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How to Employ a Virtual Assistant: The Entrepreneur's Guide for outsourcing

Apr 20, 2022

The hiring of a virtual assistant is among the most basic and most significant choices you'll make as an business owner. If you do not are able to find someone in your team that you can delegate specific tasks to, you'll continue to waste precious time and energy in activities that don't actually contribute to the development of your business.

Solopreneur vs Entrepreneur

One of the major difference between the "solopreneur" (someone with the status of being the only owner of their company) and a business owner/entrepreneur is that they work as a team. The business owner isn't able to do everything by themselves. They build systems and hire people to do tasks for them. These are necessary steps to creating a business that continues to grow, even when it's not in operation.

Employing a team member can be crucial to making the shift from a solopreneur into a business owner - or as Michael E. Gerber, author of the top-selling business guide "The E-Myth will say that you go From working on your business , to working to work on your business. Having other people on your team will free up your time so you can focus on activities which have the most impact on your business and income.

In this post I'll take you through the process involved in hiring a Virtual Assistant and share some specific tips and tools to assist you in manage virtual staff effectively.

Jump into:

After you have hired one of your Virtual Assistant, you can follow these same steps to identify even more duties to delegate, design new roles for your company and recruit more staff members until you occupy just one position in your business that is CEO.

For now it's time to hire your very first Virtual Assistant.

Benefits of hiring virtual staff

If you employ one virtual assistant or build an entire team of virtual employees, outsourcing remote employees can be a major factor in productivity as well as on the development of your company.

Here are a few of the most important benefits of employing a Virtual Assistant:

  It doesn't require a physical office  

Based on the location you reside in, renting a physical office space could be expensive. Employing a virtual assistant enables you to begin building your staff while keeping costs low. Except for the use of a handful of software programs for working with your virtual employees the main cost for hiring virtual staff is what you pay for their time.

  Virtual Assistants cost nothing  

Virtual Assistants can be a cost-effective alternative to hiring regular employees.  Virtual Assistants operate as independent contractors . Depending upon where they reside their rate of pay may be significantly lower than what a local employee costs you. A Virtual Assistant in the Philippines, for example, is typically less than half of what an equivalent Virtual Assistant in North America costs for the same tasks and responsibilities.

  You're not limited by the local expertise (hire only the very best of the best)  

There are many entrepreneurs who do not have access to an local talent group of skilled candidates to fill a specific role. Virtual Assistants can be employed from any place in the world provided they have an internet connection. Not having to hire someone locally increases your number of applicants for particular roles significantly.

ConvertKit Remote Team

  Delegation helps prevent burnout  

The ability to delegate specific tasks and responsibilities to other people can be a significant step towards preventing burnout. There are, unfortunately, a lot of entrepreneurs that think they need to do everything themselves, and that's precisely what they are doing. It leads to lengthy work days, a lack of energy, feeling overwhelmed as well as having less time for other areas of their life such as activities, exercise, and family.

  Make sure you spend more time in your zones of strength  

There is no way to be an expert of everything. Nor do you need to try to be. Every task or process needed to manage your company (including those that you dislike or have a hard time with! ), there are other people who specialize in those things and enjoy doing the process. Employing people to help delegate work frees up your time to focus on activities that you enjoy and that you're proficient at.

  Focus on high-value and earning activities  

Finally, when you engage Virtual Assistants and you are able to free up time to concentrate on tasks which add impact to your business over the activities you delegated to the Virtual Assistant. That is, you can free up time to concentrate on tasks that have a direct influence on your revenue.

"Your most precious resource as a human being (not only a business proprietor) is TIME. The less you commit to, the greater your focus. If you are focused, the more the impact you will have in your time. Because of this, everybody should at least employ one virtual Assistant."
- Matthew Turner

Types of Virtual Assistants

One of the most important concerns you're likely to ask yourself when you think about employing a Virtual Assistant is: what will they provide for you?

The answer is almost everything.

Insofar as they possess sufficient training, experience and the right tools, a Virtual Assistant can technically do anything that doesn't require their presence in person that, when you think about it can be quite a bit.

There various types of Virtual Assistants, and it's important to know which type of Virtual Assistant is best suited for the tasks you plan outsourcing.

