Outsource Your Way to Happiness with a Virtual Assistant (VA)
If your business is sucking your happiness dry, it’s time to make some changes to alleviate your stress. One way to free up some of your time is to hire a virtual assistant to take over some of the daily or weekly administrative tasks needed to run your business.
Hiring a VA can be stressful, especially if you’re a first timer who has never been through the hiring process before. However, before set up an interview there’s a process to complete. Lets go through the steps to make sure you get the VA your looking for.
What Tasks will Your VA Handle?
Before entering the hiring arena, Let’s decide which tasks you want a virtual assistant to handle. This list will determine the skills you need to find as well as if you can hire someone who is new or if you need a more experienced (aka more expensive) VA.
Do you need an VA to handle your email responses and manage your client calendar? Or do you need someone who has tremendous writing skills to handle your blog and email marketing? As you can see, these tasks require different skills and will reflect different pricing and time commitments.
To get your list started, determine which tasks you despise and always put off. There’s a reason why you’re procrastinating so maybe those are tasks to outsource first.
Note of Caution: This may be obvious but it is necessary to say. If you want to outsource your monthly billing and bookkeeping, find a certified bookkeeper instead of a general virtual assistant. You should always be picky when hiring someone but especially when they will deal with your money.
Other tasks that should be on your list are those that are not direct money makers. For instance, answering emails isn’t making you money but starting a group coaching program will generate income. Answering your own phone to make appointments isn’t the best use of your time if you can write multiple emails to your list with relevant offers for subscribers to purchase.
Where to Find a Virtual Assistant
Do a quick Google search and you will see many thousands of results. Virtual Assistants are plentiful but be sure to take your time to find the right one to fit your business. Refine that Google search by using keywords of the services you need (ie: administrative VA, local bookkeepers, or freelance writers). If you prefer to hire someone local to work in your office, include your location in the search.
Ask your business associates if they can recommend any VAs that they’ve used in the past. Ask on your social media networks; chances are you may have VAs in your followers who are looking for work. If any of the VAs on your list aren’t accepting new clients, ask if they can recommend someone else. Just like any industry, VAs often network with each other.
Go with Your Gut Interviewing your VA
You can come up with 100 interview questions and your VA candidate may give 100 perfect answers but if anything in your conversation gives you pause, follow that instinct and move on to the next candidate. Absolutely do not hire the first person you interview; trust the interview process and compare each candidate’s answers. Who do you feel would best represent your business? How dedicated do they sound? Is there anything about their experience that makes you question their abilities? Don’t ignore that gut instinct.
Answers a Plenty
So, you’ve found where all the Virtual Assistants are hanging out and managed to schedule some interviews. Great. Now remember to ask questions that will help you get to know them, their abilities, and their character. To help you out, here is a downloadable list of 100 interview questions you can ask your VA.
Clearly, don’t use all of these on one person. Rather, use this list as a guide, pick and choose the ones you like the most. Furthermore you can use them to create your own unique questions.
