“It’ll only take a sec”

“I’ll just do this and I’ll be with you in a minute”

“If I get this out the way, I can concentrate on [insert revenue generating task here] …”

Sound familiar? Well, we’re all guilty of thinking that the seconds, minutes or even hours spent on getting ‘stuff’ out of the way, clearing the decks, etc., is all that’s required to get down to the meaty part of running your business.

In reality it is far from it. That task you thought would take a second takes up to an hour. You get interrupted, you hit a glitch, you struggle because it isn’t something you find easy to do or worse, you hate. Ever noticed that the things you hate take twice as long as the things you love?

Successful business people outsource those tasks to people who love to do them and are able to turn them round faster than they can. Not convinced? Here’s a list of 10 things a virtual assistant can do for you in an hour or less:

1. Make calls to confirm your appointments, engagements or reservations, get directions and update your online calendar to sync with your phone/pc/laptop

2. Got piles of business cards on your desk, floating around your car, in your pockets? Get the data from them into a spreadsheet – between 75 to 100 cards in one hour and even uploaded to a CRM system! We recommend CapsuleCRM.

3. Perform follow-up research on prospective clients, applicants or even competitors

4. Share their desktop with you over the internet to teach you time saving techniques for specific software or help you fix something you’re struggling with

5. Field all your calls using nifty online technology via Call Team (I’m a team member!)

6. Set up Social Media accounts

7. Edit and proof a minimum of a five page report

8. Transcribe a 15 minute audio file

9. Comparison shop the best deal on office equipment or stationery

10. Delete spam accumulated in your email overnight, sort and answer or redirect remaining messages

This is what a virtual assistant can do for you in one hour.  Just think what they can do for you and your business with five or ten hours…

What you would do with an extra one or two hours a day?

Related articles

• The Art of Delegation (hlsbs.com)