Before I hire a VA and Finding the perfect Virtual Assistant
Finding rockstar VAs to help you get more done is not rocket science. Hopefully, these three tips will help you find the perfect assistant for your team.
1. Don’t hire a VA until you are ready.
One of the first things I realized when I hired that first "disaster VA" was that I wasn’t ready for an assistant. I didn’t know exactly what that assistant would do, I just assumed they would jump in and start helping. I also had very little time to train that assistant, so in the end, there was nothing for them to do.
Before hiring your first assistant, be sure to have a clear idea of what tasks they might be able to take over from you. Take notes to keep track of every repetitious task I do each day, week or month so you can decide later what can be outsourced. When you get enough stuff on that list, Ithe you will hire an assistant to help manage those tasks.
2. Create solid systems first.
You will find the greatest success when you creat a system, master that system yourself, creat a training program for that system and then handed it off.
For example, each week you record an episode of a Podcast and need to have it edited. At first, you do all the editing yourself, but once you mastered that entire process, you made a training video showing exactly how you want podcast edited. You then turn that video into a written training manual.
You hand the system off to a VA and s/he start editing the podcast on exactly how you want it. The VA now edits every podcast while you go about your duties, and you don't even need to review them to ensure they are right. They always are.
If the VA decid to leave at some point, you could easily hire another assistant for that same role and use the existing training material, resulting in a much less stressful turnover.
(At Lamps VA we can show you to create a system for free)
3. Hire like your company depends on it.
Most virtual assistants are going to be terrible. It’s not because they are virtual assistants, though. It’s because they are human.
If you’ve ever had to hire employees before, you’ve probably discovered that less than 10 percent of applicants are worth hiring. Most are simply not going to cut it. So why do we expect virtual assistants to be any better?
You wouldn’t hire a lead developer for your company after a five-minute Skype interview, so why would you hire a VA with that process? Sure, the developer might cost significantly more, but in reality, the assistant is more important to the future of your company. No, you didn’t read that wrong. An assistant should be your number-one most important hire because they are freeing up your time, which is worth far more than the developer or whoever else you might be hiring.
So treat your virtual assistant role like it’s the most important role in your company -- because it just might be.
A virtual assistant can change your life, giving you back your day so you can work on the tasks that will take your business to incredible new places. However, if you think you can simply hire any ol' virtual assistant and improve your business, you are naive. Instead, get prepared, take the role seriously, build solid systems, create in-depth training and hire only the best.
