Top 10 Costly Mistakes to Avoid in Hiring a Virtual Assistant (V.A.)

Transcription

1 Top 10 Costly Mistakes to Avoid in Hiring a Virtual Assistant (V.A.) The process of hiring somebody or recruiting a staff plays an important role in every business. With the advent of virtual workers, the hiring of an outsourced overseas worker or Virtual Assistant (VA) becomes more complicated because of the various factors involved that should match different business requirements (i.e. time difference, specific skills, work experience and knowledge, English proficiency, honesty and integrity, educational background, culture, public holidays, etc.). If not done properly, the hiring of a VA can be confusing, time consuming, very frustrating and a very expensive exercise for any business owner and/or company. Yet hiring the right staff or in this case a VA from the Philippines to assist you and your business (to grow) is essential to your company s success. So, where do you start? What do you look for? What can V.A. s do? What can you delegate? How do you start? What are the costly mistakes to avoid? Read on and you may find some interesting answers along the way. Enjoy the free ebook and when you re ready, simply give us a call at or us at enquiries@virtualofficeangels.com.au. All the best, Anne Anne Villavieja Director Virtual Office Angels

2 Mistake No. 1 First things first Refine your process first before you delegate. Using people and or hiring Virtual Assistants as a solution to a poor process only multiplies the problem. Refine rules and processes first before considering hiring people or Virtual Assistant/s. Most business owners start out as technicians. That is, we have skills or knowledge in a given area (i.e. car mechanic) and we start our own business. The problem is we aren t necessarily managers or business people. As a result we focus on the mechanics of the business and avoid doing the things that will make the business run more smoothly (i.e. putting processes and systems in place to make things flow and run on its own, etc.) and more importantly allow us to monitor how everything s going so we can then allow the business to run on auto pilot. So before delegating to a VA, review, refine and identify the steps and processes involved in the various tasks and activities you plan to ask the VA to do (see Mistake No. 2 for ideas on tasks to delegate. Mistake No. 2 Not Knowing what to delegate The one big rule in hiring is: Each delegated task must be both time consuming (for you) and well-defined. If you re running around and around still feel like you ve gone nowhere at the end of the day then you need to start to consider hiring a VA. Having said that, don t limit yourself to what your VA can do for you. The only things they cannot do are ones that would require their physical presence (i.e. making coffee for you). Some of the common tasks include: Scheduling appointments and meetings Web research Calendar management and follow up tasks Document creation Website maintenance, design, publishing, uploading files that doesn t require a professional designer

3 Monitoring, editing and publishing comments for on line discussions Marketing your product on the Web Document creation Proofreading and editing Online research for uploading blogs Updating (and maintaining) your customer database Updating invoices and receiving payments Voic transcriptions Market research, financial research, industry analysis Preparing presentations, reports and newsletters Transcription work from audio, video interviews, business meetings Telephone call and filtering Organize functions, events, travel bookings, accommodations and holiday researches General administration Handle incoming inquiries from marketing campaigns Provide customer support and satisfaction survey collection Create client reports and quotation management and, the list goes on and on Mistake No. 3 Not Knowing Where to Start Your ultimate objective of hiring a VA is to ease you out of your routine workload so you can spend more time growing your business (by doing less and achieving more) and ultimately achieve the freedom that you are looking for. You can start by creating a list. List down ALL the things and activities you do for your business to run smoothly (and grow over time). After you have written your big list, put a tick mark beside all activities that are generating you income and which ones are just taking a lot of your time which you can then delegate to a VA. By delegating more, you are saving yourself a lot of expensive time which you can use elsewhere.

4 Mistake No. 4 Not setting proper expectations with the VA It s important to make sure your Virtual Assistant s skills and abilities mesh with you and your business, you must be sure your VA understands what your requirements are. That way, there s less likelihood of ending up with a VA who doesn t have adequate skills to take care of your needs. Hence before you even start your search for a VA, you should assess all YOUR needs - personal or professional. It is important that you have a firm grasp of what needs to be done and what you are looking to delegate to your VA. Do you want your VA to manage your calendar and schedule your meetings? Complete your research tasks and data entry? Write articles for you? VAs can do virtually anything - if they have the necessary working skills, knowledge and time. So you need to firstly assess how much time you ll need a VA for per week. Even if you start them off on a part time basis, you can later extend their hours. Another important consideration is what happens if your VA is sick or need to attend to an emergency situation? What would you do if you have an urgent need for your VA and she/he is not, unfortunately, available? That s just one of the possible headache s Virtual Office Angels solves with backup VA s ready to step in.

