Too much work on your plate? It might be time to head to a freelance services marketplace and delegate virtual assistant tasks to others.
If you find yourself stuck in low-priority tasks for hours, you’re not alone. Like many leaders, executives, and business owners, you’re so busy you lack time to focus and do actual work. Instead, you spend hours answering emails, making calls, and sitting in on meetings.
Want to know how you can have more productive work days? Like most senior leaders and people in business, you can browse companies hiring virtual assistants and get assistant services.
But what exactly are the primary activities of a virtual assistant? It depends on your industry and personal situation. Some virtual assistants can do all sorts of tasks like content creation, data entry, customer service, marketing, data entry, and more.
Meanwhile, some have more specific skills like website development and coding.
Don’t know what to assign? Here are some virtual assistant tasks examples.
1. Write and design reports and presentations
When making major business pitches and presentations, doing everything from scratch can be a hassle. If you try to do it all, it might even look messy and rushed. Because of this, you can ask someone else to design and lay out your data in a deck. Though technically not a virtual assistance service, you can delegate this task to an unlimited graphic design provider like Penji. Such service providers create designs that are both professional and eye-catching.
2. Schedule social media calendar
Here is another virtual assistant task that people can do. It’s to schedule your company’s social media calendar! You can even assign virtual assistant tasks like social media content creation and ad buying.
3. Generate leads
Researching your potential clients to find your ideal client is a chore. You have to look into the company, its size, and its market to check if they fit your business. It takes too much time and eats up most of your day, which is why it would be ideal to give to someone else.
4. Schedule calls and interviews
Have you been overbooking your schedule with meetings? This is one of the virtual assistant tasks you should be offloading if you want to keep your days productive.
In fact, you can also assign them to manage your calendar to create more division between your personal and work lives.
5. Answer customer queries online
Whether it’s on social media or the website, you’ve got to keep your inboxes open. One of the most accessible virtual assistant tasks you can assign is to answer customer service inquiries online.
Now, you can save time answering repetitive questions and focus on your business.
6. Write content for your website
You should consider working on your website’s SEO if you're a digital business. One way to boost your company’s SEO ranking is by asking your assistant to write blog content related to your niche.
Moreover, you can also ask them to do some basic SEO tasks like keyword research.
7. Transcribe your meetings, calls, interviews
Next, what are the tasks of a virtual assistant? Sometimes, it’s more mundane things like transcribing your calls for work. This is a pretty helpful task if you have to create reports and need quotes from different public figures.
8. Connect with vendors for in-person events
Planning an internal company event? You would usually ask whoever is available to set up the company functions. But with a virtual assistant, you can ask them to find possible vendors, connect with them, and eventually bring their help in for the event.
9. Meeting notes
It seems obvious, but many business teams often forget what points or agendas they’ve discussed in meetings. Having someone jot down the targets, goals, and action points helps your team become more organized and prepared for future cadences.
10. Travel booking
If you’re traveling often for work, you know how hassle booking your flights and hotels is. In fact, it's such a hassle to go through sites to get the best deals.
This is one of the more appropriate executive virtual assistant tasks for senior leaders who are always on the go.
11. Job listing posts
On the other hand, this is one of the most manageable virtual assistant tasks for beginners. If you have a booked and busy HR team, you can hire someone to draft and post job listings on different platforms. You can even ask them to check and evaluate resumes.
12. Job candidate interviews
Meanwhile, your virtual assistant can also perform some HR-related tasks. If you don’t want to spend hours poring over CVs and resumes, they can send you a narrowed-down list of the most qualified people to choose from.
In addition, they can recommend candidates to you!
13. Website creation
Next, most big companies hire web developers to work on their websites. However, if you’re a small business looking to start somewhere, one of the more popular virtual assistant tasks is to have them design your site using drag-and-drop software like Wix.
As for website design, it’s another task that you can assign to non-VA service providers like Penji. Doing so will give you access to the world’s top 2% creatives without spending an arm and a leg.
14. Gift shopping
On the other hand, some executive virtual assistant tasks can also involve more fun tasks like gift-giving. Yes, you heard that right. You might not think of this when you ask yourself, “What does a virtual assistant usually do?” but it’s a fairly common task.
You can assign them to look for gifts for your team members, senior leaders, and corporate partners. Although it sounds easy, finding the perfect present for people is hard.
15. Email management
This isn’t for everyone, but if you’re willing to show your work messages to someone, this can make checking emails much faster.
You can ask your assistant to organize your inbox so you know which emails to prioritize. Moreover, you can even brief them to create replies for when you’re out of the office or on a work trip.
But how do you know who’s the right hire? Here’s a simple profile description for a virtual assistant with no experience.
They have to be coachable and independent, someone who can quickly learn how to operate different tools for various tasks. Other than that, it's also great if they have research and writing skills.