  The General Virtual Assistant  

The most popular form that Virtual Assistant is known as a General Virtual Assistant (aka a General VA). A General VA is a person who is able to handle the daily tasks and processes essential to run your business but not necessarily focussed on increasing it.

The duties you'd give to an General VA are usually technical and repetitive in nature for example, controlling your email or travel schedule, scheduling your appointments, data entry studies, scheduling postings for social media, and more.

  The Specialized Virtual Assistant  

A Specialized Virtual Assistant one who has special set of abilities and is more at managing a specific procedure for your business. They tend to be costlier than General VAs because they already have specific skills and will require minimal additional training from you.

tasks like customer service, bookkeeping, video editing, and project managementfor instance, are better suited for a Specialized VA.

  Tasks outsourced vs. outcomes  

With a General VA, you should try to delegate specific processes and tasks, and you should give them training on the best way to complete those jobs and process correctly.

If you have a specialized VA it is recommended to outsource specific outcome. A specialist VA should be more skilled that you (that's why you should hire them!) for the jobs and procedures that comprise a part of their role. Since you're counting on their knowledge and expertise in the specific tasks and processes, you should inform them how to is required and not how you can accomplish it.

The increase in Twitter followers of 10 percent per month, as an instance, could be an example of the result. Importing blog content via Google Drive to WordPress, for instance, is an important project to complete. What is the difference?

How to become the CEO of your own business

If you didn't immediately hire the team immediately after you launched your business, you're probably assuming the duties of many roles. In other words, you're doing a variety of jobs as a result of which your time is spread across many different tasks and responsibilities.

To become the CEO of your business and spend your time exclusively doing the things the CEO needs to devote their time on You must delegate specific tasks and responsibilities to others.

The key is simple math.

If you're trying to generate over 100k in annual revenues For instance it's impossible to meet this objective with the help of tasks that are worth 20 dollars per hour. If you're able to work more than 5,000 hours during a twelve-month time frame (unlikely) it's a math problem that isn't a good fit. It is best to focus your hours on tasks that earn you an hourly wage higher than.

One reason business owners are hesitant to employ help is because they view hiring employees as a burden and not as an investment. If you've ever felt this way when hiring someone, the following exercise should be helpful for you.

  Calculate your Target Hourly Rate  

Your Target Hourly Rate is the price at which your time, as the chief executive officer of your company, should be valued at for you to reach your goals for income.

To determine your target hourly rate, take your monthly (or annual) income goal and divide it by the number of hours that you will be working during the time.

Example: $250,000 (annual income goal) multiplied by the number 2,000 (# of work hours) equals $125 per hour

"Personally, I hired way ahead of when I believed I was ready to hire an assistant, and encourage others to follow suit. Many people wait until they are having a set amount of revenue or are in operation for during a specific time. There is no "magic" moment when hires support, other than: If it allows you to concentrate on doing what you do best, there's no need to go into debt for it while the time you conserve allows you to concentrate on activities that generate revenue Then it's time."
- Trivinia Barber

  Each task you perform in your company has an estimated amount in dollar  

As an entrepreneur your responsibility to determine the activities that contribute the most benefit to your company and you should spend the majority of your time working on those tasks. Anything that isn't in line with your goals or aren't in line with your Goal Hourly Rate must be assigned to another person.

If you're not achieving your financial goals, I'm pretty sure the reason is because you're not investing enough time in activities that are worth your while.

  High and low value tasks  

The tasks of low-value are necessary to running your business but do not directly impact revenue growth. The most common examples of low-value work include bookkeeping, customer service, graphic design, project management editing, and so on.

High-value tasks are tasks that directly increase revenue. Examples of high-value tasks are marketing and lead generation and selling, as well as launching new products or services as well as forming strategic partnerships .

One of the most effective ways to grow your income as an entrepreneur is delegating lower-value jobs to other people and schedule your time with as many high-value tasks as you can. Use the income that is generated from your high-value work to cover the cost of outsourcing of low-value tasks.

What are the best process or tasks to delegate

Every company has an extensive list of activities and procedures that are involved in running that business. To help you decide which tasks you should outsource and which ones you should continue to do, begin by categorizing the jobs and processes.

  Every process and task that you conduct in your organization is part of 1 of 4 groups:  

1. Things you must do High-value jobs you love that you're proficient at.

2. Tasks that you should not perform: tasks with low value that do not make the most use of your time, regardless of whether you're proficient at them or you enjoy working on them. (These are the toughest to assign to a third party!)

