Are you a small business owner who’s struggling to get small and repetitive tasks done day in and day out? Why not outsource some of your daily business tasks to an admin virtual assistant?
An admin virtual assistant (VA) can take over most if not all of the tasks that a typical administrative assistant does. In this article, we’ll highlight 10 admin tasks spread across scheduling, emails, research, and data.
My name is Connor Gillivan. I’ve been an entrepreneur for the past 10 years and I’ve hired 100s of virtual assistants to grow my companies to 6, 7, and 8 figures with an exit in 2019.
To this day, I hire and work with virtual assistants from all over the world. I love the additional brainpower you get when you hire smart people to help grow your business.
In this article, we’ll cover the following:
- 10 Tasks an Admin Virtual Assistant Can Help You With
- Where You Can Find An Admin VA
- How Much an Admin VA Typically Costs
- Case Study: How We Scaled to 8 Figures With 45 VAs
- Admin Virtual Assistant Job Posting Template
Let’s dive into it!
10 Tasks An Admin VA Can Help You With
Schedule Management
Managing your schedule is the first thing to outsource to an admin virtual assistant. The small tasks involved in schedule management are scattered throughout the day and can get really tedious.
Here’s 5 scheduling tasks you can outsource to an Admin VA:
1. Calendar Management
Having an admin virtual assistant to keep you on schedule is super useful. This means making sure that you complete the most important tasks for each day. It also means making sure that you don’t burn yourself out. An admin virtual assistant can be that key voice that warns you of tasks that you’ve bumped off one too many times, or reminds you that you are overbooked and need to carve out some time for yourself.
You might have alerts set up for calendar events or like to look at your calendar yourself. Still, an admin virtual assistant can help you prepare for each shift of focus. They can send you the links to the materials you need, and give you important notes.
2. Appointment Scheduling
Get an admin virtual assistant to take over blocking off time slots that have been booked. This is especially useful when you don’t always use a scheduling tool to automatically set up bookings for you. You might use something like Calendly, but others might not. Calendly will automatically add bookings to your calendar and mark that slot as taken so you don’t overbook, but without a tool like this, you’ll need to do manual calendar management.
Opening up slots is another task that can take up time. There are certain people that you will want to make exceptions for in terms of what time slots you have available. This can sometimes mean rescheduling with people so you can move appointments around to make room. Sometimes, it means figuring out what tasks you can postpone to make time to meet with them. Have an admin virtual assistant make all the necessary adjustments for you so you don’t have to use your time for such a simple task.
Free Bonus: How We Scaled to 8 Figures and An Exit in 2019 With A Team of 45+ Virtual Assistants
3. Travel Arrangements
Planning for a trip, whether it’s business or pleasure, can eat up hours and hours of time spanning several days. Pass off the task of researching destinations and bookings and travel times and modes of transport. All you need to do is have a basic idea of what you want, and you’ll get the top options laid out for you to choose from. You can even have an admin virtual assistant create a travel to do list for you that covers everything from what you need to pack to where you need to be and what you need to have with you when you get there. An agenda is also no problem for a skilled assistant, and super useful for you. This way, you can get all the timings right to never be late or unprepared.
4. Receptionist Duties
More than a reminder service, the right assistant can actually take over incoming calls on your business phone. This way, you don’t get interrupted for every little thing, and have focused time to provide top-notch service to your valued clients. An assistant can also check voicemails that have come in during off hours so you don’t miss a beat.
It’s all about balance to battle overwhelm, and having this type of buffer is super helpful. Since they are managing your schedule already, they can very easily add in pre-approved items and send you new ones right alongside your remaining available hours.
Of course, when you’re hiring from overseas, you’re going to need a service that can connect your number to theirs so they can take calls no matter where they live. That’s not too hard to do, and doing the research for it can be their first task as a receptionist.
Email Management
Sorting through email can be one of the most time-consuming tasks for any business owner.
Email can very easily become a rabbit hole that sucks you away from the important tasks that you need to get done for your business.
Many times, you run away from email because it takes so much time. But then you miss important messages and other messages just keep piling up. Eventually, you see that it will take several hours or even days just to get it cleaned up.
