The Top 5 Tasks to Pass to Your Virtual Assistant

Written by: Haley Garrison

At Maven Assist, one of the most common questions we receive from Clients is: “What’s the first thing I should offload to my Virtual Assistant?” We’ve prioritized the top five tasks that Maven Assist’s Virtual Assistants can take ownership of so you can spend less time wrangling the chaos and stressing over your task list and have more time to focus on client relationships and business strategy.  

1. The Calendar 

The calendar: your Virtual Assistant’s bread and butter. While this may seem like a small or obvious task to let go of, let us quickly walk you through what exactly we mean here. If you’re a business owner with the goal of ramping up or scaling your business to the next level, chances are you’re the guy/gal everyone wants to meet with. Maybe your focus is hiring, or perhaps it’s landing funding; at the very least, it’s probably customer/client relationships. Regardless, these all require time: your biggest asset and the commodity you need more of. When a Virtual Assistant takes calendaring off your plate, a couple of things happen: 

• Regain your time. Rather than squandering your most precious asset (your time) with trading multiple emails to schedule appointments or reshuffling your schedule, your Virtual Assistant will take over the logistics so you can maintain focus on more strategic tasks that bring revenue into your organization.  

• Better use of your time. Your Virtual Assistant sees the big picture. They know your personal priorities and business goals better than anyone else, so when they’re planning your workdays, they can ensure your most important items are prioritized. Unlike an AI calendaring tool, your VA can recognize your shifting landscape and rearrange your calendar accordingly. Or they can protect time you need to prepare or respond to situations as they emerge. You and your VA can also work out a system for your “ideal week” that may include blocking time for focused work or color coding your days to make it easier to recognize what’s coming up. Now that’s transformative support.  

• Harmony between business and personal. You wouldn’t be the first or last business leader to feel like they don’t have enough time to spend with the people they love or participate in activities they enjoy. Your Virtual Assistant can strategize with you on creating a better balance in your schedule so that the things that bring you joy don’t fall off the radar. And, with the time you’re regaining, you’ll actually have extra hours in the week for that bike ride or outing with your kids.  

2. Your Inbox

Before your palms start to sweat, hear us out. We know your inbox is precious. We know it can be nerve-wracking to give up control of this critical tool. But trust us when we say that having a system for your inbox is vital to freeing up your time and ensuring nothing slips through the cracks.  

Now here’s the good news: you can play an active role in creating that system together with your Virtual Assistant, and once that system is agreed upon, it’s smooth sailing from there. Your VA is the perfect person to set up a flagging system or create rules and folders within your inbox to ensure you are organized and on top of your email game. And if you need help fielding external communications, your VA can take the lead where appropriate. Plus, your VA acts as a safety net, reminding you to reply to messages if they see you haven’t.   

3. Personal Support 

Did you hear? Hawaii is open to receiving visitors again – but it’s possible you missed that if you don’t have time to plan travel. Plus, who has time to keep up with all the new rules of travel in the COVID era? Well, your Virtual Assistant can track down those details for you and plan your next family vacation, so you and the fam have something fun to look forward to. Or maybe you need help keeping up with school updates for your children or arranging their afterschool activities. Your Virtual Assistant can maintain your family calendar and flag important updates, whether reminding you of parent-teacher conferences or planning dinner arrangements for your upcoming anniversary. 

4. Project Management 

Have a backlog of data entry and CRM updates? Need to find contact information for the thirty leads you met with at that last conference? Looking to plan a leadership offsite and need help researching venues and speakers? Need help selecting a new payroll system and want someone to demo products and create a pro/con list? These and other one-off projects are just the thing to pass to your Virtual Assistant.  

5. Back Office Support 

Does your desk tend to pile up with invoices, proposals, unsigned contracts and expense reports? A Virtual Assistant can help you build out templates, request signatures, compile expenses and invoice clients/customers. Whether you’re using Expensify, QuickBooks or an Excel spreadsheet, Maven Assist’s VAs are equipped with the financial and business acumen to assist you with these time-consuming but vital tasks. 

Maven Assist’s Virtual Assistants have the knowledge, experience, and skillset to organize your business, streamline your systems, and execute the details. Above all else, a VA will save you time, stress, and energy. If you’re ready to know what true leverage feels like, we would love to dive into your specific needs and get a better sense of what you’re looking for in a virtual support partner. Connect with us here.