Loyal blog readers may remember some time ago that I posted about the three D’s of task management: delete, defer, and delegate. Well, I’ve had some serious experience with delegating recently. I hired a virtual assistant (VA) several months ago. The different in my business, my approach to it, and my personal growth has been startling! I want to share my experiences here, partly to sing the praises of VAs and partly to show how a simple change can bring about profound learning.

Virtual assistants can do all kinds of support work for a businessperson. Without getting into too much detail, they can offer administrative support, some Web work, design, event planning, phone calls, documentation, you name it. I found my VA through a local networking group, and we signed a contract by which she provides me 4 hours of her services each month. How I ask her to use the time is up to me. So far, I have had her work on both of my Web sites (which were recently relaunched in WordPress), design promotional flyers for and assist with some training events, optimize my profile on some business networking sites, make phone calls and perform some research, and create a PowerPoint presentation from some extremely raw text. I plan to have her help me with a newsletter, more slide presentations, and some marketing tasks in the future!

What surprised me in the process of making use of this support is how much it helped me grow! The lessons ran deeper than I could have imagined (and are still revealing themselves to me). Here are some of them.

  • I was pushed (in a good way) to let go of something and trust another person to handle it. I’ve been self-employed for 14 years, and because I’ve always had to handle everything, it’s fair to say I became a bit of a control freak. I’m so used to handling it all–it was a challenge to let something go. When I was able to do so, a lot of new, exciting opportunities for my time and energy opened up!
  • I became more engaged in my best work. Because I now have support around the details and busy-work of my company, I have more of my brain power and heart invested in the actual work–that of coaching. I no longer have to fret over details because I have a trusted person to handle them for me. I can truly focus on serving my clients.
  • I opened the door to more profitability. I was shocked when I realized that my VA could spend 1 hour on something that would take me 4 or more hours (and a lot of frustration) to get done. I can use those 4 hours to do billable work! Also, because she can support me with excellent work, I’ve accelerated my plans on a lot of my business-building ideas, which will bring more clients to me.
  • I began to see more possibilities in my business. As I was challenged to come up with tasks for my VA (she works so fast!), I started to see a lot more opportunities for myself and my business. Currently, she is developing a slide presentation for me from very raw text and images. This will be published on SlideShare and available for free to anyone who is interested. Before I met my VA, I doubt I ever would have considered this. I don’t like slides, and I don’t know how to use PowerPoint well, and it would have perpetually been put on the back burner. Now it’s happening! More creative ideas are coming to me all the time, and I’m energized to attack them.
  • I started thinking like a bigger company. Suddenly, I have “people.” I can take on bigger projects, bigger commitments because I have support in other areas. I feel more professional. I’ve widened my playing field. This has opened up even more opportunities, and I find I’m incredibly excited and engaged with my business all over again!

Obviously, I recommend a good VA if you need or want some support in your business. As you think about the cost of hiring someone, weight it against the immediate benefits of getting things done, and remember to think about the bigger picture advantages!