What Does a Virtual Assistant Do?

Troy Thompson on Online Executive Assistants

Most people who ask what a virtual assistant does are picturing something vague, someone who answers a few emails, maybe. Troy Thompson, President & CEO of Savvital, answered the question with a much more specific example on a recent episode of the Risk and Resilience Podcast, hosted by Brian. Rather than describe the role in the abstract, he walked through exactly what his own executive assistant, Diane, does for him every day.

Troy also owns Pinnacle Insurance Agency of Minnesota in Coon Rapids, and he built Savvital about four years ago after a single team member in Islamabad, Pakistan, proved how much one well-trained virtual professional could take off an owner's plate. That company has since grown to around 250 virtual professionals working across insurance agencies and other industries. On this episode, Troy used Diane's actual job to answer the question plainly: what does a virtual assistant do?

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What Do Virtual Assistants Do at Savvital?

A Savvital virtual assistant handles the recurring, non-selling work that otherwise eats into an owner's day: email, phone calls, scheduling, task tracking, and follow-up. Troy described this using Diane as the example, noting she's featured "right on the front of our website, Savvital.us."

Diane's role covers several channels at once. She answers Troy's forwarded phone calls directly, introducing herself as "Troy Thompson's executive assistant." She manages his email, sometimes replying in her own name and sometimes responding as Troy himself once she's learned the context well enough. And she keeps a running task list, using an app called Todoist, where Troy sends her tasks as they come to him during the day, even from his phone while driving.

Troy summed up why this matters in blunt terms: business owners need someone to "break through the noise," someone whose job is to call, text, email, or message however it takes to get something done, rather than waiting for the owner to remember it on their own.

Managing a Calendar: One of the Highest-Value Tasks a Virtual Assistant Handles

Calendar management is one of the most immediately useful things a virtual assistant takes over, because a missed or mishandled schedule creates problems for everyone around the owner, not just the owner. Troy gave a direct example: while traveling, Diane made sure his wife knew when and where to bring their son for basketball practice, reminding her ahead of time and keeping it on the family calendar.

That single example captures why calendar management virtual assistant support tends to be one of the first tasks owners hand off. It's recurring, it's time-sensitive, and a mistake is immediately visible to other people, which makes it a strong test of whether a VA relationship is working.

What's in a Virtual Executive Assistant's Job Description?

A virtual executive assistant's job description typically spans four areas: communication, scheduling, task management, and problem-solving on the owner's behalf. Based on how Troy described Diane's actual day-to-day work, that breaks down into:

Troy was direct about the fact that this isn't limited to strictly "business" tasks. He gave the example of having Diane call the pool company to close it down for the winter while he was traveling in Spain. As he put it, "Why do I have to call the pool company? Why do I have to call the cable company?" when someone else can solve the problem without it costing him any time.

Can a Virtual Assistant Handle Personal Tasks, Not Just Business Ones?

Yes, a virtual assistant can take on personal tasks alongside business ones, and Troy pointed to this as one of the most underrated parts of the role. Beyond the pool company example, he described having Diane help set up monthly date nights with his wife, and even act as a go-between on family logistics: "If I have to call my wife and she's going to yell at me, I'm like, Diane, tell her about this."

This wider scope is part of why Troy frames the role as an executive assistant rather than a narrower administrative VA. The job isn't limited to a fixed task list, it's built around removing anything that's taking up the owner's time and mental energy, personal or professional.

About Troy Thompson

Troy Thompson is President & CEO of Savvital, which delivers fully managed Virtual Assistants for insurance agencies, combining full-time, pre-trained talent with enterprise cybersecurity. He also owns Pinnacle Insurance Agency of Minnesota in Coon Rapids. Learn more at Savvital.com

More From This Series: Troy Thompson has joined multiple podcasts to talk about how Savvital works, here's the full lineup, organized by topic and show.

• How Much Does a Virtual Assistant Cost for an Insurance Agency? - Bricks and Risk
• Freelance VA vs. Managed Service Provider - Bricks and Risk

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