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How to choose a Virtual Assistant

By Navigator member Lesley Beagley, Director, SOS Virtual Assistant

When its time to let go....enabling business growth by outsourcing office tasks

If you are like most small businesses owners, you probably find yourself catching up with things like admin, book-keeping & marketing during the evenings and at weekends when you should be spending precious time with your family. As your business grows, it becomes a balancing act and you find yourself with more tasks to do than time to do them. You know you need help, but probably feel you can’t justify the expense or hassle of employing someone, or you feel you just can’t (or don’t want to) let go of any aspect of your business.

Let me ask you a question.  If you could hand over your most time consuming, non-revenue earning tasks to someone else, what would that be worth to you? How much could your business grow?

Think about how many hours you spend on those tasks that must be done (like keeping your database or expenses up to date) but which take you away from the core, revenue generating essentials of growing your business.   Since the advent of the PC, everyone it seems is expected to do their own typing (albeit the two fingered sort), whether that’s keying in contacts or typing an email, but how much time are you wasting on trying to do things which are just outside of your skill-set – perhaps things like mail merging that sales letter, preparing an e-newsletter, formatting an important report or PowerPoint presentation, , ….. what does that cost you in terms of hours and, if you were to break it down….what’s YOUR hourly or daily rate for productive work?

There is a solution - an affordable resource that can be on hand fast, whenever you need it and without the red tape and hassles related to employees…

A Virtual Assistant, or “VA”, can handle all those tasks your business coach will tell you YOU shouldn’t be doing, leaving you free to focus on what you SHOULD be doing and thus become more productive. But what can a VA do, and how do you go about finding the right VA for you?  Here are my top tips for what to look out for when choosing and building a relationship with a VA

Understand what your prospective VA can do
All VA’s are not equal.  Although they are usually all professionals, some may have spent 20 years as an executive PA in a big corporate background, gaining a wealth of knowledge in a specialist or niche area; others may have a wide ranging experience from working within a number of smaller businesses. Some will only have skills in areas such as book-keeping, website design or social media; others will be able to provide a smorgasbord of skills.  

The key is to think about what YOU really need, anticipating for skills that you might need once you have some time freed up for further business growth, and then find the VA who can do them all OR has the contacts, connections and resources to be able to co-ordinate any further specialist outsourcing that might be required.

A good VA or a GREAT one?
Think about the type of person you want to work with: do you want a VA who does this as a hobby or a professional assistant who invests in their own business to ensure your success.  Be sure to differentiate between a “home typist” and a true Virtual Assistant, and beware the very low budget so called VA services based overseas! 

A good VA will dutifully complete the admin tasks you give her on time and within budget and she will be proactive in the sense of reminding you about tasks that you need to do or information you need to provide in order to work effectively.  

A GREAT VA, on the other hand, will invest some time in really getting to know and understand you and your business, and will want to be a part of your team, able to offer ideas and suggestions that could make your business more successful or more profitable. In order for this to happen, you need to look beyond your VA just being someone to do the paperwork and allow her into your confidence, sharing your business plans and strategy. That way she will be able to help you to create a proper plan to get things done in a logical order, and will be proactive in offering ideas to streamline processes, suggest new market opportunities, connect you with potential suppliers and so on. Ultimately, however, you must both remember this is YOUR business and the final decisions (and buck!) rests with you.

Confidence in Communications
A vital aspect of a good client / VA relationship, there are two aspects to communications. 

The first is establishing clear and open communication on both sides, with clear direction from you the client on what you expect, deadlines and budget, and honest feedback from the VA as to what’s needed in order to achieve that, how a project is progressing etc. It’s a good idea to schedule regular feedback sessions, they could be as brief as five or 10 minutes, but will provide an opportunity for both sides to identify what’s working and to nip unproductive habits or possible niggles in the bud.

The other part of good communications is in allowing your VA a full understanding of what is happening within the business… Don’t be put off by confidentiality issues, your VA is a professional in her own right and understands that business issues should not be discussed outside of the business relationship.  Often she will be working with several local businesses and will be familiar with and even offer Non-Disclosure of Confidentiality Agreements as part of the terms and conditions of working with you.

Controlling Costs
This will always be a factor closely connected with having clearly defined expectations and maintaining an open line of communication.  

If you are working on a project-by-project basis on an hourly rate with your VA, always agree up-front how much time and budget is to be allocated to the task. Inevitably, sometimes tasks will take longer than expected, but a good VA will be able to estimate fairly accurately and keep you up-to-date with progress, giving you the choice as to whether to continue beyond the originally allocated time and budget, or whether to take over the job yourself.

A VA will have a good knowledge of various office software packages and will be able to complete tasks far more quickly than you can yourself, however, remember that you may be asking for a far more sophisticated and professional result than you would expect of yourself, which may mean the time involved is not reduced, but the end quality is greatly enhanced. Be prepared to pay for that added value!

You should expect the early days of working with your new VA to be a little heavier on time, and therefore cost, as you will both need to acclimatize to the way the other works… your VA will need to become familiar with you and what you expect and your methods of communication (for example learning to decipher your handwriting or verbal shorthand, or becoming familiar with industry terms) and you will need to learn to effectively delegate tasks, for example providing all the necessary information to enable her to get on with the task in hand. At first it may seem like it would be easier to do the job yourself, but don’t worry once your VA is up to speed the results will be worth their weight in gold!

Virtual Reality
Technically, a VA is just that, a VIRTUAL assistant, working remotely and in theory never needing to be in the same country, let alone the same room, using technology to communicate and share documents and information.  However, meeting face-to-face at the start of a relationship can help speed up the bonding process, establishing trust and understanding more quickly, which can only be a good thing for business! Meeting up occasionally, even just for a coffee, helps to maintain that trust and build on the relationship and is an ideal opportunity to recognize your VA for the support she gives you.

In the words of Sir John Harvey-Jones, “A leader should only do what only he can do.” That means working on your business, not in it, so put effective systems in place so that work is carried out efficiently and consistently – by people other than you.  In terms of your admin, that system could well be a Virtual Assistant.

© Lesley Beagley, SOS Virtual Assistant

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