Nowadays, many executives became more comfortable with hiring remote employees. Because of this, virtual assistance grew in popularity. We are now living in a fast-paced world where it seems like there’s not enough time during the day. Fortunately, hiring a virtual executive assistant helps executives accomplish and achieve more without compromising their hectic schedules.
Here are the top 10 tasks that you can outsource to a Virtual Executive Assistant
If you’re an executive who is thinking about hiring a VEA, use this blog post as your guide.
1. Calendar Management
According to Prialto.com, executives spend 20 minutes scheduling meetings which include processes such as finding a time that works, rescheduling and canceling meetings, and dealing with no-shows. This process can occur every day which adds up to more time wasted.
Having a virtual executive assistant frees you of these time-consuming processes. A VEA can now reach out to meeting attendees, proactively share available slots on your calendar, and send confirmations to avoid/reduce no-shows.
2. Email Management
Email management is just as tedious as any other administrative task. Unfortunately, executives spend at least 3 hours a day managing emails. This process can be disruptive and time-consuming when done in real time. Incoming emails require attention and the number of emails coming in can distract you from what you are doing.
A virtual executive assistant who is trained and well-known for your contacts and priorities can manage your emails. Doing this allows you to deal with the most important messages that require your attention.
A VEA can also help in forwarding messages to more appropriate contacts, creating folders and storing emails for you to review later, and return to emails to qualify ambiguous inquiries on your behalf.
3. Phone Screening
Just like email management, phone screening has processes that are tedious, disruptive, and time-consuming. This includes managing and responding to voicemails as well as making and taking calls. Some executives still do these tasks and are yet to delegate such processes.
A well-trained virtual executive assistant who is knowledgeable of your contacts, connections, and priorities can perform phone screening processes for you on a daily basis. This grants you more time to focus on more important, business-critical tasks. A VEA can now manage and respond to voicemails, make and take calls, and forward you important calls that require your attention.
4. Online Research
Online research is a crucial part of running and growing a business. Business trends are constantly changing every quarter/every year. Executives must be proactive in getting to know such trends and how to apply them in their businesses. However, processes in online research take so much time and can be disruptive to an executive’s busy schedule.
Hiring a professional and skilled virtual executive assistant who has sufficient knowledge about the latest business trends can help you do such processes.
A VEA can research the latest business trends and help you apply such trends to your business. Through this, you can run and grow your business according to the trends without spending too much time doing online research.
5. Document-Related Tasks
Some executives spend so much time preparing and finalizing important, business-related documents. These documents include PowerPoint presentations for meetings, business letters, memos, etc. Preparing such documents has processes that consume so much time. In most cases, these document-related tasks become unnecessary for some executives.
A virtual executive assistant who has excellent time management skills and a keen eye for detail can accomplish such processes for you. Your VEA can help you prepare presentations, write business letters and memos, and edit corrections on documents based on your instructions.
This will also help you focus more on your next meeting as well as other business-crucial matters.
6. Professional Networking
Connecting with other executives is another crucial part of growing a business. Professional networking allows executives to expand their personal network and have more business opportunities. But this is easier said than done in a time-efficient way.
According to a LinkedIn study, 80% of executives said networking is important, but 49% say they don’t have time to do it.
If you’re an executive who is part of that 49%, hiring a virtual executive assistant is the way to go. Your VEA can help you stay connected with your contacts and keep up with your professional networks. This process includes entering and sorting out contacts in a database, scheduling calls, researching events you are attending to see if connections will be there, scheduling meetings, and following up on action items.
7. Relationship Building
Relationship building has the same essence to that as professional networking. Simply keeping up with your contacts is not enough to grow your professional network. Remember, business is not just about closing a deal but it’s also about building a genuine professional relationship with your network. Many executives prefer to do this on their own as they have more knowledge about their network.
Hiring a VEA who knows about your network can be a game-changer for you! Your virtual executive assistant can be your “networking ninja” when nurturing leads, prospects, and other people who are a part of your professional network. When your VEA does this well, relationship building not only grants you more business opportunities but also more time to attend to business-critical tasks.
8. Travel Arrangements
Executives tend to travel many times a year. They prefer to plan their own travel because want to have control over their preferences for airlines, airports, aircraft seating, loyalty program perks, hotels and hotel room types, rental car agencies, vehicle types, etc.
While it is understandable as travel is a personal experience, planning and arranging travel (even for business trips), can take at least 12 hours per trip, according to Prialto.com.
As an executive, you can save time and be free of potential hassles during your trip by documenting and delegating travel arrangements to a professional virtual executive assistant. When your VEA knows all your requirements and preferences, they can simply hand you a complete itinerary with all the necessary documents so you can go on with your trip without worries.
9. Event Planning
Executives often host business events such as trade shows and conferences. Such events involve crucial planning as well as logistics. A virtual executive assistant can save you the hassle of planning upcoming events for you.
Take note that a VEA is not an event manager but rather someone who can oversee internal and external event plans. This is to ensure that the preparations meet your standards and preferences for venues, meal choices, displays, materials, etc.
Other tasks that a VEA can do when it comes to planning business events for you include reserving venues, sending invitations to your contacts, ordering materials for display and the like, logistic arrangements, booking flights, hotels, and meetings, event registration, and submitting event abstracts for speaking opportunities.
10. Other Personal Tasks
According to a study conducted by Harvard, executives spend 25% of their time on personal tasks. Tasks that are not work-related can impede an executive’s productivity.
While it is important for an executive to have more time outside of work as part of their work-life balance, it is also crucial for an executive to focus while at work. An executive who is focused on work cannot have non-work tasks disrupt their work momentum.
A virtual executive assistant can cover some of your personal, non-work tasks so you can focus more on crucial work-related tasks. Some personal tasks that you can delegate to a VEA include scheduling personal appointments, planning family vacations, making dinner reservations, etc.
How to Get Started?
Now that you know what tasks you can delegate to a virtual executive assistant, you might be thinking about how to hire one for yourself. When hiring a VEA, it’s important to do it right. Managed VEA service providers/companies like Synergist Corporate Solutions consist of professional, well-trained, and well-managed virtual assistants. You simply need to partner with the company and tell them what you need. The company then handles the recruitment process while you expedite.
Are you an executive who wants to save time and overhead costs while improving productivity by up to 30%? Get in touch with us and hire a Syncorp Virtual Executive Assistant!
