5 Things to consider when Working with a Virtual Assistant

February 12, 2016 by Prakarsh -

If you are an entrepreneur or managing a business or a website/blog you would have realized that certain tasks that you do are simple and repetitive, yet time-consuming. In trying to keep up with the requirements, you might end up spending a lot of your precious time in completing these tasks while you could have finished more important business. The idea of hiring a Virtual Assistant for such tasks is a brilliant one. You will find a lot of websites which allow such candidates to offer Virtual Assistant services to you. This gives you the power to choose a VA based on the required skills and within your budget. If you’ve decided to hire a Virtual Assistant, here are some things you need to consider before you start off.5 Things to consider when Working with a #VirtualAssistant #Outsourcing #VA #Jobs #smallbiz Click To Tweet

List out the Tasks & Skills required

The first thing you need to do before you put up an Ad or Post a project to hire a Virtual Assistant is to list out the tasks that you can delegate to an assistant. You might need to frequently contact and follow up with your clients, promote your business online, send out newsletters, create, edit or proofread content and so many other tasks that don’t necessarily need your time and can be done by someone else instead of you. You will also need to list out the corresponding skills for each of these tasks.

Shortlist Potential Candidates.

Once you have posted an ad or a requirement on Virtual Assistant websites you will get a lot of proposals or bids. Now you need to shortlist candidates, you can start off by reading their proposal or bid. You will definitely be able to rule out some based on the way they’ve written it and what they claim to do. If they’ve gone through your list of requirements well they’ll try and answer some of your questions or indicate instances where they’ve done similar work before. In addition to their skill sets, you should also check their profile for references and feedback of the work they’ve done.

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Check for their Professionalism

You need to check a potential candidate’s professionalism before you award him/her a project. This includes the way they respond to your queries, either on the phone or in writing, their ability to stick to guidelines etc. You can do this by asking them for a sample project or task to be completed before you award them a long-term task or project. This will also help you to decide if the Virtual assistant services he / she offers is beneficial to you in terms of saving your time and effort.

5 Things to consider when Working with a #VirtualAssistant #Outsourcing #VA #Jobs #smallbiz Click To Tweet

Define Timelines & choose Suitable Communication Method

In order to ensure that your work is completed on time, you need to set timelines and inform your VA beforehand. This helps both of you plan better. Also, you need to decide on the means of communication you will be using. Written communication is always better as there are lower chances of misinterpretation or forgetting things. For sharing documents and other artifacts cloud storage services like dropbox and Google Drive are very useful. Most of the Virtual Assistant websites offer you ways of sharing documents and messages that let you keep all your work in one place.

Virtual Assistant Salary

You need to discuss the payment method and frequency. Decide whether you will be paying on a per hour basis or based on a fixed price for each task. Virtual assistant’s salary vary based on different factors like the experience level of the candidate, the time taken to complete the task, difficulty of the task and its importance. Be clear about how much you can offer them and about their expectation of the salary.