How to Hire a Virtual Personal Assistant
Having a virtual personal assistant can help you save time with all sorts of mission-critical tasks. If you value your time at $100 an hour and could pay someone $10 an hour to handle certain chores, especially ones that you hate, why wouldn’t you?
A virtual personal assistant, or virtual assistant (VA), can be a big help to your business if you understand what they can do, and plan ahead on how best to use them. Outsource the tasks you hate, or are not very good at. There are pros out there who are experts at various programs like Photoshop, PowerPoint and more. Hiring them short- or long-term can be a lot faster and cheaper in the long-run than buying and trying to learn an expensive huge program like Photoshop yourself.
What are the sticking points in your business? What repetitive tasks could you had over to another person?
Once you make a list of what you want to offload, it’s time to go to a freelance website such as Fiverr to find the right VA for you.
Where to Find Them
Freelancer sites. In addition to Fiverr, you can try Upwork and Guru. These sites are full of people looking to work as personal assistants.
Your personal network. Stay at home moms, freelancers and fresh college grads are often interested in making extra money by being a virtual assistant.
– VA firms. There are many firms that specialize in providing virtual assistant services. They will charge a bit more, but you will also get skilled workers, some of whom will specialize. For example, you might find a VA who specializes in WordPress, who could help you run your blog so your time doesn’t get eaten up with copying and pasting.
Professional virtual assistants. You can find these professionals through searching for them online. Usually they’ll have their own websites. You can also search for them on Facebook.
First Steps to Finding the Right VA
The first step to beginning a virtual assistant relationship is to hammer out the details of the contractual agreement. What do you need them to do?
Once you do this, you can start searching the listings at the freelancer sites for 5-star or highly-ranked VAs that have the skills you need to boost your success.
Once you find experts for the tasks you need, it’s time to work out the finer details.
How many hours a week do you want them to work?
What are the terms of payment?
What rate are you paying them?
How many hours do you need them to work?
When do you need them to work?
In most cases, because they are freelancers, you should let them work whenever they need to, but to let you know when they will not be available. So unless you need them 9 to 5 in your time zone, expect them to work to their own timetable.
Use software to track their hours. Pay them easily using PayPal Tools, such as invoicing to track their hours and send payment in any currency. You may end up with VAs all over the world working for you, so this is one logical solution to converting your currency to theirs without paying a lot of fees.
Once you have worked out all these details, start a trial run. Give them a few tasks to start with and see how they do. Gradually given them more responsibility as they prove they can handle it. Don’t give them any information like Administrative passwords to your accounts for WordPress. A lot of people are reliable and trustworthy, but some are not. The last thing you want is a VA who will take advantage of you and harm your business when you are meant to be growing it.
Outlining and Outsourcing Processes
You’ll need to train your virtual personal assistant on all the processes they’ll be responsible for.
Four common processes a lot of business owners outsource include:
– Handling phone calls
– Handling emails
– Booking appointments in your calendar
– Booking travel
For each of these processes, outline exactly what you want your assistant to do in various situations. For example, you might tell your assistant to handle all the emails they can, forward the ones they can’t, and only send you personal messages.
Security First
Get a debit card with a limit of just $500 to $1,000 that your personal assistant can use. This is especially important if you’re working with a virtual assistant you meet online. In this way they can take care of certain bookings for you online, but not give them full access to your business. For example, if you are hiring a VA to book travel, they can do this directly in your own name but with little risk of them doing anything dishonest.
Always be aware of security in all aspects of your business. WordPress blogs are extremely valuable pieces of online real estate. The last thing you want is to be hacked.
The Working Relationship
Finally, always work to keep the working relationship positive. Tell them when they’re doing a good job. If you have any negative feedback, try to balance the positive with the negative. Unless of course they are not doing a great job, in which case, you would simply tell them that the trial period has come to an end.
Having a great personal assistant that you have good working relationship with can help you save a lot of time and streamline business processes, which will free up your time to do more mission-critical tasks.
Learn more about how to outsource successfully:
