One of the most common questions I hear from business owners is, how do I know what to outsource to a VA?
There’s any number of listicles around that will tell you things you can outsource, and that can be helpful to give you ideas, but I think the best way to get there is to spend a little bit of time thinking about you and your business specifically.
What do you do all day?
The first step is to make a list of alllllll the things you do in your business every day, or in a week. This can be client facing or your own admin and marketing. Open a Google doc or grab a bit of paper and do a big brain dump of everything you can think of.
Now you have your list (and are possibly having feelings about just how much is on there), we can evaluate it in a few different ways to figure out what makes sense for you to delegate to a VA.
option 1: what don’t you love?
Look at the tasks you’ve listed, and think about how much you enjoy doing them. That is the only metric we’re considering here (we’ll look at some others later). Do you get a kick out of reconciling your bank account? (I do!) Do you love making beautiful slide decks? Does writing a blog post feel like pulling teeth?
Go to your task list and rate each item from 1 (hate it!) to 5 (the best!). Remember, right now we only want to know whether or not you like doing it.
Anything you’ve marked 1 or 2 can immediately go on your ‘things I will outsource’ list. If you need to free up more of your time, add the 3s on there as well. Golden.
option 2: is this worth my time?
Another way to evaluate your lovely list of tasks is, what is the best use of your time/what are you good at? These two evaluative questions could be split out, but they’re kind of similar so pick which vibes more with you and work through that lens.
Looking at your time, we’re going to that ‘time equals money’ place. Let’s say you’re a consultant and your rate is $300 per hour. Just on maths alone it doesn’t make sense for you to be dicking around on your website when you could pay someone else to do that part. VA rates vary but even if you need a super-technical VA who charges you $120/hour you’re ahead if you spend that hour consulting instead. Plus, chances are they will do it faster than you could so it’s even more economical.
This one requires you to be a bit more honest and firm with yourself, because you can be not-good at something but enjoy the challenge of working it out (hi, I see you friend). And if we look at it purely through the value lens, you spending 3 hours down a Youtube rabbit hole learning about ActiveCampaign automations and pathways is not the best use of your time – even though what you can do with email automations is SUPER fun.
With that in mind, we’re going to revisit our task list and ask the question – is this a good use of my time? Then mark each task yes or no. (Yes ok, if you’re a person who likes wiggle room you can have a ‘maybe’ option as well).
Anything that is not a good use of your time goes on the ‘things to outsource’ list. The maybes can be added later too, when you’re ready.
option 3: can I easily get it out of my brain?
What’s easy for you to explain to someone else? Have a think about how you do the things you do and, if you were to ask someone else to do that task, how you would ask for what you need to happen. For example, how to reconcile a Xero statement is pretty straightforward – match up the lines and if there’s something you can’t match let me know. Likewise, ‘here’s a blog post I’ve written, please proofread it and add it to the website’ should be pretty easy for a VA to just get done.
Some things require a little bit more guidance or for a specific process to be followed, and so will need a little bit more of your time upfront to ensure your VA understands what needs to happen. For example, explaining how you’d like your email automation to flow – if a client does A, then X, if a client does B, then Y.
Finally, there might be a few things that you just kind of get done or that make sense for you to keep. Often these will be the more personal-touch things like the content of a newsletter (but you can absolutely outsource the ‘putting it into Mailchimp and adding links and making it look pretty’ bit once you’ve written your message!)
Tip:
Going through this process will also help you think about who might be the right VA for you. Some VAs are very excellent at following clear instructions, such as “please find me 25 royalty free photos featuring yellow flowers”. However, if you’re more likely to ask “can you please find me 25 royalty free photos that fit my vibe?” you’ll need someone who is perhaps a bit more creative or can demonstrate initiative outside of your instructions.
Back to our trusty task list, and in this case mark each of them as follows: A – very straightforward/easy to explain; B – I’ll need to go into a bit of detail about what I want, but can teach this to someone else; or C – I’ll just keep this one. Remember, through this lens C is based only on what would be difficult for someone else to do.
Anything marked A can go straight onto the outsourcing list. Things you’ve marked B can either guide you to find a VA with those specific skills, or can be added to the delegation list down the track.
And there you have it! Whichever method you chose (and maybe you played around with them for various tasks), you should now have a clear list of things to outsource that make sense for you in your business. Good luck!
3 simple steps to get started outsourcing
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