What’s a virtual assistant? We’re glad you asked.

A virtual assistant is someone who can knock out the tasks on your list quickly and cost-effectively, without requiring you to take time out of your day – or from someone on your team – to do it in-house.

Virtual assistant services are an extremely efficient way to accomplish concrete tasks with specific parameters. Because your assistant logs only the hours and minutes that they actually spend doing the job, productivity is 100 percent: a rate that’s simply impossible to achieve with a salaried employee. These services are also invaluable for accomplishing tasks that get put off over and over again when the truth is, no one wants to do them.

Here are ten tasks that virtual assistant services can handle to transform your day.

  1. Cold calling. Perhaps no other strategy for drumming up new business is as hated as it is effective. Take the pain out of the equation, and let your virtual assistant make the call.
  2. Social media management. An effective social presence demands time and creativity that you may not have to give – but a virtual assistant does.
  3. Doing research. Whether it’s finding relevant articles for a project you’re working on, or planning your itinerary for an upcoming trip, online research can be a major drain on your time. Allow your virtual assistant to gather information or book your conference tickets for you.
  4. Email and social notes. A virtual assistant can filter your emails, delete the extraneous and prepare your priority list. They can also write your thank you notes or holiday cards.
  5. Managing your calendar. It’s simply more efficient to give this task to someone who specializes in it.
  6. Keeping up on your industry. It’s hard to be a thought leader if you’re not aware of what’s happening in your line of work. A virtual assistant can comb the news for important developments and position you to be an influencer in your own right.
  7. Administrative tasks. Free yourself to focus on the big picture, and give the daily minutiae to someone else.
  8. Marketing tasks. You define the strategy, but when it comes to implementing it, there are a thousand tiny tasks required – and quite frankly, your time is too valuable.
  9. Data entry. It has to be done, but does your employee have to be the one to do it? Chances are you could make better use of their time on something else.
  10. Product orders, client intake. Virtual assistants can take orders for products and work through intake questions for new clients as well.

The list goes on. A virtual assistant can handle any well-defined task that makes more sense to outsource than to handle in-house. Your time is a commodity; so is the labor of your workforce. Virtual assistant services are an extremely effective way to control costs and drive efficiencies.