5 Points on what you can avoid when hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA)!

Don’t hire a VA just because somebody has told you to hire one! Make sure you have a plan!

Hiring a VA for the wrong reasons!

If you don’t have a business case to justify the hiring of a VA to ensure you optimise their extensive services, you will simply be wasting your money!

Not having a clear direction of what you want the VA to do!

You, as the business owner, has to know where you want to allocate the VA’s time to make sure it is a sound investment.

Don’t make up tasks to fill your VA’s time, make sure you have a defined job description on what tasks the VA can do to benefit your company.

Setting expectations too high!

Having a clear and defined job description for your VA is very important, but you do need to remember that although most VA’s are “jacks of all trades”, and are extremely versatile, one person may not be able to fulfill all your business needs.

It is important that you think through what you want your VA to do before you post your job spec to avoid your tasks exceeding your VA’s capabilities.

Be direct about your expectations with a potential VA that you interview, but be respectful of the limitations that they might raise. If a VA tells you that they don’t have a specific skill set, and are not keen to gain knowledge on that skill, don’t think that they will “come round to your way of thinking” later on, instead choose a VA who aligns to the skills / interests from the start!

Consider language barriers when hiring a VA from another country!

While it does have economic benefits to hire a VA from another country, please consider the cost of your time when having to repeatedly go through the tasks with that foreign VA, as opposed to speaking to someone whose first language is the same yours!

Training for your VA!

While majority of VAs are expert admin professionals, they cannot take “one look” at your business systems, that you have spent time “honing”, and instantly know what needs to happen.

So while you are an extremely busy business owner / entrepreneur, you have to commit time to proper training of your VA, to make the most out of your investment!