For anyone looking to add more time to their days (who isn’t?!), partnering with a Virtual Assistant is definitely the way to go.
Before this process starts, the potential client (that would be you) often has a ton of questions about how it all works. There is a lot of information about this in the blog archives here, take a look and see what questions we may have addressed already.
I’ve been supporting entrepreneurs administratively for years, virtually since mid-2006. In that time, I have learned that one of the biggest challenges people like you face when starting the VA/client relationship is trying to determine which of your time eaters to delegate. Some things are easier than others and I have learned that by far, email management is the most painless to hand over for everyone.
First of all, email takes up way too much time of your time, and if you had an in-house assistant I’ll bet you’d have no trouble having that person take care of it for you.
There are a few ways to handle this service. I have my own Virtual Assistant that manages my email (I know, ironic!) and it works great. I still like to have my email downloaded to Outlook, so I just try my best to keep it closed throughout the day. My VA set up a top secret gmail account that she forwards my important messages to, and she will call me or instant message me when anything of great importance needs my attention. You won’t believe how much time that has freed up for me. I’m a chronic send/receive clicker, so I was spending way too much time in my email.
Other VAs have other ways of doing this, but for me, this has proven to be the most efficient. Imagine how productive you could be if you didn’t have to focus on every single email that comes into your inbox!
To potential clients of VAs, do you have questions about how this service works?
To VAs who provide this service, can you share some tips for how you’ve made this work for your clients?
Great article, Jaime! Would love to share this thru my blog – let me know if that’s ok.
Jocelyn
AMEN! I know I get side-tracked on my emails at times, and I know there’s a day coming when I will have to delegate that to someone else. I do manage email for 2 of my clients on an “as needed” basis. They usually like to handle it themselves for now, and that’s fine with me. One service I offer to busy executives/entrepreneurs is the fact that they can “brain dump” with me. I love getting lists of things going through their mind that they need to handle, or would like to get started on, and then I take whatever they’ve said and go get started on it so a lot of the leg work is done. Every one of my clients has access to my project management tool, so if they have thoughts, they can either go into the program and put it there, or email it to me (or call & leave it on VM) and I’ll put it in there. Its a great way to keep projects and ideas on target. And, a lot of the time after looking at something, we can come to the conclusion that its just not feasible right now. I think of it as strategic partnering.
Wonderful ideas on delegation Jamie. Great article. I look forward to reading more tips and advice.
I typically only receive about 50 e-mails a day (between 2 e-mail accounts), but it proves to be plenty to eat into my productive time.
I would love to have someone handle my e-mails, but for now it’s not in my budget. So here’s what I had to do:
– I set up a time budget for checking my e-mail – 30 minutes per day.
– I made sure to unsubscribe from all e-mail lists that I didn’t care for.
– I start off by deleting all the junk mail that gets past the filters.
– As with many other tasks, I follow Robert Allen’s Getting Things Done approach (http://www.oneclickva.com/blog/timemgmt/a-to-do-list-to-rule-them-all/) for my e-mails.
– Whenever possible, I encourage my clients to set up Google Docs or wikies or similar on-line collaborative environment that eliminates the need for constant back and forth e-mails.
I have a client who has mentioned that he is getting ready to hand over some of his email monitoring to me. It took him a while to build to that comfort level, but it certainly is a big task, especially for people who get hundreds of emails a day, so it is well worth having your VA manage it for you!
Great comments everyone.
Jocelyn, please feel free to link back to this your own blog!
Yelena, I found I was spending hours in my email each day. Not only checking email but when I get an email, I don’t just read it. I either have to do something about something, look into something, make note of something, follow up on something, etc. Or I will click on my calendar and notice I have a seminar thing coming up, then next thing I know I’m surfing ebay for a new laptop bag!
For me, it was costing me a fortune to monitor my own email cause it distracts me and eats up way too much billable time. At first it seemed like a crazy idea to pay someone to check my email for me, but then I decided to take my own advice and outsource one of the tasks that doesn’t generate revenue 😉
I have several email accounts to take care of and it does take a lot of time and energy OR things get missed. That is what is happening with one colleague who has finally told me to hunt him down for urgent things and not email him because he misses too much. If he would let ME sort his email, I would set up files and move messages into them so he could choose the urgent file and work through the rest! If he would just let me!
Back again! At Virtually @ Eight Twenty-Two, (http://barjdcommunications.wordpress.com/wp-admin/post-new.php?posted=69) I wrote a post this morning to both client and VA about how email management could be a great trial task in efforts to pump success into their businesses. (The photo of an Oil Well pump in a grain field was a scene I just couldn’t miss snapping)
PS: I tried the pingback option, but I don’t know how it will work!
Having someone filter through emails sounds like an absolute God-send to me. If I neglect it for only a few days, it can take hours trawling through irrelevant time-wasting nonsense.