Do you ever read those articles and blog posts with titles like 10 Email Mistakes and How to Avoid Them? They often make compelling reading and in many cases, offer very helpful guidance for steering clear of trouble. This is one such blog post, but with a bit of a difference.
In this VDW blog post, we’re going to cover three evil habits of managers and small business owners, and then explain how to kick them with the help of a virtual assistant.
Hire a VA and Stop These Evil Habits Now
If you’re like most business professionals, you can probably relate to the three evil business habits described below and are perhaps under the spell of at least one of them. But innocuous as they may seem, these habits can harbor negative consequences for your business.
For the relatively low cost of hiring an offshore virtual assistant, and the small amount of effort required to train and manage him/her, you can kick these habits and improve your business performance.
Think of it this way: it will cost you money to hire a virtual assistant, but it’s a cost you can budget for. The cost of bad business habits though is not really quantifiable, but may amount to much more than a few hundred dollars a month.
Evil Habit #1: Procrastination
Do you have a list of tasks that you just don’t like doing? Most of us do, and it’s so easy to put them off, usually on the pretext that certain other tasks must be prioritized. In reality, though, at least some of those tasks you hate will be important for the success of your business or department.
By delegating these jobs to a virtual assistant, you can free yourself from them, while ensuring that they are completed on time and in full.
Furthermore, if you search for a VA with these tasks in mind, you’ll be able to hire someone who enjoys doing them. This probably means the tasks will be completed with more care and attention than if you continue wrestling with them yourself.
Evil Habit #2: Rushing Task Completion
There is a big difference between being busy and being “rushed”. However much pressure you are under, rushing through tasks is a bad business habit. Rushing can lead to an accumulation of mistakes, errors, and omissions in your work, which can easily come back to bite you.
If you have too much on your plate though, avoiding the temptation to rush is more easily said than done.
A virtual assistant can help you kick this hasty habit by taking on some of your less business-critical tasks, freeing time for you to focus on the really important stuff.
There is a double benefit to be had here too, (as long as you don’t overload your virtual assistant) since the tasks that you retain and those you delegate will all be completed at a more realistic pace, therefore receiving the care and attention that they deserve.
Evil Habit #3: Enslaving Yourself to Your Email
While there are many resources offering email management advice, few professionals are able to release themselves from email slavery. Indeed, most make the mistake of paying email a disproportionate amount of attention, compared with other elements of their daily workload.
Instead of living with this evil habit, have a virtual assistant take on the tasks of sorting, filing, and prioritising your inbox arrivals, and alerting you only to the ones which really demand your personal attention.
Depending on how serious a victim you are of email enslavement, delegating email management to a VA could save you up to 30% of your working day—just imagine what you could get done with all that extra time.
Affordable Therapy for Bad Business Habits
The evils of procrastination, rushing, and email enslavement are all real if a little overstated here for dramatic effect. What can’t be overstated though, is their potential effect on productivity, efficiency, quality, and ultimately, profitability.
Virtual assistants can help you kick these costly habits and liberate you from their effects. What’s more, they can do so for far less than the cost of bringing extra staff in-house.
Are you under the spell of any or all of the three evil business habits? If so, affordable therapy is at your fingertips. Reach out to the Virtual Done Well team today, and we’ll match you with a professional, skilled, and understanding VA to help you on the road to rehabilitation.
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