Hi there, my name is Paula, and I’m from Beyond the Maze.  We are a virtual assistant and online business management service based in Brisbane, Australia with both an onshore and an offshore team. 

Today. I’m here to talk to you about how you know what tasks to give a VA.

How do you know you’re ready for a VA when you don’t know what to hand over? 

Well, the first thing I recommend is to call us and have a chat with us and see what you can hand over.  You might be surprised at how much you’re holding yourself back by not even doing that phone call because you’ll get tied up in one, not wanting to give it away, which is very, very common, and two, not sure what somebody can do for you. 

A lot of us get tied up in having to have someone here in the office with us and not knowing how to hand work over or what to hand over. 

What I suggest you do, first of all, is to sit down and write a list of the jobs that you don’t like doing.   

I had a meeting with a potential new client yesterday.  I asked her what she didn’t like doing.  She wasn’t sure what she could hand over.  She had some ideas, but there’s probably a lot more than that so she wanted to work through what she can hand over. 

I asked if she had a list of what she doesn’t like doing.  Yes, she does!! She had already started that list, which was great. 

I suggest you sit down and write what you don’t like doing in your business.  Then the next step is what you don’t mind doing, but you’re not really good at.  For example, I don’t mind doing newsletters and things like that, but I’m not great at that.  I’ve got another VA who is wonderful at that.  She does beautiful design and works through it. 

I know I’m not the best person to do that sort of thing, but I know that I’m very good with numbers and I love playing around with numbers.  I’m the one that sits down and does all the spreadsheets and the numbers of the business and all that sort of thing.  I probably won’t hand that over to anybody anytime soon. 

Make a list of those three things, what you love doing, what you don’t like doing at all, and what you don’t mind doing, but you’re not great at. 

That’ll give you a really good start to know what to hand over to a virtual assistant or, it’ll also give a guide to an online business manager who can determine what we need to do in your business but identify tasks that are not where your skill set lies. 

A lot of the conversations I have with people are around, what they love to do the most and what they went into business to do. 

When you’re thinking about that, when you’re doing your day-to-day stuff in your business, what makes you happy? What lights you up?  What do you put everything else aside for, so you can do that task?  What did you go into business for? 

If you’re seeing clients for a particular service, is that what you went into business for?  You probably didn’t go into business to do the behind-the-scenes admin for that or to book the appointments for that or do the invoicing for those appointments or anything like that.  Have a good think about what makes you happy. 

Of course, there are things in business that you should be doing, so you are across your business that nobody else really could be doing for you.  But that said there are also options like an online business manager because they’re the ones assisting you with your business.  They’re in there working your business day to day with you and they can be doing these jobs and reporting back to you to make sure you are in the loop and across the board with it. 

If you’re not very good with numbers in your business, then having a really strong relationship with your bookkeeper or accountant or even your OBM to make sure your cash flow is projected out and all of that sort of thing and then having regular meetings with them to stay on top of it.  Don’t bury your head in the sand and forget about it because that’s where your business will fail. 

Bring the people in who know what they’re doing and have regular meetings with them so you can stay across it.  You may not be the best at it.  But if you stay across it and talk to the people who are good at it, then that will help you in your business as well. 

That’s it for me today.  Go away and do your list about what you hate doing, what you shouldn’t be doing, and what you love doing.  Then jump on a call with us and have a chat with us about how we can help you manage your business or just run the day-to-day tasks of your business: https://beyondthemaze.com.au/contact/book-a-free-consultation/

I’m Paula, from Beyond the Maze.  Good to chat with you today. 

Bye for now.