Outsourcing Admin Work: A Winning Bet for Business Owners

Introduction

Outsourcing admin work can be like taking a quantum jump for your business and personal life. Let’s not romanticize outsourcing as if it were a sudden transformative act of magic. On the contrary, it’s about innovating the way you work in a well-thought-out and deliberated way. Today, we’ll see why and how any business can adopt this revamping strategy and enjoy the advantages it brings.

Sometimes running a business feels like an act of bravery in a struggle between a plethora of admin tasks and your core activities. While you are about to close a deal, guide your team, and plan your business strategies, administrative chores feel like quicksand pulling you down. You need to take care of all those secondary chores that keep pulling you away from high-value, money-making work. 

A study carried out by Slack revealed that small business owners lose approximately 96 minutes a day on unproductive tasks. These include distractions, procrastination, and admin tasks that are “productivity killers”. For example, a “productivity killer” is context switching. Its consequences include looking for info or docs in the wrong place, populating messages to multiple platforms, and switching among apps and tools. Outsourcing admin work to a virtual assistant equipped with the right skills and tools liberates business owners. This means no more wasting time in these “productivity killers”. 

This wasted time has a high price. Repetitive tasks such as attempts to deal with various apps and platforms simultaneously drain your concentration, block your creativity, hold back your decision-making, and slow business innovation and, consequently, growth.

Another study by McKinsey showed that middle managers spend 18% of their time on administrative work. This is a waste of time, skills, and money. It doesn't make sense to pay a manager's salary to have them do administrative chores that could be outsourced to a virtual admin assistant. 

By outsourcing administrative tasks, you free up time, trim overhead, and recover the mental space and peace you need to lead and produce. 

Businesses choose to outsource administrative work to cut costs and improve productivity. 

We invite you to see the advantages of outsourcing, tasks an admin virtual assistant can do, how to outsource wisely, and more. We’ll also see examples, with real figures, that show why delegating admin work to a business service provider is one of the smartest decisions businesspeople or professionals can make. 

Why Time-Tied Small Business Owners Are Outsourcing Administrative Tasks

Because time is money, outsourcing admin chores to specialists is a double win. The virtual assistants or other specialized outsourced staff  will finish your business field-related admin tasks faster. Not only that, you’ll be able to use your time in revenue-generating activities. 

Here are some more detailed reasons why professionals and small business owners are outsourcing: 

Wise time management

Delegating repetitive, low-impact tasks enables you to use your time and expertise in your core activities while your virtual assistants take care of admin work professionally and more quickly. 

Smart money handling 

When the need to hire administrative help is obvious, outsourcing is the smartest way to go. Hiring in-house personnel implies recruiting, paying salaries, benefits, and investing in workspace, equipment, and training. Working with remote employees through an outsourcing service provider, you’ll only pay for the work you get. You’ll just pay for the worked hours, contracting directly with the provider. They’ll take care of the rest. 

Check our pricing page; you’ll be surprised by the affordability and flexibility of our different packages. 

On-demand and immediate expertise

 Sometimes, you might need someone experienced in certain platforms or tasks right away. A good outsourcing company will immediately match you with the right pre-trained assistant. At Virtudesk, we count on an increasing staff of professionals trained in general and specialized soft and hard skills. Additionally, we keep constantly upskilling them on the latest technologies. 

24/7 support

A business service provider such as Virtudesk operates across all time zones. Your emails, CRMs, inventories, or reports will be updated while you sleep. Starting your work day and finding everything is up-to-date seems too good to be true. But that’s why outsourcing can bring you. 

Upscale and downscale as needed

Most businesses go through moments when work increases noticeably from one day to the other, such as during a product launch or peak seasons. By outsourcing, you have the flexibility to scale up or down your staff as needed. Alike with in-site team members, you don’t have long-term commitments. 

Life-work balance

 If you are a solo or small entrepreneur or have a professional practice, delegating the annoying and time-consuming admin tasks will save you from working countless hours. Recover your personal and family life through outsourcing admin tasks to a virtual assistant! 

Add these factors, and the results are a leaner operative, optimal value for your money, reduced stress, and increased efficiency. 

Key Administrative Tasks That You Can Outsource

Professional virtual administrative assistants can take on almost all back-office tasks. There are, though, some tasks that businesses and professionals delegate to them the most. These are tasks you should delegate first, particularly if you are new to outsourcing, before moving to more complex ones:

1. Email management duties 

These include:

• Sort incoming email and set priority folders so you can directly go and see what really matters to you
• Draft responses to common questions or send templated replies
• Flag important messages and unsubscribe you from unwanted newsletters
• Set up filters to prevent spam from getting to your main inbox
• Seek missing replies

2. Calendar and scheduling

For example, these tasks include: 

• Find proper times across different participants and time zones to schedule meetings.
• Send your calendar invites
• Reschedule meeting cancellations and inform the participants

