Hiring a Virtual Assistant: An Entrepreneur’s Guide to Outsourcing and Hiring Virtual Staff

Every entrepreneur realizes they can’t do everything alone.

It usually happens when a mountain of documents, emails, or invoices overwhelms you and you realize there aren’t enough hours in the day to finish all the tasks required to keep your business running smoothly.

Hiring a virtual assistant is an entrepreneur’s first and most important decision.

You risk wasting time on non-business-related tasks until you have a team member to delegate repetitive tasks to.

In order to expand, it is necessary to delegate.

To ensure that your initial hire is as stress-free and seamless as possible, we have simplified the process of hiring a virtual assistant into a step-by-step guide.

Virtual Assistants: Are They Worth the Investment? 

In summary, the answer is affirmative.

When they realize they can no longer handle everything on their own, all successful entrepreneurs engage people to assist them. 

Hiring people to assist you enables you to build a scalable business that expands even when the owner is not present. If you continue to complete everything independently, you risk clogging your schedule with time-consuming duties that do not contribute to the growth of your business or income generation.

Consider the repetitive tasks you perform on a daily basis, for example:

• Meeting scheduling
• Responding to straightforward emails
• New content is being uploaded.
• Performing fundamental data entry tasks
• Generating invoices

This is important because a team member allows you to go from being stuck in your business to spending time on it. The more people that you have on your team, the better you can concentrate on taking only actions worth their salt in building up and scaling your business model. This will save you time throughout your day.

Once you start hiring people, you have the ability to use your expertise and skills in those areas that bolster growth for your business, while at the same time delegating tasks that are not needed by you personally.

Six Benefits of Having Virtual Assistants by Your Side

When you work with a remote team on outsourcing, it can change how much gets done, created or billed easily, whether that is one virtual assistant employed or an entire network of outsourced staff.

The following are some of the biggest advantages to hiring a virtual assistant: Benefits of a Virtual Assistant

You can work from anywhere.

Your location is an important factor in assessing how much you would have to pay for a physical office space. You can hire a virtual assistant and build your own team without having to work in an expensive city. The only cost you will incur is the investment in their time (whatever number of days you need them for). Ensure you have sufficient remote work tools to effectively manage your virtual staff. I mean, you can start hiring people without having a huge budget.

Hire—and hire only the best.

Whereas virtual assistants (and virtually anyone else) can connect to any web-accessible location, This means, by one order of magnitude or more, hundreds at the very least, you can now exponentially improve your potential talent pool for every position, thereby allowing you to separate out truly exceptional candidates from those that are merely average. Hire your next employee based on talent, not address.

Hire talent in a cost-effective way.

Most VAs are independent contractors, and the rate they command per hour may be a fraction of what you might pay an employee to perform some or all of these same tasks (depending on where that VA is located). A virtual assistant in the Philippines should be 50–75% cheaper than a comparable VA from North America doing similar work at corresponding skill levels. If you are on a tight budget, try to find other benefits to hiring the right virtual assistant.

Decrease your workload.

As an entrepreneur, delegating certain tasks and responsibilities is perhaps one of the most important things you can do to keep your business running without going crazy. When you try to book yourself solid, then it is easy to become overloaded: long workdays and no time for other parts of your life like family, hobbies or self-care activities. Your sanity and business success rest on employees.

Concentrate on your strengths. 

It is impossible and foolish to become a master of everything. With an expert handling every single business task and process (even those you really dislike), why are you still trying to do the task alone?

Hiring a virtual assistant allows you to focus your time and energy on doing the things that only you have expertise in or are uniquely capable of. Getting a virtual assistant helps you concentrate on what you are doing best.

Work on actions that will get paid for.

It is a truth that to exist, your company needs to bring in loans. Using a VA will allow you to focus on revenue-generating and high-value activities in your business. Hiring a virtual assistant allows you to cover your business from all angles and focus on growth, not management.

You need to say goodbye to the idea that your business can only run when all the tasks are handled by you. No entrepreneur is an island.

There are different virtual assistants you can hire.

