10 Dec How to Work With a Virtual Assistant
As your business grows, you will inevitably need to delegate some of your daily tasks to another individual. We highly recommend outsourcing and learning how to work with a virtual assistant or VA. They will be able to take on tasks like reading emails, making cold calls, answering questions, and handling CRMs. These are things that will bring in more leads for you while you are busy closing leads and making more money. The cost of working with VAs is worth the investment when you consider what you’ll be spending your time on instead. So, how can you successfully outsource and work with virtual assistants?
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Treat Your VA Like an Employee
A common misconception is that a VA will have a lower skill set than a hired employee. Depending on where you hire your virtual assistant from, they will likely have gone through extensive training and vetting to ensure they are capable of doing the job. Even if they don’t come in with extensive training, if you treat your VA like you would an employee, they can grow just as quickly as anyone else. They can be a fantastic asset and teammate and can be utilized to grow your business.
Give Your VA Context
Don’t just dump a job on your VA with no context behind it. When you give them a task, explain what you’re giving them, why you are giving it to them, and why it matters. Before they get started on the task, make sure they understand exactly what you are asking them to do. Make sure everyone working for you understands your mission and why all of the tasks you assign are important.
Record Yourself
Get into the habit of recording yourself while you do your job. Before hiring a VA, go through the tasks you will be hiring them to do and show yourself doing them. Capture everything you plan to delegate and talk through it. This not only helps them understand exactly what you want from them, but it’s a huge time-saver. If you hire a VA and go through training only to find it doesn’t work out, you don’t have to go through the same training process again. Simply reuse the clips for the new training. You should also record all virtual meetings to capture any critical learning opportunities or ideas.
Delegate and Document
As you grow your business, delegating and documenting will be extremely important. Make sure to document all systems and processes. The more you grow, continue to ask your virtual assistants to run through these processes and ensure they make sense. As these VAs work with you longer, they get to know your business and may have suggestions on how to make things more streamlined.
Make sure your tasks are delegated well without putting too much responsibility on one person. If you have a lot of tasks that need to be handled, it’s best to hire more than one virtual assistant. Make sure to not shift them away from the job you hired them for too much. Utilize their own skills to your advantage and put them in roles that fit their strengths to benefit your company.
Hold Regular Meetings
Hold regular check-in meetings with your VA as you would a typical employee. We recommend meeting with your VA at least once a week to check in when they are just getting started. Ask them about what is going well and open up the dialogue to make them feel comfortable sharing any questions or concerns they have. Keeping an open line of communication can help them feel more confident in the role. It also enables you to keep tabs on how they are doing and that everything is going well. You will rarely need to let a VA go, but if you continue to have meetings and they are still struggling (and you’ve addressed your teaching style, and that is not it), then you may have to let them go.
After your VA has been working with you for a few months, you can push back your check-ins to a bi-weekly or monthly basis.
Learn More About Working with a Virtual Assistant
Outsourcing and knowing how to work with a virtual assistant is one of the best things you can do to scale your business. It allows you to step back from some of the more time-consuming tasks and allows you to focus on the more profitable parts of your job. Virtual assistants can prove to be very valuable, especially if you treat them well and set them up for success. For more tips on scaling your business with a VA, make sure to sign up for Wicked Smart Academy here: https://smartrealestatecoach.com/academy