Recruiting a Virtual Assistant is one of the most basic but crucial decisions you can make as an entrepreneur. You will continue to squander valuable time and energy on things that don't actually help the growth of your organization until you have someone on your team to whom you can assign specific responsibilities to.
With a virtual assistant (VA), you can have an extra set of hands without incurring the costs associated with hiring a full-time employee. It might be the right time to hire a virtual assistant to free up some time in your schedule if you're experiencing the "positive difficulties" that come with growth (such as stress and an increase in the monotony on your to-do list).
In this blog, we will take you through how you can hire a virtual assistant the right way and delegate repetitive tasks at hand effectively.
What is a Virtual Assistant (VA)?
A virtual assistant is a skilled generalist who does activities or procedures assigned to them remotely, such as answering emails, planning social media posts, and entering data, frequently for a defined hourly rate or a retainer with a predetermined amount of hours per month.
A virtual assistant (VA) can work from any location in the world, handle several clients, and frequently has expertise in fields like content creation, customer service, IT, bookkeeping, or design.
What Tasks Can a Virtual Assistant Do?
Virtual assistants will own particular procedures or jobs rather than taking over the whole operation of your organization. For instance, a virtual assistant can assist you in managing certain aspects of your online store. They won't likely produce and manage all of your content, but they can assist with research or page updates for specific products. According to a report by Clutch, small business owners and managers look forward to outsourcing business services such as IT (27%), digital marketing (24%), legal (23%), finance (23%), development (21%), and customer support (19%).
Below are some areas in which Virtual assistants can help:
- Respond to consumer calls, emails, and comments on social media.
- Manage your community by doing things like checking Twitter for engagement opportunities or filtering comments on your Facebook ads.
- Based on a set of criteria, compile outreach lists for bloggers and influencers.
- Obtain data and examples to use in upcoming content.
- Process customer orders and returns (you can find VAs who have experience with Shopify specifically or train them on how to follow a process)
- Enter data from several sources or bookkeeping tasks into a single spreadsheet.
- Make sales calls after receiving a script and instructions on how to respond to regular inquiries.
- Set up meetings or make reservations for you.
- Run remote-friendly personal errands like placing a flower order or purchasing gifts online)
When Should You Hire a Virtual Assistant?
Although VAs aren't permanent workers, they provide a cost-effective solution to get continual assistance running your business without incurring any of the additional costs of full-time staff (plus their services as a contractor are often tax deductible).
You should consider hiring a virtual assistant when:
- You're working in your business rather than on your business because you're swamped with administrative responsibilities and believe that any organized and capable worker could do just as well from a computer.
- You are planning to expand your team but are not ready to invest in full-time employees.
- Depending on the hours, skills, and time zone you require from a dependable and dedicated VA, you are willing to invest $100 to $3,000+ per month to buy back your time.
- You are already aware of the precise processes and recurrent activities you wish to outsource, such as bookkeeping or customer service.
- Your administration and organizational skills are your main limitations. Because they specialize in organization and efficiency, virtual assistants serve as "accountability partners" for many solopreneurs whose areas of expertise lie elsewhere. Accounting and IT services are widely outsourced processes for small businesses, with 37% of businesses outsourcing both.
- You're feeling overburdened by the expansion of your company, or you have a regular job and are growing your company on the side.
Recommended Read: 6 Filipino Virtual Assistant Myths Debunked!
How to Hire a Virtual Assistant?
Step 1: Decide What Your Virtual Assistant Will Do
Virtual assistants can be found for almost any job. Data entry, scheduling, bookkeeping, social media management, correspondence, research, etc.—are some of the tasks that virtual assistants may handle. The key is, you must know exactly what you want your virtual assistant to accomplish from the beginning. Finding the appropriate individual won't be possible otherwise.
Virtual assistants (VAs) frequently promote themselves as general and specialist virtual assistants. A general virtual assistant will be able to best suit your needs if you simply need assistance staying organized. However, you should work with a specialist VA if you require assistance in a specific field.
Step 2: Create a Job Description
Once you have a list of the tasks you want to assign, you must write a job description for the position that will be in charge of those duties. Your job description should include:
- Background information about your organization (your industry, products/services, and who your clients/customers are)
- List of any apps, software, or tools they will use
- List of job duties and responsibilities
- Level of education, experience, and/or skills needed
Step 3: Post Your Job Description Online and Search for VAs
Once you've written your job description, the following step is to post it online and begin receiving applications. You should ideally choose a platform that allows you to:
- Post your job requirement and let VAs apply directly.
- Search for available virtual assistants and reach out to them with an offer.
A great place to start finding virtual assistants is VirtualStaff.ph, where you can hire individual staff or even contact them to build an entire team for your needs. Such an outsourcing marketplace gives you access to a wide pool of candidates to choose from. Payment protection is an additional benefit of freelance platforms over employment sites, albeit the interviewing process may be more constrained.
