How a Virtual Executive Assistant Will Help You Save Time

How a Virtual Executive Assistant Can Help You Save Time

In my thirty-years of experience as an executive assistant, the one question I get asked most often from potential clients is “What does an assistant do and how can a virtual assistant save me time?”.

While I dislike responding to a question with a question, in this instance I believe it’s warranted so my answer is usually along the lines of “What do you need assistance with?”.

The double-sided coin of technology

We can all agree that computers and technology are wonderful. They’ve enhanced our lives, given us access to instantaneous global information and allowed us to expand our knowledge and our customer base with ease. What an amazing tool to have.

The flip side of that coin is we are now inundated with information and data.

In today’s fast-paced business world, there are three tasks that can drain time like no other: email, scheduling, and travel planning. Almost every potential client I talk with says these three areas are the ones that suck their valuable time the most.

In a 2020 report conducted by the American Society of Administrative Professionals, 77% of assistants cited email management as a major job responsibility; 76% of respondents coordinate and manage schedules as part of their daily job; and 73% arrange travel and prepare expense reports.

VEXA Services A Report on Administrative Professionals by ASAP
Source: A Report on Administrative Professionals and Executive Assistants in North America (2020)

Email is the preferred method of communication, and our inbox fills up faster than we can read, digest, and respond.

Meeting invites can be sent out with a click of a button and our schedule becomes double and triple booked before we’ve had our morning coffee.

Planning travel involves looking for the best deal, comparing multiple sites and offers to make sure you are being a good steward of finances.
All these tasks take your most valuable asset… your time.

What tasks can a Virtual Executive Assistant help you with?

Think of what you do each day. What tasks to you spend your valuable time on? How much of it is directly related to your job or your company’s mission?

For example, if you’re a CEO, do you spend most of your time working on ways to grow your business or interacting with your customers? Or are you bogged down in email for the first three hours of your day?

If you are an independent contractor, do you spend the majority of your time working on the issues your client pays you to study? Or are you busy creating reports and scheduling meetings all afternoon?

I would hazard to guess most business owners and executives spend too much of their time reading/responding to email, trying to set up meetings that constantly get moved around and spend hours searching the web for the right flight plan and hotel reservations.

What Virtual Executive Assistants do

Virtual assistants take those important but unproductive tasks and spend their time giving them the attention they need while you’re free to focus on your actual duties and responsibilities.

Your remote administrative assistant will sift through your inbox and weed out the items you must review now and hold onto the items that can wait until you have time for a good read.

Your executive assistant will coordinate the constant back and forth to find the perfect meeting time for everyone then coordinate the location and invite those who need to attend.

Virtual assistants will even plan your travel arrangements and get you from your front door and back with every detail in between taken care of. Then they’ll file that annoying but necessary expense report when you return.

These are not the only duties today’s executive assistant can perform. I’ll pose the same question I posed earlier, “What do you need assistance with?”.

Today’s virtual executive assistants are able to tackle any administrative job to meet your needs; light bookkeeping, invoicing/billing, social media management, research, electronic files management, and event planning are just a few.

You’ll find that most are either retired executives themselves or talented assistants who like the flexibility of working from home while enjoying the diversity that comes with working for several different clients.

Get your time back with a Virtual Executive Assistant

The needs of busy professionals have changed. The advent of the computer, the internet, and now remote/telework has changed the landscape of what an office looks like and how it functions.

Along with that change, the role of the traditional secretary hasn’t just changed, it has been replaced. Replaced by the future for the assistant role, the Virtual Executive Assistant.

At VEXA Services, we believe everybody should be able to get the help they need to bring the passion and balance back to their work and personal lives. Get more of what matters done by using virtual executive assistants to do the things you don’t have the time to do, nor want to do.

Call today, so you can stop wasting your time on the little things and more time growing your business and enjoying your life with the people that matter most.

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