If you are like me, you created your business to do something that you loved. You wanted the freedom to work wherever and whenever you wanted. When you were just getting started, you were doing everything yourself to keep overhead low. However, as you’ve grown, you’ve had to invest more and more of your time and energy into doing things that don’t energize you or worse yet, you hate doing. Now you are overwhelmed, working way too many hours and wondering why you started your business. It might be time to look into outsourcing to a Virtual Assistant. Here are ten reasons to hire a Virtual Assistant.
Reason #1 – You Have Way More Work Than You Can Get Done in a Day.
This is probably the biggest reason why my clients are hiring me. They want more freedom to spend with their families or take care of themselves. I actually had a call with a client where she told me that she was working until 2 a.m. Then getting up at 6 a.m. and still felt like she was behind in her business. That’s not sustainable. It’s also not a good example for your clients if you are in the health and wellness field. There are lots of tasks that you can outsource to a virtual assistant. This will save your time for the things that you really love and that lift you up.
What Tasks Should You Outsource?
First off, figure out the tasks that are taking up the most time. I recommend using an app like Toggl to track your time. If you’ve never tracked your time, do it, you’d be amazed where you spend your time each day.) Next, take these tasks and decide which ones to outsource. Take a piece of paper and divide it into four quarters. Then write the things that you love to do in one quarter. After that write the things that you are good at and are ok about doing in one quarter. Then write the things that you aren’t good at in the third quarter, and finally write the things that you hate doing in the fourth quarter. I would start by outsourcing the things that you hate doing and aren’t good at at first. Then outsource the things that you are ok at. Keep the things that you love to do and are good at.
Reason #2 – The Last Time You Took a Vacation was Three Years Ago and You Can’t Remember Where You Went.
Time off is important for recharging and renewing your energy. If you don’t regularly take time off to rest and give your brain a chance to renew its energies, you are missing out. Plus, getting to spend time with your friends, spouse, kids, etc. is invaluable. If you hire a Virtual Assistant that you trust, you can have them handle the important things while you are gone and keep things going. (Be sure to have them well trained ahead of time. So you are confident that they can handle things or you might spend your whole vacation worrying about your business which isn’t the purpose.)
Reason 3 – You are Spending a Ton of Time Researching How to do Things Instead of Focusing on the Things That you are Really Good at (Like Teaching a Webinar that Inspires Your Clients to Sign up For Your Next Course.)
We all do this. We think we’ll just google how to do something, it can’t be that hard. Three hours later, you have finished the task and are wondering where the day went. (or worse yet, it’s still not done and you are frustrated.) If you have a tech-savvy Virtual Assistant, you can outsource those tasks to them and move on to other things on your to-do list. Like the webinar that I mentioned. (Make sure to have your VA put together a giveaway for your webinar while you are at it.)
Reason 4 – There are a Million Blog Post Ideas in a Google Sheet That You Would Write If You Had the Time.
Blogging is a great way to attract your ideal clients (assuming that you publish content regularly.) However, it’s really easy to run out of ideas, or just not have the time to do it. A Virtual Assistant can help you to brainstorm a list of ideas to write about and then they can research and write the content for you. (You can then edit it and push publish when you are ready to publish it.) They can also make sure that the posts are published on time. (I can even create graphics and do keyword research to make sure that people are searching for the content that you want to create so you aren’t paying to create content that won’t have an audience.)
Reason 5 – Your Income Has Plateaued
You have not increased your income for a long time. There just isn’t enough time in the day to work with more clients or run another course. A Virtual Assistant can help you to come up with ways to diversify your income. Maybe they help you create your next course, design the handouts for it, and create the webinar to promote it. The nice thing about hiring a Virtual Assistant (that most people don’t think about) is that your VA likely works with other business owners who use different tactics than you use (or know about.) They can suggest ways to improve your products by using other software or other tactics.
Reason 6 – You Don’t Have Enough Clients or You Need Help Managing Your Clients
There are lots of reasons why you might not be getting the number of clients that you want. A Virtual Assistant can help you to bring in more clients through Search Engine Optimization or paid advertising. They can also help you to grow your warm audience by building an engaged Facebook or LinkedIn group. They can also help you to automate your client onboarding or ongoing contact through a client management system or email campaign.
Reason 7 – You Need Someone to Hold You Accountable to your Goals.
Entrepreneurs tend to be really great at coming up with ideas. Sometimes follow-through is lacking. An assistant can help you to keep track of deadlines and goals. This is easy to do with a task management program like Any.do or Trello. Just having another person around that you want to keep busy can help you to be more organized.
Reason 8 – You Want Someone to Bounce Ideas Off and Brainstorm With.
Being an entrepreneur can be lonely. Sometimes the only person I see all day is the mail carrier. You can easily run out of ideas. It can help to have someone to bring a fresh take to a scenario. They can add ideas and help to come up with better solutions.
Reason 9 – You Want to Use Social Media to Market Your Business, but You Don’t Know Where to Start
Social Media is tricky. It seems so simple at first glance. However, it’s challenging to know what to write or how to grow your audience. You can spend tons of time creating content only to have no one click like or follow you. There are different rules and strategies for each platform. You can spend tons of time figuring it out. Worse yet, do it wrong and you might get blacklisted on your platform.
Reason 10 – There are Tasks That You Hate
We all have tasks that we hate. (I HATE cleaning toilets for instance.) We tend to put them off. They sap our energy. When we do them, we lose the energy that we could use to do tasks that we love. Outsource those puppies and save your energy for tasks that give you a bigger return on investment. (While you are at it, outsource the toilet cleaning too!)
In conclusion
As you can see, there are many reasons to hire a Virtual Assistant. You don’t need ten reasons. You just need one. The biggest reason for hiring a Virtual Assistant is to take care of yourself. This way you can be the best version of yourself for your clients and your family. If you are burned out, tired, and working too many hours you can’t be there for your family. Isn’t this why you started your business to begin with? (If you’d like to see what I can do to help you reduce overwhelm and get more done, schedule a free chat with me.
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