Step 4: Review Applications & Schedule Interviews
Holding an interview is an additional step if you're recruiting a virtual assistant through a job listing or outsourcing website. The interview may involve asking candidates a few straightforward questions through text message, phone call, or video chat. There might be restrictions on how much communication you can have with a VA before hiring, so this will partly rely on the platform you're utilizing.
Step 5: Do a Trial Run
It's a good idea to engage the virtual assistant for a brief trial period before signing a long-term contract. For example, if the job you have is limited, a week can be plenty, or you might require as much as 30 or 60 days. You'll be able to determine whether you'll get along well with each other over the long term by conducting a trial run.
Step 6: Set Reasonable Expectations
It's essential to establish realistic expectations when hiring a virtual assistant. There will be a learning curve as the VA adjusts to your working style. However, you should expect to see improvements over time until the work you receive is perfect — or close enough. After a certain period of time, it is reasonable to expect your VA to work with little supervision.
Step 7: Adapt Your Approach
Although some small business owners employ numerous VAs, nothing seems to be successful. In these situations, you should consider whether you need to make any changes. First, think about the instructions you're providing. Is it clear what you want, how you want it done, and when you want it done? You must be as detailed as possible. Otherwise, even the best virtual assistant will become disoriented.
During the first week, you'll most likely need to check in frequently — via messages and possibly the occasional audio/video meetings. Just make sure to provide feedback each time the VA completes a task. Finally, consider the deadlines you've set. If they are too strict, your VA might not be able to keep up, which might lead to subpar work.
Tips for Managing your Virtual Assistant
Hiring a Virtual Assistant is only the first step. Once you've added someone to your team, it's your responsibility as a leader to help them maintain a professional, productive, and mutually beneficial relationship. Below are some tips for managing your virtual staff:
1. Evaluate Performance
Above all, you should evaluate your Virtual Assistant's success based on their performance. Make sure you have set clear expectations and have key performance indicators (KPIs) in place to do this.
2. Schedule Check-ins
Conduct quick check-ins with your virtual assistants on a regular basis. This might be done every day at the start or end of their workday, every other day, or even weekly. Do whatever works best for you both. Use this time to ensure that they understand what they're working on and that nothing is impeding them from finishing their tasks for the day.
3. Require Weekly Reports
Have your virtual assistant email you a report on their activities at the end of each week. Give them a template to follow while sending you reports. Here are some questions we recommend including in your Virtual Assistant's weekly reports, along with any specific metrics or KPIs that they are in charge of measuring.
- What jobs or projects did they finish?
- How much time did they allocate to each work or project?
- What projects are they still working on?
- Did they encounter any issues or challenges?
- Do they have any feedback, questions, or suggestions for you?
4. Create a Culture of Feedback
Develop a culture of open communication and trust with your Virtual Assistant. Encourage them to regularly share ideas, ask questions, and provide feedback. This will assist you in developing to be a better leader and manager, which will aid in the development of mutually beneficial connections with your team members.
How Much Would You Pay Your Virtual Assistants?
Virtual assistants can be compensated by the hour, project, task, or subscription. They are typically paid on an hourly basis. You can calculate how much a VA costs each hour and pay accordingly. In this instance, it's worthwhile to look for a platform that lets you track the hours worked by your staff. Using a marketplace like VirtualStaff can enable you to use the time-tracking and management tools without any additional cost. It will track and display the percentage of time the VA spends actually working.
A VA frequently favors project-based compensation over hourly compensation for more complicated tasks. This is popular for services such as website development and e-book creation.
In a task-based payment approach, you can create a list of tasks and pay a set sum rather than paying for each one separately. For example, if each job on the list takes 20 minutes to complete, you would pay the virtual assistant's hourly cost to complete all of the activities.
However, in order to use this approach, you must know exactly how long each task should take. You would already know this if you have performed these assignments previously. If you are unsure, the virtual assistant can tell you their hourly rates, and you can then decide whether it seems reasonable.
Hire a Virtual Assistant To Focus On What Matters Most
“Deciding what not to do is as important as deciding what to do.”
The quote is appropriate for business owners who need to know when to employ a virtual assistant to help their company grow. Employing a virtual assistant allows business owners to save time that can be used to concentrate on expanding their company and achieving a better work-life balance.
A Virtual Assistant will most likely not be the only person you hire as your company grows, but they should be one of the first. When you hire a virtual assistant, you get more time to devote to tasks that will have a bigger impact on your business.
To make the most out of your outsourcing efforts, it is ideal to search for an outsourcing marketplace that lets you perform all the steps from the same dashboard - right from posting job vacancies to searching for virtual assistance, to keeping track of work hours and paying them from within the platform to ensure maximum safety.
One such platform is VirtualStaff.ph, where you can scan through hundreds of profiles and connect with the best staff for your requirements. You can post your jobs and find staff on your own or contact them to find out specialists for your tasks and build a team. You can pay your staff with a click of a button from inside your account and use the time-tracking and task-management tools to keep track of hours worked.
So, what’s with the wait? Check out the profiles of professional virtual assistants today and begin your delegating journey.