3. Tasks that you don't would like to complete: jobs that you aren't a fan of and that you think someone else will.

4. You are unable to complete Tasks that require the necessary knowledge and skills in order to complete.

If you don't have it done so, download our Outsourcing Worksheet. The table we included will help you to record and categorize your processes and the jobs you perform that you use in your organization.

"The things you don't like performing or cannot do should be at the most important list of tasks to delegate. The harder tasks to part with are the ones you could do and be even like doing However, in reality, you should not be performing them."
Nick Loper Nick Loper

How do you hire a Virtual Assistant

Virtual staff hiring for certain tasks on your team is not the same as hiring specific project employees.

If you contract freelancers for a certain project, that project has an initial date as well as an deadline. Since most freelancers work with several clients, you'll not always be their first priority.

If you choose to hire a virtual Assistant You are employing an additional team participant. While the work you delegate to them may alter over time, they will remain in a certain position on your team. However, that doesn't mean they won't be found on a freelancing site such as Fiverr or Upwork. There are numerous virtual assistants looking for jobs on these websites that can fit your needs.

The steps for hiring virtual Assistant

  First step: Record your requirements to outsource  

Start by making a list of all the tasks and tasks you're planning to delegate to your Virtual Assistant. Assuming these are tasks that you already perform by yourself, write training documents (aka Standard Operating Procedures) for these tasks. If you want to learn to write efficient Standard Operating Procedures, go through this tutorial.

If you're hiring the services of a Specialized Virtual Assistant, document what you expect for them to achieve rather than specific duties or steps.

  Second step: Make a job description  

When you've got your list of duties to delegate, it's time to create a job description to describe the job which will take care of those duties.

tasks that require specialization shouldn't be part of the description of a job for a General Virtual Assistant. All of the tasks that you assign to the General Virtual Assistant must be performed at an equal level of expertise and rate per hour.

The job description must include:

  • Information about the background of your company (your industry, what you are selling, as well as whom your clients/customers are)
  • Experience, education level or skills needed
  • List of responsibilities and duties
  • The list includes any applications, tools, or software they will be making use of

Here's an example of an effectively written Virtual Assistant job description that was adapted from Shopify's guidelines for the hiring of a virtual assistant:

  Step 3. Create a job posting on the internet  

Once you have your job description in place then the next thing to do is to post it online and start accepting applications. You can post your job description direct to Craigslist (post within the country or city you want to hire in). Another alternative is using the Virtual Assistant hiring service or directory.

These are other well-known directories and websites you could make use of to locate Virtual Assistants:

"It's important to create detailed job description so expectations are met from both sides. It is my practice to ask those whom I have met for recommendations. Virtual assistants should be able to provide some references as well as examples of their job. Speaking with them by phone is very helpful to get to know them and their personality to see if it's a good combination."
-- Sue Canfield

  step 4: Review the applications and schedule interviews  

Examine the application that comes through and schedule interviews with the top 5-10 candidates. It is recommended to conduct video interviews with your top candidates. An interview via video is equivalent to interviewing someone in person. You'll be able to tell pretty quickly if you like people and are able to communicate effectively with them on a video call. If someone doesn't want to do a video interview with you, that's untrue and shouldn't hire them.

When you are interviewing every candidate, don't only question them about their previous work experiences and abilities. Find out about their objectives, their hobbies, how they like to work and how they like to be handled. It is also possible to request that your candidate take a an free personality test. This will help you to better understand their strengths, values in terms of strengths and weaknesses, as well as how they function.

"We ask a very specific collection of questions to determine how an individual would be treated by another human being. There are "automatic disqualifiers" that kick people out of our process right away based on what they have answered. This prevents us from talking with someone who does not share our core values not letting us get glitzy regarding their credentials. This has saved us from many bad hires and makes our screening process go much quicker."
- Trivinia Barber

  Step 5: Take your top candidates the opportunity to take a test  

Prior to committing to hiring an individual candidate, assign the three top candidates an assignment to complete as a test. Select a specific job that is component of their daily responsibilities anyway, and see how well they perform the task. Asking your candidates to complete an actual task can aid in determining who the top candidate really is.

