Whether you are managing a start-up company or you are currently working toward making your business larger, there will come a time when you have to assign some of your tasks to someone else such as a dedicated assistant.
You need to make sure, however, that the tasks are such that they can be done with minimal supervision from you. If you’re the only one who can perform the task and it is important that you do it yourself, don’t delegate it. Never delegate this type of task to others.
List the tasks that you need to complete.
List the tasks that you need to complete, then identify the criteria that make them ideal for delegation. Some criteria that can serve as guides include the following:
- Tasks that do not require your immediate attention (because you have to take care of other tasks that are more important)
- Activities that are highly repetitive, robotic, and cannot be automated
- Things that you don’t know how to do
- Tasks that you hate doing over and over again
If you still can’t decide which tasks are suitable to delegate to your virtual assistants, we have prepared a list to help you.
General Administrative Dedicated Assistant Tasks
General VAs are mainly tasked to do office work remotely. This means that they do not have to show up in your office just to provide the deliverables. Depending on your business needs, you may assign basic administrative work or a specific role to your virtual assistant which may include the following:
- Receive and make calls and/or voicemails
- Payroll and bookkeeping, including updating salaries and computing business expenses
- Money Transfers, paying utility bills, and sending/receiving invoices
- Basic data entry
- Email management, including sorting, sending, managing spam and replying to messages
- Draft weekly and monthly reports on tasks, sales, and expenses
- Manage chat support tickets
- Schedule appointments with your business partners, clients, and third-party vendors
- Word processing such as transcription
- Convert and encrypt files
- Proofread contracts, business proposals, e-mails, and other similar written content
- Prepare manuals for new company trainees
Web Development Tasks
Even if content management systems already make it easier to create a simple website, you should still leave this work to the experts unless you’re a web developer by profession yourself. Creating a website is relatively easy. but building a website that stands out from the rest is a different story. Not only are there new coding systems and languages available, but there are also new processes to master before implementing a website. In addition, you need to make sure that your website is in top condition to prevent problems such as a high bounce rate.
If you’re planning to delegate this type of role, ensure that your dedicated assistant will regularly check on the following:
- High ranking on search engine results (provided that the website has been up for more than six months already)
- Available company contact information that potential visitors can easily see
- Good navigation system
- User-friendly features
- Fast loading time
“Sub-tasks” that you can delegate to your web developer.
- Checking compliance with general web standards and cross-browser compatibility
- Incorporating programming languages and web applications on the website (APIs, JavaScript, HTML, and CSS)
Digital Marketing and SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Tasks
This is especially important if you have not established your online presence yet. A good VA can help you gain recognition in the sea of business websites out there. However, don’t expect results immediately. Working on SEO tasks is tedious and will take time before you see if your VA’s plans are successful. On average, it takes about three to six months to see the results, depending on when the SEO tasks are done and when the search engine indexing will take place. In some cases, it takes a bit longer to see the results. As long as your dedicated assistant can provide you with constant reports on the steps done and justification for performing them, your business should be in good hands.
The steps done by your dedicated VA that will require regular reporting are the following:
- Webmaster and sitemap submissions
- Creation of a good landing page
- SEO optimization
- Creation of web marketing strategies
- Website traffic observation
- Keyword research
- Affiliate marketing
- Link building campaigns
- Building a list of contacts for promotions, newsletters, and e-mail correspondences
- Google Analytics monitoring
- Working with social media influencers such as vloggers and bloggers to gain access to publishers
Audio and Video Tasks
Among the dedicated assistant tasks posted here, this is perhaps the one on the rise because of social media sites and their increasing popularity.
Make sure that your VA is equipped with the right skills, equipment, and software to do these tasks right. Such tasks may include:
- Uploading photos and videos to your company’s social media sites
- Splicing the videos’ intros and outros to suit the audience’s taste
- Creating podcasts and embedding them on the business website
- Editing photos to your specifications
Content Writing
If you are not a fan of translating your thoughts into written form, it’s best to outsource this to a dedicated assistant who can work on your behalf. This is crucial if you need content for marketing purposes because this can be one of the factors that can make or break your business (aside from the quality of products and/or services that you provide your customers). Just make sure that when you’re enlisting the help of your VA for this role, you know what type of content you want to be written. If you don’t know the specifics, at least have something in mind that the VA can base their output on.
Discuss the specifics first. Examples include:
- Guest blogging and posting
- Blog post writing
- Content marketing composition (copywriting, infographics)
- Composing content for promotional materials such as flyers, brochures, and pamphlets
- Business-related book reviews
- Submitting articles to other companies and reputable websites
- Creating e-books related to your company’s products and services
- Composing emails for sales
If you want to minimize costs while maximizing profits and time, outsourcing to a dedicated assistant is a good start. This is a better choice, especially if you are just starting because this can help you get work done while you work on more pressing business matters. Aside from that, you don’t have to worry about additional costs such as insurance, taxes, and benefits.