3. Data entry 

Among them are:

• Gathering, organizing, and recording info into spreadsheets or databases
• Typing and transcribing
• Entering data from diverse sources
• Enter data into your systems and databases with accuracy
• Organize your files
• Ensure data security and privacy
• Perform frequent backups to ensure data preservation

4. CRM maintenance and updates 

Some examples of CRM maintenance and updates include, but are not limited to:

• Clean and update data to avoid errors and duplicates
• Make bulk data updating and importing
• Train other users and encourage user adoption
• Ensure the CRM system is updated with the newest features and security patches
• Monitor your CRM performance on a regular basis

5. Reporting

Some of the reporting chores a VA can do are:

• Identify the goal of the report and the information it needs to include
• Generate reports after gathering and analyzing data
• Ensure to distribute the reports on time and only to the intended recipients
• Add graphs and charts to present data in a visual manner

6. Document creation

As part of their admin work, virtual assistants can:

• Draft business proposals and contracts
• Create investor and pitch decks with relevant info and data-based charts
• Transcribe meetings 
• Create Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs)
• Write compelling emails 
• Craft and send internal communications
• Assist with any type of documents you or your business may need

We just listed some of the tasks you can delegate when outsourcing administrative work, and which are the ones you’d ideally start with. 

Yet, there are many more tasks and roles you can outsource that fall into the admin work category, and sometimes overlap with other types of work. For a list of other roles and tasks you could outsource, follow this link. 

For a deeper insight into tasks you can delegate to an administrative virtual assistant, download our free guide: Tasks to Delegate to an Admin Virtual Assistant. 

Outsourcing Admin Work: Success Stories

At Virtudesk, we take pride in the results our clients achieve after outsourcing with us. This time, we’ll share three cases that show how owners win when outsourcing through us. Numbers speak for themselves. 

Case	Snapshot	What We Took Over	Results & ROI
1. Austin Fashion Boutique	Solo founder drowning in a sea of emails and inventory checks.	• Inbox triage • Shopify order entry • Weekly stock reports (15 hrs/week at $10.60/hr part-time rate) (myvirtudesk.com)	Cost: ≈ $636/month. Local hire quote: $1,200/month. Savings: $564/month + no benefits. Upside: Founder reinvested freed hours in TikTok ads, adding $3,500 in monthly sales within one season.
2. Chicago Accounting Firm	Ten-person practice; senior partner stuck formatting client reports and juggling calendars.	• Report polishing • Calendar management • Client intake (full-time VA, 40 hrs/week at $9.55/hr) (myvirtudesk.com)	Cost: ≈ $1,528/month. In-house admin estimate: $4,800/month incl. benefits. Savings: $3,272/month. Upside: Partner billed 4 extra consultations/week at $300 each—$4,800 new revenue monthly.
3. Florida Real-Estate Brokerage	Four busy agents losing deals to paperwork delays.	• Transaction coordination • Document tracking • Closing schedules (TC VA, 40 hrs/week at $11/hr) (myvirtudesk.com)	Cost: ≈ $1,760/month. Local TC salary: $5,000/month incl. overhead. Savings: $3,240/month. Upside: Agents closed 3 extra homes/month, earning ≈ $15,000 in added commissions.

How to Start Outsourcing Admin Work in 4 Steps

The foundations of successful outsourcing start with setting clear expectations and simplifying systems. We recommend a four-step framework to begin: 

• Examine your task list: Spot the tasks that are part of the routine, repetitive, process-driven, and easy to teach. 
• Document your work processes: Create SOPs (standard operating procedures), explanatory videos, style guides, or tutorials so your admin virtual assistant can easily follow your style.
• Set KPIs (key performance indicators) or goals: For example, some KPIs can be CRM accuracy, above 99%, inbox must be cleared by 5 pm, task completion rate, turnaround time, and communication responsiveness. Here you’ll find examples and tips for 6 administrative KPIs.  Learn about the top KPIs that admin departments should track according to the American Society of Administrative Professionals by clicking on this link. 
• Evaluate and iterate: Every week, evaluate the performance and have a scheduled call or virtual meeting with your virtual admin assistant to discuss their progress and areas of improvement. Take these as opportunities to refine the different processes to keep improving them. 

Our blog post on hiring your first admin assistant will guide you on how to hire, train, and manage your VA through helpful tools. Also,  check our 7 tips for managing virtual assistants; it will give you useful recommendations. 

Conclusion and What to Do Next

Consistently outsourcing admin work will take you from being an overwhelmed slave of administrative chores to a productive business person or professional. You’ll regain priceless weekly hours, reduce costs, and have time and mental peace to have a work-life balance and focus on your commercial or professional growth. 

All you have to do is call us at +1 (800) 470-8136 or fill out this form to schedule a free discovery call with us. At Virtudesk, we’ll be delighted to introduce you to the world of outsourcing administrative tasks, a game-changer for business owners.