You've signed on with a Virtual Assistant, you're all ready to go.
What next? How do you make this a valuable, productive relationship? This year Nota Bene is all about increasing productivity and efficiency, so this is an important topic.
Here are our top tips.
1. PLAN, PLAN, PLAN!
Don't waste your (or their) time fluffing about trying to decide what you need from them. Go into any calls or emails with a clear idea of what you want to be done. Where possible, provide the information you know they will need in the one contact.
Sometimes of course this won't work, (sometimes you just don't know what you don't know, and that's ok) and they will advise if they need something else, but if you know they will need to have particular information, fill in the blanks where you can.
2. ACCESSIBILITY
Provide any access needed upfront. Most VAs will be like us and advise you on what access they will need from the beginning. The quicker you can provide these and any other information they will need upfront, the quicker we can get to work!
3. COMMUNICATION
Have one main form of contact where you send through any tasks or requests. For most of my clients, this is email. It saves sifting through email, Facebook messages, Linkedin messages, WhatsApp, etc trying to find something. So for mine, we use email for most contact, but for anything short, or urgent, it is generally WhatsApp. Streamline this, and communication will be far more efficient for both of you. If you need a proper task management system, I use Teamwork for my Contractors, but many businesses like to send their VAs work in a platform such as "Monday" or Airtable, which makes it even easier to assign and get updates on tasks.
4. EXPECTATIONS
Be very clear from the outset about what is expected from each other. If you are needing a task completed that is not part of their usual scope, there needs to be a discussion on how this looks.
When you sign on with me, there is a very clear list of what tasks are part of the package you have signed on for. Anything outside of this, we need to discuss first and agree on how this will go, ie do we need to amend your package, will it be at an hourly rate for a one-off task, etc?
Some Virtual Assistants will not stray from their set tasks, and that's ok too because they prefer to stay in their lane and do what they specialise in. We don't veer too much out of our lane either, but we always help where we can!
Another part of expectations is timeframes. Your Virtual Assistant will let you know what their hours are in the beginning.
For me personally, it's Monday to Thursday, 9.30am - 2pm. When you send a task through, if it is urgent, let them know! Most VAs will have multiple clients and so while each one is equally important to them, we need to attend to tasks in a particular order. If something comes through on a Thursday night or Friday morning, it won't be worked on until next week, which all my clients are ok with, as they were advised up front that these are my hours. But if it's urgent and you need it done asap, tell them so, and no doubt they will do what they can to accommodate.
I have a heap more suggestions, so will have to do another post on this sometime!
Keen to chat? Book a call here - www.notabene.co.nz/contact