  Sixth Step: Provide the top candidate a test period  

Select the most suitable candidate to fill the position, and start them off on an initial trial (30 30 or 60 days, for example). A trial period gives your Virtual Assistant additional incentive to do a great job to you knowing it could lead to being a permanent member of your team. Make sure they sign an official Service Agreement to avoid any problems in the future.

Tips for managing your Virtual Assistant

The process of hiring a virtual assistant is just the beginning. After you've brought someone on your team, part of your role as the leader is to maintain a positive, professional, and mutually beneficial relationship with your employees.

  Evaluate performance  

Before all else, you should be judging the performance that you have achieved with the performance of your Virtual Assistant based on their efficiency. To do this, be sure to have clearly defined expectations, and/or key performance indicators (KPIs) set up. If your employees are meeting their goals are you truly concerned about the number of coffee breaks they take throughout the day?

  Don't micromanage  

If you have specific expectations for your Virtual Assistant and evaluate them based on the extent to which they fulfill those expectations, there should be no need to micromanage them. Sure, there are applications which allow you to "spy" the Virtual Assistant's computer screen and keep track of the hours they spend working. They're not necessary when you have trust and clear expectations with your virtual Assistant. If you don't enjoy being handled in the manner you handle the management of your Virtual Assistant, you're probably making a mistake.

  Schedule check-ins  

Make use of a communications tool like Google Workspace, Microsoft Teams and Slack to schedule quick check-ins using your virtual Assistant. It could be between the start and close to the day's work, or every second day and even every week. You can do whatever is best for the two of you. Use this time to make sure that everyone knows the things they're working on, and that nothing or someone (including you!) that is hindering them from finishing their tasks throughout the day.

  Requires weekly reporting  

Each week, have you Virtual Assistant send you a summary of their activities this week. You can provide them with an example of how to send you their reports. Here are a few questions that we recommend requiring the Virtual Assistant to answer in their weekly reports and any other specific KPIs or metrics they are responsible for tracking.

  • What tasks or projects did the team finish?
  • What was the amount of time they spend on each task or project?
  • What do they continue to work on?
  • Did they run into any issues or problems?
  • Do they have ideas, feedback or thoughts that you can use?
  • Do they require additional instruction?

  Set up a system of feedback  

Establish a culture among your Virtual Assistant (and anyone else you work with) of trust and open communication. Inspire them to discuss ideas, ask questions, and give periodic feedback. Doing so will help you become a better manager and leader, which can help you build friendships that are mutually beneficial with your team members. We're huge supporters from Kim Scott's work Radical Candor as basis for providing and receiving feedback to get started.

The best tools for outsourcing and managing virtual employees

While the concept of employing someone who isn't likely to have a conversation with may seem odd, with the proper tools, you can build and keep productive and fun connections with your virtual employees.

The main categories of tools that are required for effective collaboration together with virtual Assistants and remote team members are communication, project management, file sharing , and security (password security). I've listed some of our top tools in each of these categories below.

If you're interested in learning more about additional programs and devices to help run your business, then check out our guide to the .

  Communications Tools  

  Project Management Tools:  

  File Sharing & Security  

Hire a Virtual Assistant to help you focus on the things that matter most

If you're feeling tired and overwhelmed with building your company, don't worry. You're not the only one. The majority of entrepreneurs work for all day long because they don't know how to make the most of their time or delegate to others effectively. They suffer from what our colleague Chris Ducker, best-selling author of Virtual Freedom, calls "Superhero syndrome".

Many entrepreneurs believe they're able to handle everything themselves, and because they believe that, this is precisely what they do. While they aren't as efficient, they make up for in the way they work, usually at the risk of being exhausted.

Your job as an entrepreneur does not only consist of creating your own job. Self-employment and freelance work serve. Entrepreneurs are those who develops systems and employs staff to run their businesses for them.

A Virtual Assistant likely won't be the only person you add to your team as you expand your business but they ought to be among the initial. Employing a Virtual Assistant can to free you to work on projects that have a greater impact on your life and business.

"One of the things that we can take to prevent exhaustion is to be better delegators. At first, it's hard giving up, but trust me folks, once you begin to let go of the steering wheel, you'll want to hire the full-time driver sooner, or sooner!"
- Chris Ducker

  The blog first appeared in May 2018. The blog was updated in April 2022.