5 Mistake No. 5 Not having a clear involvement boundary Make sure you establish the ground rules before your VA relationship begins. For example, you should establish what your VA can and can t do without permission from you. How involved do you want your VA to be in your business? Do you want them to brainstorm marketing ideas with you? Critique your marketing plan? Or do you want someone who will simply submit work on time and keep your business administration tasks completed? There s no point in partnering with a VA who has an inclination (and often the ability) to be strategically involved in your business if that s not what you re looking for. Neither of you will be happy. On the other hand, or if you are looking for a collaborative partner, don t hire a VA whose preference is to simply complete projects and expect them to help you create a marketing strategy. Be clear on what you want. It is easier to find someone who has built a flexible business model that can be adapted to meet the customized needs of clients. Mistake No. 6 Never give your credit card details No matter how strong your connection you have with your VA, always keep in mind that you don t know their personal situation. It s not necessarily about your VA s honesty or integrity, but it may be that others in their family or community may see their knowledge and access to your financial records and funds as an opportunity to coerce or force the VA to give them access. So it s important that you never give your credit or debit card details to your Virtual Assistants for online transactions. If it is necessary for them to do financial transactions for you, we suggest you set up a separate card for them to use (preferably a debit card) with a realistic but small daily or monthly limit, or one where your approval is required by the financial institution over a certain dollar amount.

6 Mistake No. 7: Not having a deadline If you don t establish a time frame of when the project is expected to be completed, then it s very unlikely that it will be finished when you would like it to be. Request a regular update or status after a few hours work on a task or at the end of each day to ensure that the task is both understood and achievable. It should be fair and acceptable to both parties. Virtual Office Angels can advise on software that s available so that you can track and monitor your VA s time on tasks. Mistake No. 8: Giving vague instructions Never assume that the virtual assistant knows as much about the project details as you do. The more specific you outline what you would like to happen, the less errors that will occur. Don t tell a freelance article writer to write up five articles on health insurance. Give them a detailed plan on how exactly you would like five 400 words articles written for the senior vacation health insurance niche. Give them the exact long tail keyword phrases to write about, as well as the article titles you would like to use. You want to remove any doubt as to what you expect. Be sure to encourage your VA to contact you with ANY questions.

7 Mistake No. 9: Not utilising your V.A. properly Underutilising A classic mistake made is to underestimate your VPA s abilities and resources. If you decide to outsource, see to it that you tap your personal virtual assistant s fullest potential to help your business. Probably the biggest obstacle to fully utilising a VA s potential is You. It s common to want to hold onto tasks, or run with the belief that no-one can do it as well as I can. Investigate what tasks you can and can t delegate and then find out if your VA can complete those tasks. Don t be a mere part of the outsourcing bandwagon. Plan, think and make smart choices to free yourself up from the tasks that are not allowing you to market and grow your business. Overutilising While it s not smart to underutilise your VA, it s equally ill-advised to overwhelm them with tasks. VAs are human workers with limitations. Plus they use technologies, largely Internet-based or computer-related, which likewise have limitations. In business, time is of the essence. But remember that great results are those produced not haphazardly but carefully. If you aren t certain of the complexity of the personal assistant job that you want to get done, ask your VA. Together, you should create a workable and feasible itinerary or schedule. Otherwise, you will end up wasting valuable time and money. Take the time to invest in deeper discussions with your VA. It s time spent very wisely.

8 Mistake No. 10: Failing to assess periodic growth and other milestones As things are taken care of and as you get busy with your core work, you surely will fall into the careless zone when it comes to assessing the effectiveness of outsourcing. Most small businesses fail to set any growth milestones to compare and gauge the effectiveness of outsourcing and start treating it like any other human resource. This is where the initial excitement and promise is lost. Don t fail to invest in new technology, because productivity levels will certainly decline after the initial years. Regularly assessing periodic growth and setting goals means you can: Accelerate growth by finally having the time to focus on the most important issues of your business. Have the freedom to work on growing and improving your business skills, knowledge, and relationships Make better decisions by having a partner to bounce ideas off of. Have flexibility to assume new, challenging opportunities. Have peace of mind knowing that the details are being taken care of. And finally, able to run your business instead of it running you.

9 CONCLUSION: Your Virtual Assistant will enable you to live the life of your dreams while still making sure everything gets done. Imagine more time with your family, more time to travel and experiencing the freedom of having someone else simply take care of things! Remember that the mistakes can be costly, if not done properly and that s where using Virtual Office Angels takes a lot of the worry off your shoulders because we understand that managing a business is a very stressful task. We offer personalize service and hold your hands and guide you every step of the way in your search of the right VA. We provide outstanding support in the selection of highly qualified VA s - before, during and especially after recruitment. We have a huge database of pre qualified V.A. s who we have interviewed and shortlisted prior to handing them over to you to conduct your own interviews to ensure you are completely satisfied that they fit to your specific business and busy lifestyle. Your complete satisfaction (and business growth) is our primary concern. If you have any query or require some advice, simply give us a call at or us at enquiries@virtualofficeangels.com.au for an honest, no hype answer. We re looking for long term strategic partnerships with our clients, not quick fixes or fast bucks. At Virtual Office Angels, we make your life easier. All the best, Anne Anne Villavieja Director Virtual Office Angels Background: Originally from the Philippines, with 20 years Human Resources background (working for various Australian companies), Anne s expertise will be valuable in assisting you in the search of quality V.A s. Her (priceless) knowledge of the local Philippine talents, schools, culture, customs and traditions to compliment the Australian business environment will be an added bonus for you towards your shift to a less stressful, more productive and successful life utilising the services (and better understanding) of Virtual Assistants.