Virtual Assistants: Why You Need One and What Tasks to Delegate

This article was submitted by our friends at Get Staffed Up, a staffing company that provides virtual assistants to law firms and other small businesses to help you free up valuable time and get more done!

Whether you’re in your first year or 20th year of business, law firm owners are constantly seeking ways to grow their practice. At every step of the game, firm owners are trying to attract more clients, bigger clients, and clients with fulfilling work. There are a number of strategies to increase the quantity and quality of the clients at your law firm. You can choose a  strategy that grows your law firm with the help of a virtual assistant. 

Hiring a virtual employee can be one of the most rewarding decisions you make in the course of running your firm.

Warren Buffett famously remarked that time is the one thing he can’t buy. There’s no question that time is among the most precious resources (if not the most precious) you need to grow your practice. You need to think of how you spend your time in an extremely detailed fashion. If you have recurring tasks that altogether take more than 20 hours per week, you need a full-time virtual assistant (VA) immediately. Why?

First, everything takes longer for others to do than it does for us, so you’re guaranteed to underestimate the amount of time required to execute those tasks.  Second, the VA will need additional capacity to tackle projects every week.

To choose what to delegate to a VA, list all your activities and tasks for a week. At the end of the week, take a highlighter and highlight all the things you don’t like doing, are not making you money, or are getting in the way of your actual business. Those are the tasks you are going to delegate, and this is how you will free up time for you to focus on the core activities of your firm.

Here are the top five tasks you could be delegating to a VA:

  1. Personal calendar management: It will be your VA’s duty to manage your personal calendar and keep you on track. The VA will make sure you don’t miss meetings, appointments, and important deadlines by reminding you of your schedule. Having an organized calendar will also help the VA keep track of your activities so they can make changes if necessary.
  2. Social media management: For any business looking to connect with a target audience, social media will definitely benefit you. A VA will manage multiple social media accounts by paying attention to replies, reaching out to possible clients, and more.
  3. Follow up with clients: People will feel more connected to your business when you add a personal touch to your communications. You can do tiny things that can have a great impact on your client’s satisfaction. Additionally, it is important to make lasting impressions on your clients. Despite your flawless services, clients tend to forget vendors who are not in their contact. To this end, you can start an initiative to provide periodic updates on your activities.
  4. Email management: Take a look at your unread emails. Chances are there are lots of them. Research shows that a lawyer spends about 4 hours each day sorting through their work email. That’s 4 hours you could have used doing more important tasks. A VA will go through your work and personal emails and notify you of important correspondence. Learn more about the email collaborative system HERE.
  5. Gatekeeping: Gatekeeper is arguably the most important role a VA plays. Without assistance in prioritization, executives can easily become inundated with meetings they don’t need. The assistant screens calls and visitors, typically deflecting ones they believe are unimportant. They are responsible for taking all general phone calls for the office and setting appointments. They are more about filtering out the noise than blocking people, and they do it all to ensure their bosses receive all necessary information and communication.

For more information about virtual assistants contact Get Staffed Up, the leading offshore staffing company for law firms.

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