Last Updated on March 21, 2019 by Paula
Hiring a virtual assistant is a major step in growing your business. With a VA taking over certain tasks and aspects of your day-to-day, you can do more. They give you more time to plan and strategize, and more room to scale. The key to hiring and working with a VA successfully is to plan well.
What Tasks Can You Outsource?
Start by thinking about what tasks you want to outsource. Consider tasks you’d like to outsource today, as well as those you might find helpful as your business grows. For example, you may have some routine daily activities you can get rid of now, but also plan to turn over your social media and blog writing to someone in the future.
You need to clarify which tasks you’ll outsource so you can find a qualified person to handle them. This will determine the skills and experience you’re looking for.
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Training and Onboarding Your VA
When you first hire a virtual assistant, you’ll need to onboard them. This is the process of kicking off your relationship and getting them started. It includes:
- Teaching them the important core values and vision of your business so that they’re on the same page
- Getting to know them personally so your relationship gets started on the right foot
- Training them, which includes providing training materials and protocols for accomplishing tasks you’ll delegate
- Following up with your VA to make sure they don’t have any issues and to giving them constructive feedback.
This process is important at the beginning of your relationship with your VA, but you won’t need to continue after the first few months or so (though it never hurts to give feedback). What’s important here is to have everything planned and in place before you hire them.
Create a Communication and Workflow Plan
Before hiring a virtual assistant, you’ll need to set up a plan for working together. This includes any tools you’ll use, such as a project management software program or special platform for communicating.
Since you’re working together virtually, you’ll have to choose a method and frequency for communicating with your VA. Even if they know what to do and the work is going smoothly, it’s good to touch base regularly and see if they’re having any issues. There may also be changes you need to tell them about.
The Growth Mindset
Finally, there’s a certain mindset you have to cultivate in order to hire a virtual assistant. There are risks involved and you’ll be handing over some aspects of your business to someone else. During the process of hiring and working with a VA, keep in mind the benefits of this working relationship and the future growth it will enable.
We’ve only scratched the surface here and I have much more I can tell you about hiring and working with a VA.
Are you ready to start growing your business with your first assistant? Then check out my eBook Outsourcing: How to Hire Your First Virtual Assistant below!
