Sep 16, 2020

Sep 16, 2020
Due to the recent events, lockdowns, and quarantines, the way we live our lives has changed and so is the way we run our businesses.
Many companies have moved their operations to Work From Home (WFH) and Online Platforms. The employees are now all remote and can be located anywhere in the world as long as they have great internet speed.
Needless to say, during the tough times in order to stay afloat, it’s important to reduce costs and maximize global talent.
Hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) is a critical and key step in your career path, business growth, and continued operation. Whether you’re a business owner or a self-made entrepreneur, if you’re thinking about how to leverage your business – a Virtual Assistant is the answer.
In this article, I’m going to walk you through the process of hiring and training a Virtual Assistant and share some specific tips and tools to help you manage virtual staff effectively.
Start by making a list of all the tasks and processes that you plan to delegate to your Virtual Assistant. It’s important to understand exactly what you want to outsource because in order to reach maximum effectiveness you need to be clear with your Virtual Assistant.
Your job description should include:
Here are some popular websites and directories you can use to find remote assistants:
You should be prepared to receive hundreds of resumes and spend a lot of time until you find The One.
Tip: Asking your candidates to complete a real task will help you determine who the top candidate really is.
Here’re the questions you can ask the candidates:
Here comes the most important part of the whole process. The actual work requires more than VA’s qualifications. Training helps to make your daily operations run smoothly with your Virtual Assistant. If you do everything right, you’ll be satisfied with the results you’ll get.
Communication Tools:
Project Management Tools:
File Sharing & Security
If you got to this point, here’s something to think about:
Trust and Responsibility – you must learn to trust the remote assistant. That trust can only be earned by providing excellent service on small projects, which will lead to large projects.
Payments and Exchange rate – it might be extremely hard to settle payments from the PayPal account because most likely your VA will be living in a different country.
Exchange rates can often fluctuate which makes billing very difficult. Bank transfers may also cost money and may be delayed by local banks in a country where your virtual assistant lives. (Philippines, India, Pakistan)
Security – most likely you will give a VA access to your CRM, MLS, leads list, personal information, maybe even your credit card information. How do you know that your information is safe? We go back to Trust again. Do you trust your VA?
Control – What tasks or projects did your VA complete? How much time did your VA spend on each task or project? What is your VA still working on? Isn’t your VA sleeping?
These are the main questions you are going to ask yourself and your VA while working together. It might be tough to control someone remotely.
Either you trust your VA 100%, or you can also use a remote assistant management platform where you have real-time access to what your VA is doing.
I recommend taking a look at Timedly managing platform – an interactive platform to track and manage your virtual assistants.
Good news – the result of the distance and lack of direct relationship is that you’re going to be a lot more controlling when it comes to handing over both important and seemingly unimportant tasks to your VA.
Finding a perfect Virtual Assistant is like a Full-time job. Overall it’s going to take at least 80 hours to find and train your perfect match, be prepared for that.
If you’re looking for an easier way to hire a Virtual Assistant, I recommend you to take a look at Virtudesk. It only takes 3 easy steps.
Sign up – where you fill out the form and let us know about specific details of what you need for your business.
VA Matching – we’ll find VAs with qualifications that match your requirements and send their DISC Profiles and Resumes for you to interview them.
Meet & Greet – Meet with your chosen remote assistant and the Team Manager assigned to work with you. Our VA’s are already trained, they undergo (FBI grade) background and systems checks.
Our Support staff proactively manages and helps your Virtual Assistants hand in hand to contribute to the success of your business. Also, you’ll receive access to our Time Tracker App to monitor your Virtual Assistant’s productivity.
If you’re interested to leverage your business with the help of a virtual assistant, fill out this form to schedule a demo call.
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Meet our Most Trusted
Rick Garza
Bright and Early ProductionsI’ll rate Virtudesk 5/5. My experience with Virtudesk was fantastic. I like your follow-ups and consistency is very refreshing and it makes me feel very confident in hiring Virtudesk.
Misti Bruton
AVO RealtyWe hired a VA because we needed help on recruiting for agents and I am very satisfied with my Virtual Assistant. The experience with Virtudesk is really good and I am really really happy.
John Rainville
BrokersRealty.comOne of the reasons why we hire a Virtual Assistant is because a VA can’t walk out my door and take my business. Second, the cost value and the third is, we just had a super well qualified hardworking admin – I am very satisfied with my VA. We are also constantly getting follow-ups to ensure that we are very satisfied.