Here’s 3 email tasks to hire an Admin VA for:
5. Sorting Emails and Managing Spam
Remove yourself from working in your business by hiring an admin virtual assistant to pre-sort emails for you. They can tackle the big task of getting everything organized to start. Most email clients come with systems that you can use to label and file different senders and messages. An experienced admin virtual assistant can even show you a few tricks for organization and easy access.
One of the best things about having someone else sort your emails is that you don’t have to deal with spam of any kind. You sit down in front of your email and see only the items that actually need your attention. This is an essential step for you to become a more productive entrepreneur.
6. Answering Inquiries and Customer Service Requests
Not everything that crowds your inbox is spam. Very likely, you have a lot of important messages in there. The thing is, you can’t take them all on yourself, and you can’t ignore them, either. An admin virtual assistant is a vital role in the area of taking some of the simpler messages off your plate. They can answer common inquiries that come in, and even solve simple customer service issues. When issues arise that they’re not familiar with, they can ask you one time, create an entry in your SOPs, and handle it from then on out. If you also have a customer service chat feature on your website, or any other channel that you use to connect with customers, they can manage that, too.
7. Email Marketing
If you take special care when hiring an admin virtual assistant, you can target one who has email marketing experience. Email marketing is so important, and you’ll need help to grow your email marketing list and engage with that list on a regular basis. This is so that you can develop relationships with the people on that list and even make money through it — at least $1 a month for every name on the list.
You can have an admin virtual assistant create new lists in whatever email marketing tool you’re using, have them add and remove subscribers to keep lists fresh, and tweak follow-up emails and autoresponders under your guidance. They can even create and schedule newsletters and broadcast emails to promote newly published content and edit or proofread existing content you have that might need some freshening up.
Free Bonus: How We Scaled to 8 Figures and An Exit in 2019 With A Team of 45+ Virtual Assistants
Research and Data
Having a lot of different tasks to keep track of can keep any business owner distracted from what’s really important.
An admin virtual assistant helps you to become and stay organized so that you can remain productive every day.
Have an assistant systematize things for you and put new processes in place.
Here’s 3 ways an Admin VA can help you stay organized:
8. File Storage
You can get all your important files uploaded to a service like Dropbox or Google Drive for easy access, and also as a backup solution. This way, you also have a much easier time sharing files with whoever else needs them. Plus, these files stay updated so you know that you’re always looking at the newest version of every file. And, of course, all the files get and stay organized in folders so everyone can find what they need.
An assistant can also do all of your data entry work for you as well as creating, updating, and managing documents and spreadsheets, writing up meeting notes and action items, and other information that you will want to keep organized.
9. Online Research
Research takes up loads of time, like what was mentioned above in terms of creating travel plans. You can simply set parameters then pass off all research tasks to an assistant. This includes data gathering, data mining and development, lead generation, and so much more.
10. Bookkeeping
You can ask an admin virtual assistant to help you keep your finances in order. This is more than just filing bills and invoices. With a bit of experience or training, they can take over client invoicing and keep finances tallied up on whatever tool you use, like XERO or Quickbooks. They won’t do the actual accounting, but having everything neatly added into the software makes it a lot easier for your accountant when it’s time to do your taxes.
Where Can You Find an Admin VA?
Here are 5 websites where you can hire an admin VA from:
- Upwork – This is a popular freelancing platform that connects businesses with talented professionals. You can find a variety of admin VAs with different skills and experience levels on Upwork.
- Freelancer – Another freelancing website that offers a wide range of virtual assistants. Freelancer has a large pool of freelancers, so you’re likely to find an admin VA who fits your needs.
- Fiverr – This is a popular platform for finding affordable freelancers. You can find many admin VAs on Fiverr who offer a variety of services at competitive prices.
- FreeUp – This website connects business owners with the top 1% of virtual assistants and freelancers that they interview for the marketplace. Post a job, get 3 qualified applicants, and choose the best one for your business.
- Onlinejobs.ph – This platform connects businesses with Filipino VAs, who are known for their strong work ethic and proficiency in English. You can find many admin VAs on this platform who offer high-quality services at reasonable rates.
There are many other freelance websites online as well, but we recommend these 5 the most.
