Working online, there are always mundane routine tasks that eat away at your time. After your business gets going, it’s a much better deal to hire someone to handle those for you so you can focus on more important things.

The good thing about hiring a virtual assistant (as opposed to a freelancer) is that they work with you for the long-term. They get to know your business. It’s a win-win for both of you.

The Skills You Need

You’ll find VA companies offering all kinds of services on their websites but you never really know until you try them out. Hire a company that does what you need done, and then give them a trial run to make sure. Give them a small job and check their work.

For example, let’s say that you need them to research blogs where you can guest post. Instead of hiring them to create a massive spreadsheet of a hundred, ask them to find you 10. Don’t tell them you need more; just say this is a small job. If they do it competently, then hire them for the rest.

Delegate Gradually

If you find a good VA, you may be tempted to dump all of your tasks on them at once. They may tell you that they can handle it. But I wouldn’t recommend it because you may end up overwhelming them. Plus, you’ll still need to review their work and this is a job in and of itself.

Instead, give them one task at a time. Once they know how to do that and don’t need any managing, add the next one. This gives you plenty of time to iron out the bumps in the road.

Communication Is Everything

Before you hire your VA, decide how you’d like to communicate with them. You need to be on the same page about method and frequency of communication. Make sure they understand that you need for them to reply to your communications in a timely manner.

Good communication is especially important when giving feedback. Always try to give them one bit of constructive feedback as well as a pat on the back to let them know what they’re doing well. They need both.

Training Materials

As someone who has hired VAs quite a bit in the past, I’ve found it useful to create my own training materials for them. This way, you only have to train your VA once; you can use the same materials for all the other ones you hire in the future.

You can use screenshot software to record videos walking them through each process. It’s also good to create PDFs or other files for text, giving them instructions that they can refer to.

Being a Good Manager

 

Like it or not, hiring VAs requires you to be a manager. A good manager recognizes the strengths and weaknesses of each of his/her employees. Know what your VA does well and what they don’t do well. In the future, you may work with a team and you need to use them all effectively.

One last tip – find a good VA before you need one. It takes time to hire a good one and you don’t want to be in a pinch.

Tony

 

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