10 Tasks Your Sales Reps Should Outsource To A Virtual Assistant

Want to give your sales reps more time so they can actually sell more? Here are 10 admin tasks your sales reps should be delegating and outsourcing to a virtual sales assistant or personal assistant.

Quickskill isn’t the only place you’ll read about the virtues of delegation to a virtual assistant. Everyone from Richard Branson to Tim Ferriss has been talking about how learning to delegate work that isn’t in your sweet spot is a key life skill.

And you, yourself, of course would probably love to get some work off your plate?

But when you’re the one who’s been hired to do the work, sub-contracting it out to someone else can induce its fair share of guilt. How do you justify handing things off from your plate to someone else?

It’s really quite simple. The work you hand off to someone else should be the tasks that are not your core competency.

Never delegate things that are your strengths.

Instead, focus on handing off tasks that are incidental to your work and don’t involve the skills for which you were hired. That’ll give you more time and energy to complete your high-value work.

For sales reps, this admin work could include any of the following.

1. Booking a lunch meeting

That includes both calling the restaurant for a reservation and circling back with your contact to finalize the details. Scheduling meetings can take significant amounts of email ping-pong, which is perfect to outsource to someone else.

2. Building your expense report

Filling out forms and databases is not on top of the list in terms of the sales process. Some of you might be getting this done because it puts money back in your pocket. More likely, though, is that the pain of doing this yourself outweighs the benefits.

3. Updating your CRM activities

This is a typical, rote task that anyone with context and access to your CRM and calendar can do for you.

4. Confirming the next day’s meetings

Getting this done can literally save you both time and make you some money. By ensuring that you’re not spinning your wheels waiting for a no-show in a diner, delegating this will give you more time back to sell.

5. Answering your calls

These days, phone calls are the most disruptive form of communication out there. But forcing prospects to leave a voicemail message doesn’t inspire confidence, either. So get someone to make your prospects love your sales process from the start, without taking time out of your own schedule.

6. Doing your prospect homework

Give them a name and a title, and someone else can compile a short briefing note with industry numbers, deal size, etc. for you before sales meetings. Instead of searching the depths of the web, save your energy for building that business relationship.

7. Keeping your CRM clean

Fussing over CRM fields and up-to-date addresses is helpful, but not central to closing the deal. Sure, everyone should keep best practices in mind, but it’s worth it to outsource data cleansing to someone else. It’ll make sure the sales managers are happy and that you’re working off the right data.

8. Finding prospects online

With a few parameters in place, someone else can help find you mine social media and other databases to come up with a list of qualified candidates for your sale. That’ll both save you time and give you something new to leverage.

9. Providing context for your expense receipt

Coming back from a business trip with an envelope full of meal/cab receipts? Anyone with access to your calendar should be able to match those up with the right account numbers and names for your expense reimbursement. Your time is better spent making the follow-up calls.

10. Rescheduling your flight

You may be picky about what airline you fly or what seat you get. But when your meeting runs late and you still need to make it back home tonight, you should grab whoever you can to anticipate and make that change for you. It’ll let you take the time to finish up your meeting and arrive at the airport without worries.

Related: 3 Killer Content Tips for Salespeople That Close Deals

What You Should Do Now

If you need help with sales support, here are a few options to help you:

1. Download our eBook “Spend More Time Selling with a Virtual Assistant” and get a better understanding of how a virtual assistant can handle tedious sales tasks to give sales leaders and teams more time to sell and take care of customers.
2. Book a free consultation call with Quickskill. We can help you regain more of your time to sell by offloading repeatable tasks to a fully managed virtual assistant. One of our experts will help you create a plan to delegate your tasks and we will even train your sales assistant for you.
3. If you know someone else who’d benefit from sales support, share this post with them via email, LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook.