As the owner of a Virtual Assistance business, I hear the following a LOT:
I don't have time to show someone else how to do my work.
It's just so much quicker to do it myself.
I’m still figuring it out myself, how can I possibly explain it to someone else?
And don’t worry, I’ve had these thoughts myself in the past!
If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it’s that these types of objections can’t stand in our way anymore for us to get our businesses geared towards virtual communication and remote work.
I put together this video to help break down these common challenges and provide some helpful tips on how to efficiently and easily get started with outsourcing to a virtual assistant… and why doing so can ultimately save you valuable time in the long run and clear a path for future business growth.
Let’s break down the most common resistance and challenges that come up:
“I don't have time to show somebody else how to do it.”
The easiest way to enable quick, clear communication for showing someone else how you would like something done, is with video. I show my team how to do things that I need done by doing a screen recording using an app called CloudApp (here is my video on how to use CloudApp). There's another one called Loom that’s pretty popular too.
Utilising a video screen recording is so simple and it saves heaps of time. I don’t have to wait for my assistant to be ready or try and find times for meetings. I simply record it all when I have time, send it to them, and they can watch it and do the work when they have time. It’s very efficient and easy.
You simply hit record when you start doing that task yourself. You continue doing the task as you normally would, but you talk it through, as you're doing it. You explain what you're doing and why. Any of the ins and outs that you might want to tell somebody about. Once you have finished the task, you simply stop the recording and send it to the person you are training.
You don't have to go through how to do the task 10 million times, they can simply replay the recording. Yes, they might have questions after that. But you can also record the answers to their questions and send it back again at your own time. You don't need to wait for a time where both of you are available. Often, some of my team work through the night or have different schedules - so I just send it through and they watch it when they next log on for work.
The other beauty of having these recordings is that you can also have it transcribed, and format that transcription into a neat process document or checklist, which we call a Standard Operating Procedure or SOP.
Then, anybody else that you might want to get to do the task in the future can refer to the SOP. Your SOPs can include screenshots out of that screen recording too. This will help to explain the process visually. But you can still leave the link to that video in the document as well, in case the person learning wants to rewatch it.
The benefit of having a typed document is that the user can just scan their eyes over the checklist and skip to the bit that they were unsure off. That's one way to do it and this has been very helpful in my business, especially where you need to explain exactly how things need to be done.
The second common objection:
“I’m still figuring it out myself, how can I possibly explain it to someone else?”
To get around this, it’s great to be working with somebody that doesn't need to have explained to them all the ins and outs and every little detail. Especially if you're not sure that you're doing it in the best way in the first place. This is why a lot of my clients work with me.
My clients tell me what they're trying to do. They can explain a little bit of how they’ve been doing it and which parts work well and which parts are really hard for them. They then leave it with me and I figure out the rest of the process. Or if they prefer, I come up with a better and more efficient way of doing it in the first place.
I then record it and send it back to them so they also have a record of how the task is being done. If it’s a repeatable process, I can get one of my team members to do it on an ongoing basis and train them in the process we’ve established.
So all you've had to do is give me access to the apps or programs that I need and we do the rest!
This method saves my clients lots of time. Yes, there are often questions. And I definitely believe in asking questions, rather than assuming. If I come up with an improved way to do things, but there are other options too, I would usually ask my client which one they’d prefer. Especially as there may be reasons why they are doing things a certain way. So I'm not going to assume that my way is 100% the best way. So sometimes these questions will take up a little bit of your time too. But it's usually just at the beginning, to get things rolling.
Once we get going, there's very little that we need to ask about. So you can clock off at a decent hour!
That tiny bit of investment of time at the start to explain things, pays off with multiple hours saved every week. It saves you FAR more time than if you just did it yourself week in and week out.
So the answer is YES, Train someone else - You won’t regret it!
If I’ve broken down some of your concerns and you are ready for some help, book in a call so we can discuss your needs. Or have a look at our free NDIS claiming cheat sheet below to see if our SOP for NDIS claims admin can streamline your workflow.
