Have you ever wished you could clone yourself? Maybe you don't like yourself enough to make a mini-me, but most of us wish we could do more in less time.
More and more people are taking steps in that direction, turning to virtual assistants (VAs) to offload administrative tasks so that they can focus more on growing their businesses.
On average, executives spend 16 hours per week on admin work—most of which can be delegated to a VA. That's time you aren't spending on revenue-driving, KPI-hitting work.
So, what can a virtual assistant do? Let's look at the long list of virtual assistant tasks you can outsource.
General Administration Tasks For Virtual Assistants
Just because technology has enabled executives to do their admin work doesn't mean they should. These are the "traditional" virtual assistant tasks. The ones you think of when you think of an executive assistant.
While the things a virtual assistant can do aren't limited to these traditional tasks, there's a good chance they're part of your workflow.
Scheduling Meetings
This is a no-brainer. Scheduling a business meeting takes about 25 minutes, thanks to the "ping-pong" back-and-forth messages you send to find a time that works for everyone. This is not to mention conversations about rescheduling, updating the invite with the agenda, and ongoing schedule-related conversations.
The time lost increases with the size of the group. However, if you give a VA control of your calendar, you can get that time back.
Meeting Confirmations
Meeting confirmations are a powerful way to prevent no-shows and the wasted time they generate. Give a virtual assistant a meeting confirmation template, and they'll follow up for you—confirming the meeting or rescheduling.
A VA can eliminate no-shows from your life.
Travel Planning
Travel planning is one of the top tasks for virtual assistants, and for good reason.
Planning business travel can be exhausting. Finding the right flight, price, hotel, and car takes about 12 hours per trip. That's a massive chunk of time you can get back, and it is an ideal virtual assistant task.
Give your VA access to your loyalty programs and document your preferences for airlines, seating, cars, hotels, and meeting contacts. Your virtual assistant can then plan everything for you. When travel goes wrong, such as when flights are delayed or canceled, your virtual assistant will handle it all in the background. Phew!
Expense Reports
Everyone loves expense reports, right? Wrong. Collecting receipts, scanning or copying them, sorting them by categories, etc., is tedious but easy peasy for a virtual assistant.
Professional Networking
When you think of "tasks to outsource to a virtual assistant," you may not think of professional networking. But the opportunity is there!
80% of executives said networking is essential, but 49% say they don't have time to do it. A virtual assistant can track your networking, keep you up-to-date with critical contacts, monitor your LinkedIn, maintain email lists, perform research, and more. Essentially, your VA can do all your networking admin work so you stay focused on your biggest and best opportunities.
Inbox Management
About 10% of your email is relevant to you, and you usually forward many messages to a more appropriate contact.
A virtual assistant can learn your communication priorities, delete spam, forward emails, and organize your inbox folders so everything is always in the right place. Once you turn to an assistant for email management, you'll wonder why you never did it sooner.
Answering the Phone
Just as with email, a virtual assistant can screen your phone calls to ensure only the right ones reach you. They can also clean up your voicemail inbox and follow up on calls that don't need your direct attention.
Data Entry
Structured data that goes in standard fields is another perfect virtual assistant task. Examples include:
- Real estate listings for agents
- Resumes and job postings for recruiters
- Contact information for sales leads
- CRM data entry projects
- Routine reporting tasks
Sales & Marketing Support Tasks For Virtual Assistants
Salespeople spend only about 38% of their time selling. The rest is spent on administrative tasks such as updating records, conducting research, managing documentation, and working in their CMS. A virtual assistant can take many of these tasks off their plates.
Administrative Work
The same admin work virtual assistants can do for executives—scheduling meetings, planning travel, and filing expenses—can be done for salespeople.
Prospecting
Salespeople often spend hours scouring LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, and other contact databases for leads that meet their target audience criteria. Outsourcing prospecting to a VA can save your sales team time and money and help them scale their efforts.
Instead of conducting extensive research on all potential leads, sales teams receive a pre-vetted list of prospects to contact. This is a much more efficient approach.
Email Campaigns
Email and bulk SMS marketing take time. Templates help, but your sales reps or marketing team still have to load, personalize, send, monitor, and reply to campaigns—all work that takes them off the phones and away from core tasks.
A VA can load those lists into your email marketing platform and launch outreach campaigns. They can sort replies, update lead records, and schedule meetings. No sweat.
Social Media and Blog Posting
A virtual assistant can manage your social media and blog calendars and schedule posts. All you have to do is queue up the content and pass it off. Then your assistant can find relevant images, add hashtags, build and test links, check off SEO boxes, monitor comments, etc.
Essentially they can take the content busywork off your shoulders so you can stay strategic and proactive.
