One of the biggest reasons why entrepreneurs nowadays struggle to grow their businesses is because they are simply wearing too many hats.
They do everything in their business. They ARE the business!!!
It’s a dangerous, downward spiral that most entrepreneurs suffering from what I regularly refer to as ‘Superhero Syndrome’, will eventually encounter – if they don’t change the way they are doing things. Fast!
Anyone that’s ever visited my blog before will know that I am a huge advocate of outsourcing and working with all the different types of virtual assistants available, right now, at your arsenal.
It’s just plain smart to leverage your time with talented workers on your team than try and do it all yourself.
Getting Started is the Biggest Hurdle
However, from speaking with hundreds and hundreds of entrepreneurs over the last couple of years on the subject, the biggest reason why they procrastinate and do not pull the trigger with outsourcing is that they really don’t have a clue what tasks they would outsource in the first place!
With this in mind, here’s a little kickstart in the right direction – and that direction is a General VA. In case you’ve never worked with GVA’s before, this is the one role that I suggest every entrepreneur fills in their business, before any other.
NOTE: GVA’s cannot handle tasks that would be taken care of by other types of virtual staff, such as web development and programming, graphic design, video and audio editing, content writing, and SEO tasks.
However – the fact is that GVA’s are a Godsend.
They help you ‘buy more time’ in your workday, alleviating entrepreneurial stress and allowing you to start working ON your business, instead of being trapped, working IN it.
25 Tasks to Outsource to a General Virtual Assistant
1. Email Management/Filtering
2. Setting up Autoresponders (Aweber, Mailchimp)
3. Booking appointments with clients
4. Following up with clients/customers (sending thank you and other reminder emails)
5. Receptionist duties (answering occasional calls)
6. Calendar Management
7. File Management (organizing files using Dropbox etc)
8. Database building (eg. updating email or contact lists on your CRM)
9. Research on certain topics for blogposts, newsletters or others
10. Personal errands (purchasing gifts for loved ones / family members online)
11. Hotel and Flight Booking
12. Transcription (transcribing voicemail, video or audio, podcasts etc.)
13. Taking down minutes of meetings
14. Creating basic reports (reports on weekly tasks, deliverables, sales)
15. Preparing Slideshows (Powerpoint Presentations)
16. Liaison between you and other team members
17. Recruitment (source for other team members like writers or graphic artists)
18. Set-up Social Media Accounts (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube)
19. Manage and update Social Media Accounts
20. Manage your Blog (Basic WordPress Skills)
21. Publish posts on your Blog (content you provided)
22. Filter and reply to comments on your blog
23. Answering support tickets (with the use of Zendesk)
24. Blog commenting (to increase links to your site)
25. Participating in discussion forums or message boards (more promotion!)
Don’t Make Assumptions!
Obviously, some of these tasks will require training, especially ones that involve the use of online tools. These are just some examples of the type of tasks someone in a General VA role can accomplish for you.
Use my ‘3 Lists to Freedom’ exercise to create your own, personalized list!
The most important thing here is to realize that not everyone will be perfect at handling ALL of these tasks right out of the gate. It’s silly (and a little ignorant!) to assume that one person will have experience handling all of these types of tasks.
However, I am here to tell you that I have seen GVA’s handle all of these types of tasks with ease and confidence after some basic VA training, a little understanding and a slither of patience from their Virtual Bosses! So, be nice.
So, what now?
Get outsourcing, that’s what.