Before hiring your virtual assistant, treat yourself as the client and decide what kind of VA can work best for the tasks that you want to outsource. These two main differences are the same:

The Main Virtual Assistant

General VA: This is the most common type of virtual assistant and is also known as a general virtual assistant. This person can handle all the day-to-day tasks and operations that need to be implemented for your business to function normally, but they will not necessarily grow it.

More often than not, the tasks a general virtual assistant would perform are mostly technical and high-volume, such as sorting your emails or organizing travel details for upcoming events; scheduling calls with prospective clients (or old ones) to follow up on potential business opportunities since someone needs that kind of continuity in our lives, minds, and schedules because, yes, every last one. 

The high-level skill of a virtual assistant

On the other hand, a general virtual assistant is an individual who has a broad (versatile) set of skills, and they may work as your helper in managing or overseeing one process for you within your business. Because they come with a set of skills that you do not have to train them for and save your time, specialized virtual assistants are priced higher than general ones.

A niche virtual assistant could provide services such as project management, bookkeeping, video editing and customer service.

Outsourcing outcomes versus outsourcing duties

The way you distribute the responsibilities to different VAs varies, and it also depends on how everyone prefers to work.

General Virtual Assistant You can input an individual or team that will work on certain tasks and processes. Train staff on how to complete these tasks and processes, especially if your business has its own quirks and preferences that make it unique.

If you are hiring a niche virtual assistant, it is better to outsource specific results. Broadly speaking, a virtual assistant who is specialized will be better prepared to perform tasks related to their role than you are. After all, you and your team are hiring them for this very reason. Tell them what, not how (if they have some knowledge and expertise). Outsource it to the experts! 

Which tasks can we successfully outsource?

The responsibility of every entrepreneur is overwhelming, with a long list of tasks and things to care for, which are key operations that the startup depends on. Place your tasks into four categories, which will make it easier for you to identify what needs moving and what’s worth continuing. Your organization has put each task and process into one of the following buckets:

Spend your time on the tasks that you are good at and enjoy doing to complete high-value, income-generating work.

Avoid tasks like low-value work, no matter how much you love it or are skilled at doing it. 

Tasks that Slow You Down: Tasks you don’t like or take up a good deal of your time, and also someone else can do them better.

And all of this without the capacity to fulfill certain tasks: Tasks you are unable to handle: there may be things that will require more knowledge and skill than standard execution.

How do you find and hire the ideal VA in five simple steps?

This is different from hiring freelancers for project-based work; instead, you hire a virtual assistant.

When you hire a freelancer to do an assignment, the work has both a start and end date. Most freelancers work for several clients at a time, meaning you might not be their top priority all of the time.

With a virtual assistant, you do get someone who can help your business, but this is not the same as hiring another team member. They can continue to play a part on your team, as these are skills that, even if the tasks you do evolve, will not go away. This means that the recruitment process is a bit different.

This is how you hire a virtual assistant for your business, and the stages of the process are as follows:.

Step 1: Make a list of all the tasks you plan to outsource.

Start by writing a list of all the tasks and processes you want your VA to take over. If these are tasks that you already do by yourself now, create training documents for each one (standard operating procedures). You can read this post on how to write great standard operating procedures.

If hiring a niche virtual assistant, it is recommended to document the aim of what you want done instead of absolute tasks or actions.

Step 2: Develop a description of what you will do.

Once you have your list of things that you want to delegate to a virtual assistant, create the job description for it.

A regular virtual assistant should have basic abilities and only get paid a fixed hourly rate, no matter the work they do for you. Specialized virtual assistants A specialized skill Virtual services that require a unique skill set should be performed by specialized VAs (not on the general list of what Genie can offer).

In your job description, include:

• Give an elevator pitch of your business (i.e., industry, products or services, customers).
• You need education, experience, and/or skills.
• Duties and obligations listed
• Software, tools, or applications they may use

Step 3: Review applications and schedule interviews.

Another stage in the reviewing process is determining which specific candidates are qualified to be reviewed against it, thereby taking only a certain number of applications from other virtual assistants and windowing them down for each. After that, you can schedule interviews with those on your shortlist.

