“I’m too busy but I don’t know what I want you to do for me?!”
I hear this all the time! You’d think that taking the decision to utilise a VA would be the difficult part right? Wrong!
The next step can be even trickier – figuring out exactly what tasks to give to them.
We’ve worked through this exercise with most of our clients and I’d like to share some steps for outsourcing the right things….
This is the most important question you need to ponder once you get to this stage.
Do you need some time back to be at home more or focus on other areas of your business?
Do you need a particular skill from a VA that you and your team don’t have?
Do you want to offload the mundane tasks that don’t bring you any joy?
These are just a few examples but you get the gist – work out what the main reasons are you want a VA in your life. This will help massively with the next step!
Now you know what you want the outcome to be have a think about and note down what tasks add to these problem areas. Here’s what I mean exactly….
Need more time back? Make a list of your most time-consuming tasks day to day, week to week, month to month. You may need to do a bit of time tracking to work this out
Need some extra skills? Jot down what tasks you just haven’t got the knowledge to complete yourself. This may be a new process or offering you want to bring it but can’t at present
Getting bored? You’re the boss right, if anyone should be able to pick and choose what they do it should be you! These tasks are pretty easy to identify – what are the things on your to do list that keep dropping to the bottom? The things that you put off until you absolutely have to because you don’t enjoy them
By the time you’ve completed this process you should have an idea about why you want a VA and a list of possible tasks to offload to them. Now you’re in a great position to kick off chats and start talking about the exciting new venture you’re about to take, knowing that you’re clear on your goals and expectations of your VA.