Do you end every working day feeling busy but wondering what you actually achieved?
Running a small business often starts with doing everything yourself. But there comes a point where doing everything yourself becomes the very thing holding your business back. If your admin workload is growing faster than your capacity, it may be time to get support. Here are five signs it’s time to outsource your admin.
You’re Always Busy but Never Feel Productive
What do you think the difference is between being busy and being productive? You could be busy all day carrying out repetitive admin tasks; answering emails, managing appointments, updating spreadsheets and chasing paperwork. That’s being busy; these tasks consume hours every day, each week, but have you been productive? Did you have any time to follow up on potential client work or plan your marketing strategy for the next month? You realise you’ve spent so much time on the admin tasks that you haven’t made progress on new projects or any revenue generating activities.
A Virtual Assistant could help you become more productive by looking after your emails or keeping your data spreadsheets up to date.
Missing Deadlines
If you’ve missed important deadlines, it doesn’t mean you’re disorganised; it’s probably because you don’t have enough time in the day. You have the best intentions to send proposals out on time, follow up on a customer enquiry, send invoices to customers or update your website with a new promotion. If you’re consistently late in meeting deadlines, it can affect your business, reputation, and customers could lose confidence in you. That’s not going to reduce your stress levels.
By outsourcing admin tasks to a VA who can help you with reaching deadlines on time, by either sending invoices and helping with bookkeeping assistance or maintaining your website, just think of what you could achieve on time.
Your Inbox and To-Do List Feel Unmanageable
You dread opening your inbox, and your to-do list never gets shorter; if anything, you keep adding things to it! That’s a clear sign your workload needs redistributing. It can be overwhelming and exhausting keeping track of emails, appointments, reminders and admin tasks. Do you find customers are asking when you are going to reply to an email, can you move an appointment or don’t forget to send me that quote? That’s a lot to remember and juggle.
Imagine how you would feel if someone took care of these queries. A virtual assistant can reply to the email enquiries, manage your diary so you know what’s happening and when, and it gives you some space to think clearly. No more overwhelm.
You Work Evenings and Weekends Just to Keep Up
Do you find that admin is taking over your personal time in the evenings and weekends? Does it feel like you’re doing your work during the day and then spending your free time doing your admin? Did you start your business to spend every day and your weekends working, or would you rather have the time to spend with your family, friends, go on holiday and enjoy life? Outsourcing is a practical business decision enabling you to have quality personal time without worrying about your business.
A Virtual Assistant will help give you back that time by providing ongoing admin support so that you can have your weekends back.
You Don’t Have Time to Grow Your Business
How will your business grow if you feel trapped in the day to day operations? How can you make time for networking, plan your marketing strategy or improve any of your services? By offloading admin tasks, it will allow you to focus on these types of activities to enable your business to grow. Your Virtual Assistant can help you make time for you and your business.
If any of these signs sound familiar, it could be time to obtain the services of a VA.
I support small business owners with a range of admin services to help them spend less time on admin and more time on their business.
Get in touch to find out how I could support you and give you back some much needed time.
Leave a Reply