So you’re a wedding professional who has decided to outsource tasks to a virtual assistant. The problem is you’re not exactly sure what to outsource. Some ways you can decide what to outsource include passing along the tasks that you don’t enjoy doing, that don’t make you money, or that you can easily train someone else to do. The reality is you can pretty much outsource anything! Here’s a list of 7 tasks you can outsource to a virtual assistant as a wedding professional.
1. Inbox Management
If you’re like a lot of wedding professionals, it’s easy to become overwhelmed by the number of emails you receive. Between emails from clients, vendors, and colleagues, you’re constantly getting alerts that you have a new message. One of the best things you can do is set boundaries around when you check your email. Maybe you check once in the morning, once at lunch, and once again before you sign off for the day.
Another great thing you can do is pass off inbox management to a virtual assistant (VA)! Your VA can check your inbox regularly throughout the day and manage the mail you see. By creating templated responses, your VA will be able to respond to a ton of emails you get. They can also run responses by you before sending to ensure that it’s how you would respond. Your VA can flag the emails that only you can respond to, plus they can create folders and labels to help keep your inbox organized and not overwhelming. Inbox management is one of the easiest tasks to outsource to a VA to ensure your clients receive timely responses.
2. Calendar Management
Calendar management is another great task to outsource to a virtual assistant. A VA can set up your calendar with different color codes, calendar types, etc. to ensure you never miss an important event. If you have clients reaching out wanting to schedule a call with you that’s outside of your normal availability, your VA can check your calendar and provide some times you’re available to meet. Your VA can also add Zoom meetings with other vendors, walkthroughs, and other events to your calendar with time buffers. That will ensure you don’t have back to back meetings in case one runs over, plus it gives you travel time between appointments.
3. Social Media Scheduling
Creating social media content is a must in the wedding industry. Instagram is a place where a lot of leads come from. It’s hard to give up control of that aspect of your business. Good news – you don’t have to. You can still select the photos you want posted and write the captions to ensure the post sounds like you. When you’re done with that, hand the content over to your VA. They can add vendor tags in the caption, add hashtags, tag vendors and location, plus schedule out the content. Even if that doesn’t seem to take up a lot of your time, it adds up! Plus you could easily be doing something more productive with that time.
4. CRM/CMS Management
You’ve probably got a Client Relations Manager or Client Management system like Dubsado, Honeybook, or Aisle Planner to make your life easier. However, you still have to manage some parts of the programs. A VA can help ensure you’re getting the most out of those programs. From customizing inquiry emails to approving workflow steps to archiving projects, your VA can complete those tasks to take one more thing off your plate.
5. Timeline Creation
Timeline creation is an important but tedious task a lot of wedding professionals have to complete. Outsourcing timeline creation to a virtual assistant can be a simple process. One way to outsource creating timelines is recording a Loom of yourself the next time you create a timeline. This will create a step by step guide on how you create timelines that your VA can easily refer back to. Then if you have any additional notes for the timeline, you can just share those with your VA when you assign them the task.
6. Vendor Communication
Being a wedding professional means you’re going to be working with a bunch of different vendors. Gathering contracts, timeline info, liability insurance, etc., the list goes on and on as to why you might need to contact a vendor. Passing off this task to a VA is a no-brainer for a lot of wedding pros. If you want your VA to send out final documents such as timelines, room layouts, etc, consider it done! You can also have your VA reach out about liability insurance before a wedding and have them store those documents in a shared folder. Vendor communication can easily be one more thing off your to do list!
7. Project Management Software Maintenance
Click Up, Asana, Trello, Aisle Planner – there’s a ton of project management programs out there that make your life easier, but they do require some maintenance. Items such as assigning tasks, determining due dates, or setting up projects can be outsourced to your VA. Having templates for these items gives your VA a system to follow when setting up projects so that they’re set up to your standards. Then a VA can easily maintain these systems to ensure all deadlines are being met and that weddings go off without a hitch!
Time to Outsource Tasks to a Virtual Assistant?
As a wedding planner, you’ve decided that you need a virtual assistant to outsource tasks to. This list is a good overview of what tasks a wedding professional can outsource to a virtual assistant. It’s definitely not the full list of tasks, but it’s a start! If you’re interested in outsourcing these tasks or think you have other tasks that you’re ready to pass off to a VA, contact me here to chat!
