You were dealing with a huge amount of repetitive tasks every day that were taking your time and energy away from focusing on priorities, so you decided to hire a virtual assistant. But the truth is that you hadn’t considered how to work with this new person. Don’t worry, we are here to help you in the process of onboarding a virtual assistant to your team.

Planning to Delegate to your Virtual Assistant

The most important thing is always to be clear about what you need your virtual assistant to focus on. For this, we recommend making a list of all tasks by area.

Think for a moment:

• What are the areas that make up my company?
• In which of them have I noticed the most repetitive tasks?
• What tasks are essential for me to handle?
• Which tasks do I not need to handle directly?
• What tasks would I prefer not to do that I don’t need to do?
• Which tasks are not my forte and I don’t need to do them?

Now that you have established your tasks to delegate according to your area of focus, it is time to consider what is needed to get them done.

• Is there a particular tool to execute the tasks?
• Should I share a particular software?

Goals Setting

In addition to taking into account the resources necessary for the execution of each task, it is also important to establish objectives for the accomplishment of the tasks.

This is when you should establish an approximate time for completing each task in order to communicate the due dates more accurately, and if your virtual assistant doesn’t know how to perform the tasks, how long it could take them to learn to do so. While it is true that most people look for a virtual assistant that already handles all the minimum necessary, there is always the possibility that there are one or two types of tasks that will need a little training, so it is important to consider the adaptation period.

What if I Want a Virtual Assistant to Grow my Business?

We had already mentioned that the scenario was about hiring a virtual assistant to take care of repetitive tasks that are part of the foundation of your business, meaning that you could have hired a virtual assistant to leverage your business. But what if you think about hiring a virtual assistant to grow your business? Is that possible? Of course it is!

A virtual assistant can help you at any stage of your business either to leverage your company, expand it, handle innovation, or serve your customers, among many other functions.

Virtual assistants exist in great quantities and specializations, so it is also important to take into account what is essential for your business at this moment.

We always say that virtual assistants are a perfect blend between a traditional personal assistant and a specialized member of your team, like a social media manager, for example.

Welcoming and integrating your virtual assistant

Our recommendation is that you welcome your new virtual assistant as soon as possible and start the integration process.

Some tips to take into account:

• Prepare a quick zoom meeting for your VA to meet all your team or at least those with whom they will have frequent communication. It is not necessary to have a long meeting. 10 or 15 minutes with all the team gathered in the welcoming is more than enough.
• Make sure you provide your new virtual assistant with everything they need to know about your brand: the vision of your brand, the reason it exists, what it is trying to accomplish besides making money, what impact you want to create, what kind of customers you have, who the prospects are, what image you want to reflect and how your market is referring to your brand. Your virtual assistant must know your company’s values and know where your company is headed in order to understand where they fit in and how they can not only contribute but innovate.
• Create a routine with your virtual assistant. Establish schedules, task priorities, due dates, break times, weekly meetings.
• Communicate your expectations and establish ways to monitor progress. You can use your weekly meetings and time management tools that also provide you with reports to check your virtual assistant’s productivity and make adjustments as needed.
• Consider training if necessary and also set the schedule, the tools to be used, the total time, and the adaptation process until the task is executed individually.

Be available for your virtual assistant

Yes, we know you need to focus on many other things. But every time you hire a new on-site employee, you should dedicate time to make sure everything is going to run smoothly. This too should happen with your virtual assistant. Although they have experience and are trained to perform many or all the tasks you require, it is also their first time working with you.

Establish an adaptation or trial period so that both of you can evaluate if you feel comfortable with each other. During this period it is important that both of you do your part to minimize misunderstandings due to miscommunication. This is why communication is so important and why daily routines establish the best tools and ways to maintain transparent communication.

Try to establish schedules for your virtual assistant to know when they can communicate directly with you in case they need to consult you about something. If you are not there for your assistant when they need an answer, it is likely that inconveniences will start to occur and sooner rather than later there will be conflicts.

The bottom line

The secret to maintaining good relationships lies in our ability to maintain good communication habits, to be present, to be honest, and to take into account not only our own needs but those of everyone else. If your virtual assistant is clear about all the processes and is happy with the work, you will see the results and your company will appreciate it too.

If you want to know everything a virtual assistant can do for you or you still have questions about how to work with one, book a call right now with our director Claudia. She is the expert in answering these questions and getting the best match for our clients!