Free Bonus: How We Scaled to 8 Figures and An Exit in 2019 With A Team of 45+ Virtual Assistants
How Much an Admin VA Typically Costs
The cost of an admin VA can vary based on several factors:
- location
- experience level
- specific tasks you need them to perform
If you’re hiring from the US, you can expect to pay anywhere from $20 to $50 per hour for an experienced admin VA.
On the other hand, if you’re hiring from the Philippines or other countries with a lower cost of living, you can find highly qualified VAs for as little as $4 to $6 per hour.
When hiring from the Philippines or other countries, keep in mind that you may need to adjust your expectations and provide additional training or guidance.
However, many business owners have found that hiring VAs from other countries can be a cost-effective way to get high-quality support for their business.
It’s also worth noting that when you hire an admin VA through a freelancing platform like Upwork, there are fees involved.
For example, Upwork charges a percentage-based service fee on all payments made to freelancers, which can vary depending on the total amount of the project.
Ultimately, the cost of an admin VA will depend on your specific needs and budget.
Case Study: How We Scaled to 8 Figures With 45 VAs
One of the companies that I founded and scaled to an exit in 2019 is called FreeUp.
FreeUp connects entrepreneurs and business owners with pre-vetted virtual assistants and freelancers.
Between 2016 and 2019, we built a team of 45+ virtual assistants to help us run the business, bill clients, recruit new freelancers, market to entrepreneurs, and build the business.
We couldn’t have scaled to 8 figures per year in sales without our virtual assistant team.
Free Bonus: Read the full case study on how we grew to 8 figures with 45+ virtual assistants.
Admin Virtual Assistant Job Posting Template
Here’s a sample job post that you can use for recruiting an admin virtual assistant.
Job Description:
I am currently looking to hire an Admin Virtual Assistant to manage my email inbox and calendar as well as do some bookkeeping tasks. The ideal candidate must have excellent communication skills, is dependable, highly organized, and can take on other admin tasks when needed. Please do not apply if you don’t have prior experience.
The right candidate will be responsible for responding to my business emails, coordinating with other members of the team when you need information, and setting appointments on my calendar. It is important that you’re highly organized so my schedule is organized as well. You will be meeting with me at the beginning of every day to give me a run through of my schedule.
You should also be reliable, trustworthy, and have a keen eye for detail. You will be responsible for keeping track of company finances, monitoring project expenses, keeping track of client invoices, and payroll. You should be able to file all documents in an organized manner. You will be expected to create detailed financial reports and explain them to me during meetings.
Desired Hourly Rate: $5 to $7 per hour
Location Preference: Non-US
Hours Per week: 20 hours
Specific Hours: Client’s business hours – flexible between 10am and 5pm Eastern Standard Time
Weekends Needed?: No
Programs or Tools You Need to Know:
- Calendly and Google Calendar
- G Suite
- Slack
- Experience working on project management platforms like Trello and Asana
What Is Outsource School?
Outsource School helps you to unlock the potential of virtual assistants and accelerate your business growth.
This is the exact system Outsource School’s founders, Nathan Hirsch and Connor Gillivan, used to go from zero to 8 figures and 40+ virtual assistants with an exit in 2019.
Since being founded in 2020, Outsource School has helped 1,000+ business owners hire 2,000+ virtual assistants for their companies.
Schedule a free sales call to learn more
Free resources you might like:
- Outsource School Case Study: How We Scaled to 45+ VAs and 8 Figures in Revenue
- Free VA Calculator | See How Many VAs You Can Afford
- Free Training on 5 Keys to Working With VAs
- Learn Outsourcing 101 | Guides, Downloads, and Checklists
Conclusion
Hiring an Admin Virtual Assistant for your business is a smart move.
Just imagine having 2-3 more hours each day to focus on growth, instead of getting distracted by repetitive and simple tasks.
When you learn the power to delegate work to a virtual assistant, you gain the ability to scale your business to the next level.
Have questions about hiring an Admin VA? We’re here to help and we’ve already assistant 1,000+ business owners as they’ve started outsourcing.
Email us at Support@OutsourceSchool.com and we’ll gladly provide advice on your business and how outsourcing can save you time.
Thanks for reading!
