Girl, you need some serious help. Yes this is a real conversation I had just the
other day. And no - I promise I'm not a total jerk. You need help in your
business and that's why in this video I'm going to show you how to hire a
virtual assistant. Hi there, my name is Abbey Ashley and I'm the founder of The
Virtual Savvy. While I usually just stick to training virtual assistants,
today I thought I would do something different and talk to potential clients -
those who are running businesses who really need some help and are ready to
hire their first virtual assistant. Now for all the virtual assistants out there -
Don't worry. This is absolutely still for you. By
learning what a client should be looking for in a virtual assistant it's actually
going to help you become more hireable. Who doesn't want that!?
All right - let's jump right in. I'm going to be showing you in this video 7
things you need to know before you hire your first virtual assistant.
#1 Do a time study Now I know you became an entrepreneur so
you wouldn't have to clock in and out of work, right? But I recommend doing a one
week time study so you can really see where your time is going. I think you'll
be surprised! I use an online tool like Toggl and I'll just track all of my
working hours for one whole week. Then I'll evaluate that and see where my
time is really going. What are the things that I'm doing that I really shouldn't
be doing at this point in my business? Make a list of those things and anything
else that you know you want a virtual assistant to be doing to help you out in
your business and this is a great starting point for knowing what tasks
you'll eventually need to outsource. #2 Know your budget
Do we really have to talk about money? Yes unfortunately we do have to talk about
money. I recommend having a really good idea of how much you can actually
afford to pay somebody on an ongoing monthly basis for your business.
Virtual assistants can really range their prices. You can
get somebody who is overseas a lot of times for maybe four or five dollars an
hour but the people that I train generally are in $20 to $30 an hour range
for starting out as a general virtual assistant and that can definitely go up.
If you're needing somebody to do a highly specialized skill or if you want
them to be already really well trained in a certain system so go ahead and keep
that in mind whenever you're creating your budget for your new virtual
assistant. #3 It's time to start looking for your virtual assistant
Now, I would recommend starting out with referrals. If there are other business
owners that you know that they've talked about how much they love their virtual
assistant this is the best way to find somebody you know is reliable - who's
going to do a really good job. So ask around - ask some of your friends even if
they don't have a virtual assistant. they may know of somebody who they can really
vouch for their character - that they would do a great job for you. Now this
isn't the only place to find a virtual assistant. There's lots of places that I
would recommend. Here's a list of a few of them: #1: start with your
current audience. Let the people who already love you and know you know that
you're hiring. Your perfect fit may already be on your email list or
following you on a social media platform. #2: You can try a site like
Upwork or Fiverr. These are really good sites where you can post for specific
jobs that you're needing but also you can post if you're looking for somebody
looking for ongoing work. I recommend choosing the $$$ whenever
you go to Upwork. You can say "I'm willing to pay a little bit more for
somebody who's going to do a really great job" and I recommend doing that
anytime I post a job on one of these sourcing sites. You can use
theviritualsavvy.com/hire. This is a way that you can go and you can post your jobs
for free and find awesome talent. We have tens of thousands of virtual assistants
in our community that are super super qualified that are awesome. You
can go ahead and post a free job posting with that link. #4 Find a great
fit. Now after you start putting this job post out into the world you may start
getting a little bombarded - but don't worry. It's usually pretty easy to weed
out the people who are really going to do a stand out job. I personally look for
people who go above and beyond, even if they have a little less experience. Maybe
they don't know all of the software systems that you're specifically looking
for but they are just the type of person who goes above and beyond. So maybe in
their application they also included a video or they sent you some additional
material that you didn't even ask for. That is the quality that I always look
for because excellent attention to detail and the type of people that go
above and beyond - that's not always something that can just be learned.
However if they have all of that, usually I can teach them the
software programs they don't know. So definitely as you're going through - look
for people who have the skills, yes, but also look for the people who just stand
out - that they seems like they're going to fit your company culture and it also
seems like they're the type of person that's just going to go above and beyond
whenever they are helping you with your tasks. #5: Interviews - I recommend
interviewing several people. Narrow down your top five, your top three even if
there's one person that really emerges as the leader that you think is the
perfect person for your business. I recommend interviewing a few people
that way you're really really sure when it comes time to hire that you've made
the right choice. #6 Test your working
relationship. Now this is something that I didn't always do -
I will admit whenever I found somebody who I thought was going to be an awesome
addition to my team I would just quickly say "Yes yes! Yes- please how can I have
you!?" Sometimes without an interview - sometimes without really seeing their
quality of work or anything like that. So I recommend doing something different.
Now whenever you're hiring - especially somebody that's going to be you know
really a permanent ongoing member of your team, I recommend doing a test
project. So this test project can be anything - I mean obviously have it be
somewhat related to the work that they would be doing but ask them to do a one
time test project. I like to pay for these because I want it to be
worth their time. I want to value those top people that
are interviewing or that top person - so I will have them do a test project. Maybe
something that I really do need done and I'll pay them to see that. This is really
great because you can see the actual quality of their work. You can -
even if they've given off this awesome impression in the interview - maybe the
work that they do isn't really up to the standards that you were hoping or maybe
you didn't like the way that they communicated with you during that test
project. So I recommend doing a paid test project as your first step
toward hiring this person. After you've done that test project and you say - yes...
this is the person that I definitely want to work with - I still wouldn't
recommend signing a really really long ongoing contract. I would first recommend
doing a 30 day trial. Now this may be in their contract. This may be something
that you negotiate just between the two of you, however what I would do is I'd
say "Hey - let's work together. I'm in. I'm going to pursue
this but let's take 30 days and we'll meet again - we'll just go on as if I've
hired you and this we're gonna keep doing this forever but let's have a
meeting after 30 days and just have an opportunity for both of us to honestly
say "Is this working?". Sometimes it's not the quality of work, sometimes
you as a client that's done anything wrong- sometimes working relationships don't
work. Sometimes your personalities just don't pair well and that's, a lot of
times, something you won't know until you are 30 days in. So I recommend doing
that - doing a 30 day test period... a trial where you say "Okay it's been 30
days. Are we both still happy? Do we still want to continue with this relationship
further?". And if that's the case, then you can go ahead and sign that big
six-month contract or whatever it may be to have your relationship go on.
#7 Communicate well. So let's say you found that dream virtual
assistant and you are so excited to be working together with them. I recommend
having a weekly meeting so that you can continue to communicate well. For me, what
works really well is doing a video meeting. We use Zoom or use Skype for those video
meetings but I recommend having some kind of a weekly touch point, even if
it's just for 10-15 minutes where you can go ahead and give all of your tasks
to your VA for that week. I've noticed that it really helps me as a client -
it really helps virtual assistants if you can tell them at the beginning of
every week or every Friday - say"Hey - here are the tasks for the next week
that I would really like for you to be working on." You're gonna get a better quality of
work if you're not just throwing last-minute things at your virtual
assistant, so try to plan ahead and communicate really clearly what your
expectations are, what deadlines are, when you would like the work to be
completed. But give them time. A lot of virtual assistants will have a rush fee
so if you want something done in less than 24 hours they're going to charge you
more for it. So it's going to help you - it's going to help them too if you really set aside
that weekly meeting where you can communicate all the tasks that you want
done for the entire week with your VA every single week. There you go! Those are
my top tips for hiring a virtual assistant. I hope that this has been
helpful for you and don't forget to like and share this video - subscribe to my
channel if you're on YouTube and I will see you later!