Doing business seems like the go-to path for people who want to have more financial freedom and time for their families and other interests. But doing business, no matter how enticing it sounds, is not something that comes easy. It has its own set of challenges, and one of which is task prioritization.
You see, leading and owning a business venture broadens your scope. If as an employee you are limited to a specialization, being at the helm of a business organization — no matter how small it is — exposes you to tasks that you have probably never encountered before.
While all these tasks are important, the impact that each one has on your business greatly varies. Some tasks are definitely more crucial than others, but all these tasks consume a lot of time. So you can take care of only the tasks that hold more weight, you need to delegate the lighter tasks to a reliable virtual assistant. Just what tasks are ‘light’ tasks?
Checking and replying to emails and other forms of correspondence
As a business person in charge of a company, you are likely in contact with a lot of people. From customers to suppliers and even regulators, you need to be able to attend to them all. But responding to emails can be a full-time job if you have too many individuals on your mailing list.
A good virtual assistant can come in and take care of your inbox for you. They can respond to usual queries so you wouldn’t be bothered by those. Whenever necessary, they can initiate contact with key people such as government personnel on your behalf.
Should there be a need for it, you may also allow them to take non-crucial and short video calls on your behalf. Needless to say, they will have to dress up smartly for these instances. Like lawyers appearing for a hearing, they need to make a good impression through their clothing. If they are not into dressing up just yet, they will have to step up and learn more before representing your company.
Doing market research
For your products and services to be relevant, they need to correspond to a pressing need that your target market currently experiences. To know what that need is, you need to get data from the market. You can ask a reliable virtual assistant to collect data and analyze the trends. They can do interviews and distribute survey forms. Once the inputs are collected, they can run statistical or qualitative tests on them to look for patterns. From the reported patterns, you get insights that ultimately inform your next course of action.
Providing customer support
Even after your products have been rolled out, some customers might come back to get further assistance for you. Such customer engagement is important, but you obviously don’t have time for it. Let the virtual assistant take care of this for you. This shouldn’t be that hard because many issues that consumers report or ask assistance for are easy-to-address by someone with technical knowledge.
We’ve presented three, but there surely are a lot more ways that a virtual assistant can help streamline your business operations. It’s important to note here, though, that their effectiveness in the role relies largely on the orientation and training that you give them. Hence, before you deploy them, take time to talk to your virtual assistant and give them clear instructions.
