Why clients need to be educated on how to work with a Virtual Assistant

Member Feature: by Susan Smit of VA Connect

Working as a first time “official” Virtual Assistant, I’ve realised that it’s much harder to work with someone that’s miles away. Virtual assistants are not location based, making it sometimes difficult to physically talk to a client or phoning them because of the time difference. My first big client is in Washington and in the beginning trying to communicate with him was a bit of a struggle. Communication is key to running a successful business. With the experience that I’ve gained these past months, I would most definitely say that Clients need to educate themselves before working with a Virtual Assistant.

What can a VIRTUAL ASSISTANT do for you, and why it’s a profit to your company?

Starting your own company can be difficult and to have a successful business you need people to work for you. A Virtual Assistant is the best way to start your hiring proses. A VA is a Virtual Assistant. This means that you can hire anyone in the world to work for you, and you don’t even have to be in the same country. A VA is a person who has certain skills that are needed in most companies, like logistics, social media, admin, accounting, etc. All these boxes can be ticked by one person. When appointing a Virtual Assistant they can help you also learn all different kinds of skills, like:

How to lead a team the right way
What tasks to delegate to each employee
How to manage your time and work efficiently

Developing all these skills, you will learn how to hire the right person for each skill that you need in your company. A VA not only profits your company by doing work for you at a lower price, but profits you as a person by gaining skills you did not have. This most important thing to work with a VIRTUAL ASSISTANT is communication.

Why is communication key to working with a VIRTUAL ASSISTANT?

A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT relies on communication. When a VA struggles to communicate with a client the work that needs to be done can’t be done efficiently. To achieve your goal as a successful business it is crucial to communicate efficiently.

Depending on what type of job your VA is doing, they need to be able to contact all the necessary people. Such as someone doing Logistics, they need to be able to talk to the person:

Taking the order
Receiving the order
Producing the order

For a VA to work efficiently they need all the information regarding what needs to be done. Don’t leave them in the dark and think they’ll figure it out, that`s when mistakes happen. Try to answer them as soon as possible, so the work can be done in real time. Get a way that will be the best to communicate with your Virtual Assistant, like:

WhatsApp
Email/Gmail
Zoom
Skype
WeChat

Working with a VIRTUAL ASSISTANT:

Before talking business and jumping right in, make sure all the rules and boundaries are set beforehand. Most VAs work hourly for their clients. Try to keep with the times that were specified, as you are most likely not their only client during the day. Weekly updates from your Virtual Assistant can help you to keep track of what is happening in your company.

Explaining what exactly is expected of your Virtual Assistant is also important, it helps them to know how to do the job. If you don’t like the way they do certain thing tell them, remember they don’t know you and how you like things.

Work to delegate to your Virtual Assistant:

Production management
Accounting
General administration
Social media
Marketing

Conclusion

Before you hire your first VA, try to educate yourself as much as possible and understand what it is like to work with a Virtual Assistant. If you are educated and understand the concept of a VA, you can work more efficient with them. Having a Virtual Assistant work for you can be a good investment, and they fit into your budget. Making your workload light by delegating work to them. And by having more time on hand you can spend it with friends and family, or maybe go lie on a tropical beach.

For more on Susan and how VA Connect can assist you, please do visit our members page.