‘I know I need help, but I don’t know where to start.’
If only I had a pound for how many times a prospective client consultation starts this way! Sadly, this is one of the most common obstacles preventing business owners from hiring a virtual assistant.
It’s common for owners to be so busy keeping the ‘plates spinning’ that they don’t have the headspace to plan the business’s growth.
My suggestion is always to quantify where you may have issues.
What are the back-office tasks that only you can do? They’re fine. They're what you need to do.
But the rest? They’re just a drain on your time. They’re preventing you from planning your business growth, your strategy for gaining new clients, and actually getting out there and doing the fee-earning work, which after all, is usually the reason why you went into business in the first place!
Use a free time-tracking app such as Toggl or Clockify to establish how much time you’re spending on tasks that don’t have to be done by you. Start on a daily basis and then multiply that up to see how much time that equates to per week, per month and per year. It could be a real eye-opener.
Remember, you can’t be everything to everyone!
Outsourcing can feel like losing control. However, I’d argue the opposite; you’re gaining control as you’re freeing up your time to concentrate where it’s needed most. If you find yourself a reliable virtual assistant, they often become your trusted confidante – someone who gets to understand you and your business, someone invested in the success of your business but looking at it partially from the outside in. They’re close enough to ‘have your back’ yet distant enough to see things from a different perspective. You’re then able to focus your time on your strengths rather than waste time on your weaknesses.
To me, that's gaining control.
If you’re still unsure how to identify those tasks you should be outsourcing and those you should be keeping, this blog might help.
If this resonates with you and you see the benefit of hiring a virtual assistant, please do feel free to contact me. Let’s just have a chat and see where it takes us!
