want to increase your network. Be careful not to link back to your own website too frequently or your followers may "unfollow" you if they think you’re just trying to directly promote your business / products / services. 



There are lots of ways to encourage social interaction online - here are just a few tasks which can be undertaken by your Virtual PA:

1. Share a content-relevant article or link relating to your industry
2. Add a video from Youtube and comment on it
3. You could even post an online survey to encourage a reaction from your followers
4. “Like” others' pages and interact with the larger names within your particular line of business
5. Post inspirational and amusing images and quotes

Finally, don’t forget to thank your new followers and liaise with those who have re-tweeted your posts and replies.

Check back soon to read the second part of "Which Social Media Tasks Should You Delegate To A Virtual Assistant"