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Years ago we had a friend that hired a virtual assistant. On her first day on the job, she showed up late, on the second day she called in sick, and by the third day, she was fired. That isn’t what our friend was expecting when he hired his first virtual assistant. Virtual assistants can help you get more done in your day, but as long as you hire the right ones to do the job and that is what our friend learned – now, he has a virtual assistant that has been working with him for 3+ years. Hopefully these tips will help you find your amazing VA for your team …
Don’t Hire a Virtual Assistant Until You Know You Are Ready
Some jump right in and hire a virtual assistant when they’re just not ready for one. Before you hire an assistant to help you out, you need to know exactly what they’re going to be doing for you. Don’t just assume they’re going to jump in and start helping you right away without any instructions whatsoever. You will need to have some time set aside to train your assistant and explain what they’re going to be doing. So, before you hire a virtual assistant, make sure you have a clear understanding of what tasks you have set to the side for them. You can use something like Evernote in order to keep track of the tasks you need done on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis. Once you have enough stuff built up on that list, you can hire a VA to help you manage those tasks.
Create a Good System First
Before hiring a virtual assistant, create a solid system and master it, then come up with a training program for the system. For example, each week, our friend would record an episode of a podcast and he would need to have it edited. In the beginning, he did the editing himself, but once he mastered the entire process, he made a training video that showed exactly how they could edit the podcast, then he turned it into a written training manual. He then handed the system off to his assistant and that taught the assistant exactly how to do the job.
Hire a Virtual Assistant like Your Company Depends on it
There are some virtual assistants out there that are going to be terrible at the job. This is because they are human, and might need a little bit of training (like we discussed above). If you have had the opportunity to hire employees before, then you probably discovered that less than 10 percent of the applicants just weren’t worth your time. Most applicants just aren’t going to cut it. So, when you hire virtual assistants, make sure you hire them like your company depends on it.
A virtual assistant is a very important hire because they are the one that will be freeing up your time by helping you with tasks that you need done.
