As time goes on, more and more business owners are joining the movement of working remotely. Having a brick-and-mortar location is no longer considered essential. Working remotely allows for more flexibility in your day, it is more cost-effective with lower overhead costs and it saves time not having to commute.
But how do you prevent your business from taking over your whole life when it is so accessible? How do make sure you still have time to focus on the big picture and not spend countless hours on tedious administrative tasks?
You get yourself a Virtual Executive Assistant!
How does a Virtual Executive Assistant help?
Maybe your first question is, what can a Virtual Executive Assistant do to help me?
Most experienced EA’s can bring order to chaos that you were too busy to even notice was taking over your mind and maybe even your personal life. They can keep all the administrative tasks running efficiently allowing you to focus on the big picture. Here are just a few services that a Virtual EA can offer.
Email Management:
It is easy for emails to get out of hand. Losing one or two and forgetting to reply to a client or customer do to sheer volume is not just a “you” issue. It is in fact quite common. Let your Executive Assistant streamline all incoming emails. Many have worked with multiple personality types and will have a few previously proven successful processes, so you don’t need to figure one out yourself. They can ensure you never miss an important email again.
Email management is our bread and butter. Recently we helped a client who receives 120 emails a day down to checking only 10-20. How? We set up filters and rules in his inbox and matched him with a Virtual Executive Assistant who is an hour ahead of him. She gets to his emails an hour before him, clearing out and unsubscribing to emails that are not relevant or don’t need his attention. When he starts his computer in the morning, he only sees what needs his attention. Saving him from reading up to 100+ emails a day!
Calendar Organization:
An effective use of an Executive Assistant’s time, is managing your calendar, booking appointments, and adding in scheduling notes. A meeting needs to be booked, rescheduled, or cancelled; they can handle all of that with ease. Need a reminder to do a certain task? They can find that time for you and set up notifications making multitasking a breeze.
Travel Organization:
Booking a flight, hotel, car rental, or even a vacation can be a tiresome task. Our Executive Assistants do it all the time for multiple clients, so they know just when to book and bunch of tricks and tips to help you. Having a points issue? Let them take it over. Need some restaurant ideas or possibly a fun activity close to the hotel. Your EA can handle all the research involved. Whatever one of Virtual Executive Assistants don’t know, they have a support team of over 75 other people they can turn to for help before reaching out to you.
Research:
Have a new project idea, or an upcoming event, or maybe you need some information on how to do something? The internet is a wealth of knowledge, but it can not only take hours of your valuable time, but it can also be exhausting sorting through that much information. You can often find yourself falling into one rabbit hole after another. Your Virtual Executive Assistant can handle that. They can gather all the information you will need and summarize it, making your job easier.
Utilizing Your Virtual Executive Assistant
Now here’s the difficult part. It’s not always as easy to connect with someone virtually as it is in person. You don’t have someone right beside you, watching what you do, seeing firsthand the ways they can help you. Difficult but not impossible. Here are some ways to effectively manage your time with a Virtual Executive Assistant.
Designated Weekly Meetings:
Once a week at minimum. However, you will probably require 2 or 3 a week, in the beginning, to help with the onboarding process. Even a quick 15-minute meeting can help you build a relationship. Don’t be shy, turn the camera on every once in awhile and you will see how much easier it is to develop trust and understanding! Tell them about your day and what you have coming up next. A little small talk can go a long way. Our Executive Assistants know where they can help and are always listening for ways to make your life easier.
Handing over your Inbox:
It can be a bit overwhelming handing over such a personal thing. We get that. But it is one of the most effective ways for your Virtual Office Assistant to learn your business on a day-to-day level. Start off by having them just organize it, then slowly pass over responsibilities as they learn how you would like to handle things.
Once you are fully comfortable, this can free up so much of your day by only be notified about emails that actually require your attention. No more seeing high numbers of unopened mail while most of it being newsletters. Which they can also help you unsubscribe from if needed. Another lengthy task that take up too much of your precious time. Do you even remember the last time you shopped at Best Buy? No need to still get their electronic flyers.
How to Videos:
Loom videos are a great way to show your EA how to do something. It can avoid unnecessary mistakes by showing them how to use a certain application or something that needs to be done in a particular process or a more effective way to do something. No need to take the task back, just show them on a video they can refer to whenever they need a reminder.
Conclusion
Now that you know how a Virtual Executive Assistant helps and how to utilize your Virtual EA, off-loading and outsourcing tasks should be a breeze when you hire the right one. A proactive Virtual EA will keep you ahead, remove the bottlenecks and help you work in the areas of your business that drives growth.
Our EA’s a VEA have years experience working remotely, and often know the questions to ask before you do! We have a team of support behind each of them and a low monthly minimum hour requirement. Start off with just a few tasks, you can always add more hours as you see firsthand what your Executive Assistant is capable of. Now that you know all this, how can you not afford to hire a Virtual Executive Assistant?
Book a call for more information:
Derek Burbidge
Manager of Sales and Marketing
