How do I use a Virtual Assistant?

Congratulations on deciding to hire a Virtual Assistant, to help you to grow your organisation, make some headspace or to spend time on other areas of your work or with your family.

Outsourcing is a great way to grow your team with little risk. The cost benefits when compared to employing staff are considerable, especially for small organisations. However, sometime people find it difficult to delegate and don’t know how to communicate what they need to their new virtual team member. In this blog, we provide a simple, structured approach to doing this.

Identify what tasks you need doing

It seems obvious, but we do get calls from business owners who know they need help, but don’t know what we could help with, or don’t know where to start with delegating. To find out how to draft a list of tasks, download our Delegation Checklist and to get inspiration try our list of 30 ways to use a VA.

Be specific about what the task is and provide examples if necessary

Communication is key – ensure that when you delegate any tasks that you are very clear about what you expect – this may include the type of language to be used, the images or the format you expect it back in e.g. a table in excel or a word document. You may wish to create videos or procedures for your Virtual Assistant to follow. Ensure that your VA understands what you need and can articulate this back to you.

Be clear on your deadlines

Virtual Assistants work for a number of clients at once, and in order to ensure that we meet all our client’s expectations (and exceed them), deadlines need to be communicated. ‘ASAP’ is not a deadline – be very clear of the date and time by which you need tasks to be done, to ensure that your VA can deliver them on time, and in full.

Be clear on your budgets

This can apply to the project that you are working on (for example if the task is to source a supplier or a venue there may be a budget involved) or it may be relate to the amount of support that that you need. If you are not working with your Virtual Assistant on a retained basis (a set number of hours per month) but on an hour-by-hour basis, ensure that you communicate a maximum spend or maximum number of hours.

Ensure great communication.

A VAs worst nightmare is a client they can’t get hold of.  Yes, you are busy but you have to reserve time to work with your VA, or they won’t be able to help you as effectively.  The best way to do this, is to agree a policy of communication.  We recommend that you schedule a weekly meeting in the diary on the same day and time each week (where possible) as a touch point, and then agree how day to day communication will happen – this could be emails, WhatsApp, voice notes, or a platform such a Teams or Slack.  Choose something that works for both of you.

Delegate away!

Once you have completed these steps, it’s time to take the plunge and start delegating. What are you waiting for?

To book a call to speak to us about finding the perfect Virtual Assistant to support you, click here.

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