Running your own coaching business can be overwhelming, and test your limits often. You may find yourself struggling with finding the right balance between productivity and fulfillment from work. If you haven’t already considered hiring a virtual assistant (VA) to help with this, we want to show you why you should.

A virtual assistant is basically an individual who takes up administrative duties and provides services to clients remotely. Hiring VAs doesn’t just boost productivity, it can save you up to 90% in hiring costs compared to hiring an assistant full-time.

7 tasks a virtual assistant can easily handle for coaches

Although you may find the daily tasks that you handle to be manageable, with a growing client base, it becomes more difficult to keep up. A personal virtual assistant can help to lighten the load when you delegate certain duties.

By taking over some of the responsibilities that are the most time-consuming or outside of your expertise, a virtual assistant can help your coaching business continue to grow without the stress or overwhelm of doing it all yourself.

To help you get started, here are some of the best tasks a coach in any industry should consider handing over to a virtual assistant:

1. Calendar and schedule management

As a business coach, one of the most important things you can do is manage your time well. Hiring a virtual assistant to take care of your calendar and book appointments for you can save you a lot of hassle and free up considerable amounts of time each day.

This way, you can focus on giving your clients the best possible experience without getting bogged down in the little details.

2. Following up with clients

Clients are the lifeblood of any coaching business, and building and maintaining relationships is crucial to your success. However, juggling so many different people can be challenging with the hectic schedule of a coach.

Hiring VAs can help you streamline the process to help you stay connected with your clients on a regular basis, and make sure nothing slips through the cracks. All you need to do is provide clear instructions and communication guidelines and they can take care of the rest.

3. Creating marketing materials

Having a strong visual identity is essential for any business nowadays. Eye-catching graphics and consistent branding can make all the difference in getting noticed and remembered by potential clients. This is another example of how a virtual assistant can be a tremendous asset to coaches.

With the right experience and skillset, virtual assistants could handle most of the complete process. All you need to do is provide a clear brief and instructions, and they can take the rest off your hands. From light graphic design for marketing assets such as social media graphics, flyers, business cards, and email campaigns, to copywriting, proofreading, and editing any text elements, to contacting suppliers, placing orders, and managing your inventory of any physical assets.

Instead of spending hours on these tasks yourself, you’ll be able to use this time to focus on helping your clients and growing your business.

4. Social media management

In our current age, there may be no tool more powerful than social media when it comes to connecting with potential customers and building relationships. But as a busy professional, you may not have the time to regularly maintain an active social media presence.

That's where a virtual assistant comes in. An experienced VA can provide support for a wide range of social media tasks, from creating and scheduling posts, to engaging with your audience and responding to enquiries. Not only that, they could conduct research into the best content topics, current trends, best practices, and so on, to help inform your marketing efforts to attract more clients and see better results overall.

Hiring a virtual assistant with relevant skills and knowledge on various social media platforms can help take some of the load off of your shoulders. With their help, you can make sure your business has the visibility it needs to thrive.

5. Content writing

As a small business owner, it's essential to understand the role that content can play in your overall marketing strategy. Whether you're sharing helpful tips, offering recommendations, or outlining next steps, consistent, high-quality content helps you build trust and credibility that will attract new clients and solidify your relationships with existing ones. So the power of great content should never be underestimated—it just might be the key to taking your business to the next level.

But finding the time to plan, write, and publish on a regular basis can be much easier said than done, especially as a business owner. The good news is that hiring a virtual assistant is a convenient and cost-effective solution to this issue, helping you maintain a steady flow of quality content without having to neglect your other important responsibilities.

See: How To Successfully Outsource Your Content Writing To A Virtual Assistant

6. Invoicing

When you have a long list of other duties to take care of, chasing payments from clients is the last thing you want. And chances are, the more clients you have, the more likely you are to forget someone, which means you risk losing out on vital income. It’s not just money you could lose out on, either. According to recent research, business owners lose up to 20 days per year chasing late payments.

Think about what you could achieve if you could reclaim all that time. That’s 160 extra billable hours with clients, over 200 sessions in the gym, or four working weeks of vacation time.

An experienced virtual assistant can help create invoices for your clients, send the invoices, keep track of payments, and contact clients with bills outstanding—making the process so much easier for you, and granting you more time to continue working on your business.

7. Travel planning

Whether it’s meeting a client in person, speaking at an event, or attending a conference, traveling can make up a large portion of a coach’s life. While it can be exciting to explore new places and meet new people, it can stressful and exhausting too—and that’s before you’ve even left the house!

If you dread the thought of making travel arrangements and hate the hassle of finding places to eat and sleep in a new city, a virtual assistant could be your new best friend. A VA can handle everything from booking your flights and accommodation to creating a detailed itinerary for your trip. They can take care of all the details so you can have a much more relaxed and enjoyable experience.

See: How A Virtual Assistant Can Help With Your Travel Planning

Hiring a virtual assistant for your business

Now that you have seen what duties you can entrust to a virtual assistant, how do you make the best pick for your business?

We know exactly how much of a precious asset your time is, so to save wasting any time through trial and error, here are the crucial things you should know before you begin your journey to help your experience be as smooth and successful as possible.

Write a full job description

There are many reasons why you might want to hire a virtual assistant. Maybe you're trying to free up some of your own time, or you need help with tasks that are outside of your skill set. Whatever the reason, it's important to have a clear understanding of what you need from an assistant before you start your search.

Write a list with clear descriptions of the tasks you would like to offload, as well as the skills and experience required. Depending on their professional background, some virtual assistants might be more experienced in admin or executive work, for example, while others may specialize in marketing tasks, so you would want the right people to put themselves forward for the job.

Then, you can add any extra requirements (such as preferred availability and time zone) and a little bit about yourself and your company.

Meet your assistant (virtually)

Once we have the details of your tasks and requirements, our expert team begins the process of selecting the best virtual assistant. We carefully consider each candidate's skills and experience to find the perfect match for your needs. To avoid overwhelm, our team will present you with one option initially, but the choice will always be yours.

Following our selection, we always recommend scheduling a call with the VA to give you both the chance to introduce yourselves, get to know each other a little, and ask any questions you may have so you can get a feel for if they’re a good fit.

Be available to keep in touch

In the early stages of working with your virtual assistant, it is crucial that you can be available to answer any questions they may have about the work they will be doing for you.

Your schedule will be unique to you, especially if you are busy with clients, but always aim to let your assistant know when you’re free to answer questions. You may also find it beneficial to assign methods of communication according to urgency. For example, your assistant may email or Slack you for regular communication but can call you or message you on Whatsapp if it is urgent.

Just like with any new starter to a business, being available to offer guidance and taking the time to answer their questions helps your assistant understand what is expected of them and set them up for continued success down the road.

What’s the bottom line?

As a coach, you always have to be on the lookout for ways to make your life easier. Perhaps the simplest—yet most effective—solution is finding others who can help you with the tasks that would otherwise eat up your day and hold you back from your full potential.

A virtual assistant can be a lifesaver, taking care of all the behind-the-scenes work so that you can focus on what you do best: coaching your clients to success.

If you’re ready to join the 22,000 business owners that have already used a virtual assistant from Time etc to reclaim valuable time and achieve more, speak to our expert team to get started or try a skilled virtual assistant for free today.

Related reading

• Five Simple Things To Try To Grow Your Coaching Business
• Delegate These 25 Recurring Tasks To Save Time Every Day
• 5 Reasons Why Experts Say Entrepreneurs Should Delegate