In 2014, Americans who made phone calls, sent mail, or emailed spent on average 0.71 hours a day doing it, according to the Bureau of Labour Statistics.
Christian Sculthorp, CEO at Healthy.co.id, recommends the freelance marketplace companyUpwork (formerly oDesk) for finding all kinds of virtual help. He uses the site for data entry, small website updates, content writing, translation, and bookkeeping, among other things.
‘The best thing about Upwork is that I can hire them on an hourly basis and then just message freelancers with jobs as I have them,’ he says. ‘Upwork then tracks their work and sends me back screenshots of them doing the work. This keeps everything low cost and efficient.’
Rates vary based on freelancers’ skills, experience, feedback, and work history.
Violette de Ayala, founder and CEO of Femfessionals, used Elance (now part of Upwork) to find her bookkeeper, marketing associate, social-media team, designers, and IT team.
‘It is always best to hire an expert in certain fields and leave those roles to them,’ she says. ‘This allows me to continuously focus on the growth of our company and take the steps necessary to achieve our business goals.’
Fiverr allows virtual assistants to offer various freelance services for $US5 a pop, and other popular freelance services include Zirtual, Toptal, Freelancer, and Guru.
You could also go the old-fashioned route and outsource work on Craigslist.

Lysa Miller, CEO of Ladybugz Interactive Agency, says her company doesn’t outsource anything that requires personal interaction. Apart from that, she recommends outsourcing virtually anything that will allow you to grow your business.
‘This past year I realised I was spending a ton of time managing employee tasks, checking in, and checking on work, and it was taking time away from me growing my clients and my business,’ Miller says. ‘I had tried a few programs that I was not pleased with, but a colleague recommended Asana to me, and it has helped me cut my project-management time in half, keep my employees on task, and increased their productivity by almost double. It also alleviated the stress of worrying if everything is done.’
The project-management app runs from $US21 a month for five team members to $US834 a month for 100 team members. Other popular apps include Trello and Smartsheet.

Caroline Szymeczek of Integrated Learning Innovations Inc. eliminates unsightly clutter by sending her pile of receipts, invoices, and miscellaneous items to be scanned and archived in a searchable way by Shoeboxed.
‘My small business is truly small, which means that I am president but also am doing the bookkeeping, marketing, advertising, and of course, working with my clients,’ she says. ‘I desperately need to outsource everything that I possibly can, but I refuse to spend time or money on solutions that create more work for me … and Shoeboxed meets those criteria perfectly.’
Plans start at $US0 a month and go up to $US83 a month.

For social-media management, Ladybugz’s Miller uses Hootesuite.com to automate posting on social media. Miller says she loves that she can still create and personalise the content while saving time that would be spent logging into social-media accounts throughout the day.
Small businesses normally pay around $US9.99 a month for the service.
Other popular apps for managing social media include Buffer and SocialFlow.

You could spend $US27 per square foot to $US140 per square foot to rent office space in New York City, and that’s not including paying for utilities and incrementals.
To avoid paying more for office maintenance than you’d like, Benjamin Koren, founder and CEO of Frameology, suggests opting for a coworking space as he does. Koren runs his New York-based company out of the coworking space WeWork, which he refers to as ‘Zipcar for office space.’
‘They take care of all of the cleaning, maintenance, and security of our office,’ he says. ‘They also provide things like coffee and water, which are included in the cost of the rent. Rent at WeWork is expensive given the space you get. But all of these services allow our small and growing team to focus on the higher-value-add core business activities.’
On-demand workspace starts at $US45 a month, while customised and dedicated spaces start at $US450 a month.
Check out our list of coolest cowork spaces around the country for more resources.
By Rachel Gillet Via Business Insider