Learn more about hiring a virtual sales assistant or a virtual marketing assistant
Basic Graphic Design & Video Editing
When you need basic graphic design and basic video editing done, a VA can take your pre-made templates and update them as needed. They can also help you make sure your design branding is consistent.
Scheduling Calls
When a prospect contacts you via your website or email, a virtual assistant can schedule a meeting in 25 minutes (or less!). Your prospects will have a great experience, and your sales team can focus on the calls in progress.
Sales Follow Up
78% of buyers pick the first company that responds to them. Following up on inquiries is critical. A dedicated virtual assistant can be a vital asset here, ensuring you get on the phone or the inbox first.
CRM Cleanup and Maintenance
A healthy CRM can clarify your lead flow, qualification process, funnel status, and revenue forecasts. However, a robust CRM requires consistent and up-to-date data.
Set the rules, and a virtual assistant can enter the data, update contact information with the latest activities, and run reports.
Research
When you need a standard set of information about businesses, contacts, or markets, a virtual assistant can do that research for you.
You may have specific details you want to know about prospects before a sales call, for example, or you may want to stay on top of any news story about a client or a market. A VA can do the research and have the report ready for you.
Back Office Support Tasks For Virtual Assistants
Some 28% of back-office work consists of routine tasks. A virtual assistant handles many of these tasks to provide administrative support, freeing up staff members' time for more valuable work.
Bookkeeping
40% of entrepreneurs say bookkeeping is the worst part of their business. A virtual assistant is not a CPA and won't be able to prepare your taxes. However, a VA can enter bookkeeping data into applications like QuickBooks so that your financial records are always in order.
Invoicing
Timely invoicing is critical to cash flow. Business owners spend 20 hours a month chasing unpaid bills. A virtual assistant can send digital invoices and chase scofflaws for you.
Payment Processing
As with invoicing, a VA can process payments and enter the data into your bookkeeping platform. Whether you hire a general virtual assistant or a bookkeeping assistant, they can help you maintain your financial flow.
Document Preparation
Many back-office tasks involve customizing templated documents for specific recipients. A virtual assistant can prepare invoices, proposals, contracts, NDAs, and more. Then, they can document progress, send reminders, and maintain document-related data.
Purchasing
A virtual assistant can order standard office supplies and equipment and other scheduled, routine purchases for your business.
Personal Tasks For Virtual Assistants
Of course, a virtual assistant isn't just a professional asset! They can also tackle many personal and family tasks for executives, making their lives easier and giving them more time for what matters most.
Shopping
Give a virtual assistant a shopping list, and they can purchase anything that can be ordered online and delivered to your home or office.
Scheduling
Your virtual assistant isn't limited to your professional calendar; they can also manage your personal scheduling. For car maintenance, home improvement jobs, or hair styling, a VA can schedule your appointments online or by phone.
Vacations
Vacation planning can be as tedious as planning a business trip. A virtual assistant can book everything, including meals out and activities, based on your and your family's preferences.
Reminders of Important Dates
Need to remember someone's birthday or anniversary, or other important milestones for someone in your life? A virtual assistant will not forget and can even order appropriate gifts.
Read More: How Much Does a Virtual Assistant Cost?
What Virtual Assistants Don’t Do
Over time, a virtual assistant will learn your business, and some may develop skills that enable them to contribute beyond administrative tasks. For example, some have developed expertise in digital marketing and social media tools.
That said, virtual assistants are not ideal for specialized tasks that require expert training and deeper business experience.
Examples include:
- Advanced graphic design and video editing—a virtual assistant can upload a photo or graphic into a template but probably can’t design your annual report or edit an award-winning documentary.
- Web development—making edits to existing web pages is no problem, but coding is probably not in a virtual assistant’s skill set.
- Accounting—light bookkeeping, yes, but heavy accounting experience is unlikely.
- Personal Errands—Scheduling your doctor's appointment is one thing, but they won't be able to pick up your lunch for you.
Read More: What Virtual Assistant Skills and Qualities You Should Hire For
Virtual Assistant Task Processes
So, what can virtual assistants do for you? Well, that depends on your unique business needs and processes!
This list of tasks to assign to a virtual assistant is not exhaustive. In fact, there are many examples of what virtual assistants can do and how they can help a business grow. Here are a couple of excellent case studies if you're looking for more specific use cases!
- How Woodruff Sawyer gained 1000 hours of productivity each month with a VA
- How Zus accelerated recruiting with the help of a VA
- How CABN scaled quickly with VA customer service support
A virtual assistant can do any job documented as a repeatable process and doesn't require subjectivity. The benefits of hiring a virtual assistant are endless.
To get the best VA for your needs, choose virtual assistant services that proactively help you offload more of your tasks.
Assistants You Don't Have to Manage
Prialto offers fully managed virtual assistants. Read our guide to learn more about how a Prialto assistant can take administrative tasks off your plate.