What You Should Do Before Hiring a VA
Hi, heart-centered ladies. Today, we're talking all about hiring a virtual assistant (VA) and what I think you should do before you consider hiring a VA.If you're wondering if it's time to start outsourcing, if it may be beneficial to start paying someone to help you in your business, the answer is probably yes. But I would urge you to consider a few things before you dump money on a VA.
Assessing Your Needs
First, I want to remind you to assess your needs and think about what needs to happen next in your business. Don't necessarily assume that a VA would solve everything. I would get a blank piece of paper and brainstorm with a friend or mentor: "What do I need most in my business? What's my next best investment?" Once you do that, you may decide you do need a VA or someone that can help you, and there are many ways that you can hire one. I chose to hire a friend in real life. This required me to do a bit more training in regards to my industry.
For my business, I felt it was important to have someone that I was comfortable with, that I could trust with my logins, versus someone that may already know the systems, software, and industry but was a gamble in that I didn’t know if we worked well together.
Many people hire people overseas. There are a lot of different options and tons of great VAs out there, but I just want to remind you before hiring to think about what is most important to you in hiring a team member.
Know that you can start slow. Know that you can hire someone for a few hours a week to start.
Here are a few things you may consider before hiring a VA:
Software Programs
Great investments at the start of your business can be certain software programs that help you to be more efficient; it doesn’t necessarily have to be a VA that helps you automate. Maybe it looks like upgrading your mail platform, whatever you use to send out emails. One of my earliest investments was $29 per month for scheduling software that worked as an assistant for me to handle my contracts, billing, statements, and all of my calendar scheduling for all of my clients. That really paid off big time, and it was something that I outsourced without actually hiring a person; it was more of a software system.
Seemingly Irrelevant Distractions
Think through what's holding you back in your business. If it's that giant laundry pile that's sitting there, and you always feel like you ought to have the laundry done before you do your business tasks, and that distracts you, and you procrastinate, I would hire someone to do your laundry first. It doesn’t necessarily have to look business related; it’s whatever helps make you more efficient.
Zone of Genius and Repetition
I also want you to think through what things aren't your zone of genius - that you're not great at - and what things you do repetitively. One of the first things I outsourced was posting in Facebook groups because that was something that was a repetitive task.
Base Knowledge
Before you outsource any of these things, I want to remind you that it's important to have some base knowledge around the system that you're going to be outsourcing, especially if you’re training someone else to do it. For example, some people don't want to do their finances, like entering receipts, but they've never done it before. I think it's really important that we, as business owners, figure out a good system first and then train our staff in how we want it to be done.Amidst the overwhelm, we, as business owners, are bound to feel a bit wiped out. How have you begun to automate and outsource in your business to help relieve some of that pressure?