There are many small business owners that get nervous at the idea of letting go of certain tasks in their business and outsourcing them. But the truth is that it’s really the only way to grow your business effectively.
It’s impossible to do everything yourself, so when the time comes to get some help it’s a case of strategically choosing what to outsource.
Things to consider when you’re thinking about outsourcing?
There are a number of factors you could consider:
- Things you don’t do well.
- Things you don’t like doing.
- Tasks you don’t really have the skills for.
- Things that eat up a lot of your time but don’t contribute directly to earning income.
- Things that YOU don’t need to do.
Here are seven suggestions of tasks that you can outsource to a Virtual Assistant:
BOOKKEEPING
Unless you are an accountant yourself, it is probably best to outsource this task to the professionals.
Keep good records to make their job easier and keep costs down.
Don’t hand them shoeboxes of paperwork a couple of days before your taxes are due because it may well cost you more than it needs to.
The good thing is that until very recently if your business was operating as an accountancy service provider you had to register under the Money Laundering Regulations.
However, if you come across a Virtual Assistant who provides a small amount of accountancy services (such as bookkeeping) as a they may may not need to register.
There are a few factors you need to take into account, the main one being getting the reassurance that you do have a legitimately registered accountant that WILL be checking everything that’s been done.
It’s certainly an option to outsource to a virtual assistant but it is purely at the discretion of the VA and does not get rid of the fact you still need an accountant.
CUSTOMER SERVICE
Once you have been in business for a while, you should have a list of frequently asked questions (FAQs) from customers.
Outsourcing your customer service to one or more workers so you have good coverage and nothing get’s put in a pile and forgotten about.
It may even be something as simple as keeping an eye on an specific inbox but you could also consider using a ticketing portal to help keep everything organised.
CONTENT CREATION
If you are a slow writer, why not hire ghostwriters or a copywriter to help you keep your content fresh?
You could even get a virtual assistant to transcribe a blog post using your words!
If you’d prefer to do it yourself you could just outsource to a VA to schedule your content across your social media or blog too.
UPDATING YOUR BLOG AND/OR WEBSITE
As we’ve just touched on, if you write the content yourself, the content will still need to be uploaded to your blog, website or social media.
This is a super easy task to outsource to a virtual assistant or freelancer who works with WordPress or a similar blogging software daily.
They may also be able to maintain your website too in other ways such as ensuring all your plugins are up to date, you have a regular back up of your site and redesign if necessary.
LOGOS, ARTWORK AND IMAGES
Unless you are a professional artist who has mastered Photoshop or is a Canva pro 
, chances are you spend way too much time on creating your graphics.
If you find yourself going down the black hole of Canva and wasting waaaay to much time why not consider whether or not you would be better off hiring a freelancer who is already familiar with these programs and is skilled at using all of their impressive features.
People do judge a book by its cover, so it’s certainly somewhere you ought to invest in if you aren’t comfortable doing it yourself or aren’t happy with what you are producing.
If you are publishing eBooks or multimedia courses, take the time and money to find a good designer who can make your product look like a high-quality one worth buying (even if you are using Canva it can still look fab!)
EMAIL MARKETING
Email marketing is an essential tool for all successful businesses. You should not be solely relying on social media to promote your business and you should be collating email addresses from the off!
You may also want to create offers, new lists, and a “funnel” to get subscribers.
Once a person is on your email marketing list, you should send them content and interesting promotional offers so they will buy from you regularly or keep you in mind when they do want something too.
Email marketing isn’t difficult, but it can be time-consuming. Your lists need to hear from you on a regular basis and you need to track the success of what you are sending out, such as your promotions.
An email marketing specialist can track your success, test different creatives, and so much more! But outsourcing this task to a Virtual Assistant who can also easily repurpose your content from one platform to another using your existing words.
SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING
Social media marketing is another essential chore for modern businesses which business owners just donít have enough time or inclination for.
It can be fine art to marketing well on Facebook or LinkedIn.
There are many freelancers skilled at certain networks who could help take your business to the next level.
It’s for you to decide if you want outsource to a Virtual Assistant and get them to just do as you say or you want a social media manager/expert who will use their own strategy and techniques to grow your online presence.
The only thing I have left to say is don’t be afraid to let go of these tasks, unless you are already an expert on them.
You’ll end up with more time to do high-earning activities that no one else can do, as well as tasks that you enjoy!
What do you outsource in your business right now or if you haven’t what’s the day to day task that springs to mind that you’d not miss completely!