In the video below, I talk about some of the resources that helped me when I was first looking at hiring a Virtual Assistant (also known as a VA).
It's very easy to get overwhelmed when you're thinking about taking this step in bringing on a virtual assistant. You’re probably already overwhelmed with too many things to do. And then to find the right VA, you have to:
Think about creating a job description
Figure out which tasks you're going to delegate
Whether or not you can delegate them
Then you think are you're better doing them yourself, or
Are they going to do the job to the standard that you want?
…and it can go on and on like this and make you feel too overwhelmed to even get started!
When my business started to get going, I was in that same catch-22 situation. I had new clients wanting to sign on but it was only me to do the work. Plus I still needed to keep my own business going to then attract more clients!
I needed help, but I was trying to work out exactly what do I need to do myself, and what can I delegate to a VA?
I discovered many resources that helped me to work out all the answers to the above and more. I’ve put together the video below to share these tips, tricks and tools with you so you can hit the ground running in your search for the perfect virtual assistant. Check out the video below or scroll down to read more.
My Search for My First Virtual Assistant: What Resources Helped Me
One of the resources that helped me a lot at the time was actually a book called Virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker. I don't even know if he still does it, but back then, he ran a virtual assistant business in the Philippines where he would set you up with a filipino virtual assistant.
These days I think he's more like a business coach for entrepreneurs. However, his book walks you through the steps of figuring out:
What you can outsource,
Where to look for a virtual assistant, and
The kinds of questions to ask them
This was really helpful for me.
There are also probably plenty of other places that you can find that sort of information as well but I found it very handy to have that all in one place in the book.
Another book that sort of touches on working with virtual assistants, is The Four Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss.
To be honest, I think both of those books kind of focus on working with cheap offshore virtual assistants too. Just for full disclosure! It is still very helpful information and both books give you a good idea of how to figure out what to outsource and how to find the right virtual assistant for your business needs.
My Biggest Takeaways From My Reading
How To Get Started
One of the ways that Chris Ducker and others say to figure out what to outsource, is to:
Document what you do for a week or two.
Just write down every single thing you do,
Then go through and figure out whether you actually have to be the person to do it.
Another thing I found helped:
Search on Google and find a list of examples of the types of tasks you can delegate and outsource.
I found a couple of these lists and I literally printed out the PDFs and went through them with highlighters and highlighted the types of things that would apply to my business.
So that just gives you some ideas to get you started - what should you delegate?
*I have also created a video and blog post about where to start when looking for a VA previously that you may find helpful which you can view here.*
Helpful Tools When Getting Started
Here are a couple of tools that can really help when getting started with virtual assistants:
Interviewing potential VAs
These are virtual ;) So for me:
I started video calls with Skype, but nowadays I use either:
Zoom or
Google Meet. In Google suite (or within your Gmail to make it easier to explain) there's a video call function called “Start a Meeting”. This is what I use most of the time now as it’s easy and quick to set up and send an email invite.
I think it’s really important to have a visual conversation with the person that you might be going to end up working closely with.
It’s great to be able to see how this person communicates, to see facial expressions and body language and how comfortable they are when talking with you on video.
It also helps to see if they are going to be able to build that rapport with you and see whether you click with them.
Keeping track of your VAs projects and tasks
Who’s working on what for who and when?!
To keep track of what you're delegating and communicating about tasks with a VA, or team of VAs, you need a good task management system.
I did a video not long ago about Asana. That’s what I use and I could not live without it. The thought of communicating via email about every task with a VA makes my head explode! Check out my video on Asana and other project management tools here.
A lot of people do communicate only via email, but if your inbox is already overflowing, just trust me when I say that a task management or project management system makes life so much easier. You won’t regret it!
Explaining to Your VAs How to do Certain Projects or Tasks
It can be hard to explain to someone that is not in front of you how to do the types of tasks that you need them to do.
You can try via email or on the phone but I found that it takes ages and lots can often be lost in communication, or misunderstood.
What I have found that works really well are two things:
Videos, and
Process documents or SOPs, as we call them, which stands for Standard Operating Procedures
1. Videos
It’s super important, and saves heaps of time, if you record your screen while you do the steps of whichever task you want your VA to do.
This way you can visually show them how to do any type of task.
You then send them a link of the recording which they can then view in their own time.
And you’ve then also have it available for the future to show other VAs if needed.
It’s so much easier and quicker to explain things via video that has been recorded as you do the steps yourself.
To do screen recordings, I use an application called CloudApp or Loom. You can learn more about how I use video to effectively communicate with both my team and clients here.
2. SOPs
To support the videos, it’s a really good idea to also have SOPs, or process documents which are typed out, written steps of “How To’s” and sometimes they can also include checklists.
Some people like this better when trying to work out how to do something.
You can add the screen recording link also to the SOP so all the info on how to do something is all in one place. You VA can then choose to follow either the written documentation or the video, depending on how they prefer to work best.
Your VA now has all the information to refer to without hassling you and the added bonus is that you don’t have to redo the whole training process again and again with new staff. It’s already been done and you can just share the document and video with them!
Other Key Tools
The other key tools to have on hand are cloud storage like Google Drive or Dropbox, or if you’re a Microsoft user, OneDrive. This makes sharing files a breeze. The other thing you will definitely need to share is your logins for all the apps and websites you use in your business. I use LastPass for this as it keeps all of your passwords protected and secure and it is also incredibly time saving and simple. Learn more about how I use LastPass here.
Other Important Lessons I Learnt Early On
Start with a trial task
Once you’ve found someone you think is a good fit, a really good idea for the next step is to:
Start them with an internal task that needs doing that won’t effect any deadlines or clients - so no extra stress and pressure if things don’t turn out well!
From there, you can get a good feel for the quality of their work, how they follow instructions etc.
Just remember that if they don’t complete it to exactly how you expected, before you jump to the conclusion that they are no good, double check yourself on what instructions you gave and make sure they were clear enough.
Managing Style
How you communicate with your team is one of the most important things to work out.
You want to have comfortable and clear communication with them so you:
Know what their availability or capacity might be
Work out together how they (and you) plan work. Do you need them checking in daily or just a couple of times a week?
You are both clear on expectations, timeframes for tasks and deadlines,
give feedback and comments on work. This is important so they learn how you like things done, if they need to improve for next time, and also giving positive feedback can really boost morale!
The idea is that you don’t want to micro manage, but also don’t want to leave things too free so that expectations aren’t met.
So that's it!
The above are the tips, tricks and resources that helped me the most when I first started my search for a virtual assistant to join my team.
The other thing to mention is that it will depend on the ability of the assistant you go with as to how much of the above you will need to have set up yourself.
Our services here at Positively Sorted for example, included helping with much of the above. We can take care of managing the tasks you give us, and can even figure out the best way to do it and set up your SOPs and training documents and videos for you.
So if you don't want to be quite so hands on with training and want someone who knows their stuff, get in touch with us and see if we can help!