When it comes to face-to-face alternatives, the video interview is the worst of the negative bunch when it comes to face-to-face alternatives. A video call is a useful way to quickly ascertain if the candidate will fit well into your business and be able to communicate effectively with you. If someone refuses to do a video interview, that is more of an indication.

By asking the right questions, you can draw out what their goals are, as well as how they work and manage, in addition to checking their experiences and skills. You can also ask your candidates to pass a personality test. It will help you have better knowledge of their areas of strengths, values and working habits.

Step 4: Implement a test for your top matches.

And make your top 3 an assignment to work on as a probationary test run before you get into hiring someone full-time. Select a task that would be one of their normal responsibilities if they were working. The absolute best way to see which candidate is the most competent is to ask them for a real task. But it is also crucial that you appreciate their effort.

Step 5: Test the best candidate out

So, from the results produced during the interview and experimental task, you will be able to find the right candidate for that specific job. When elected, place your best pick on a 30-, 60-, or 90-day trial. A trial period serves as a time for you to measure how well your newest virtual assistant and the candidate performed in order to see if doing business with them really is worth it because it actually gives you an idea of whether or not they are fit. This is the all-important time of transition where you guys can get used to working side by side.

Precaution: Before beginning work, make sure you have signed a formal service agreement and a non-disclosure agreement is applicable.

Management Advice for Your Virtual Assistant

Hire a virtual assistant. 

Part of your job as an employer is to make sure that, once hired, the new employee stays satisfied and productive in a professional relationship with you.

Here are four ways to manage the virtual assistant you need.

Regularly schedule check-ins.

Use a communication app like Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Google Workspace to have quick and regular check-ins with your virtual assistant. This could be on a daily, every other day or just a weekly basis. Choose the win-win option.

Use this as an opportunity to confirm that your VA knows what to do and that no one is in their way, not even you. They will be unable to fulfill their everyday duties.

Request weekly reports.

Every week, ask your virtual assistant to send you a weekly activity report. You might give them a reporting template to write their reports on.

However, you could also ask the following questions, along with any specific metrics or KPIs that they are expected to track:

• List all the assignments or projects you have completed this week.
• How long did you spend on one single assignment or project?
• What are you working on right now?
• What challenges or barriers have you faced?
• You guessed it—questions or concerns?
• Do you need training on anything else? If so, in which regions?

It allows you to keep track of your virtual assistant’s work while also identifying any potential problems or areas where they need help.

Refrain from micromanaging.

So many times, entrepreneurs will hire a new employee, and they end up micromanaging. As tough as it can be to trust your virtual assistant when you run your own business, remind yourself what the reason was for hiring them.

If you set clear expectations with your new virtual assistant and follow up on how they are meeting those expectations, there will be no reason to micromanage. Yes, you are right—there are certainly programs out there that make it possible for you to “spy” the time of work your VA is logging on behalf of. But those tools are only necessary when there is a lack of expectations and trust between the two parties.

If you don’t like how you managed, you realize that you’re doing it wrong. Meanwhile, let a virtual assistant do their job while you concentrate on yours.

Develop a feedback culture.

One of the key things that you need to achieve in collaborating well with your virtual assistant is making sure communication lines are open and fully established. Open the forum for them to share ideas, ask questions and give feedback regularly. One approach that you might follow is to conduct review sessions on a quarterly basis where feedback can be shared and received, as well as set new objectives for the next quarter. In doing so, you will in turn build the required skills to enhance your managerial capabilities and create and sustain a positive experience among your employees for them to stay with you longer.

To discover what those first steps should be, refer to Kim Scott in Radical Candor for a framework on how to give and receive feedback.

The top Virtual Assistant Management Tools

While the idea of hiring someone you may never meet may sound strange, with the right tools in place, it is possible to have a fruitful and friendly relationship, as well as any future hires, with your virtual assistant.

These are some of the best life-simulation tools.

Instruments of Communication:

Google Workspace has a number of productivity and collaboration tools under its belt, like Gmail, Calendar, Meet, Chat and many more.

For touch-based calls or video conversations, Zoom is the best channel.

Slack: Ditch email and replace it with a way to communicate faster and more efficiently than ever before within your Slack team.

Project management tools:

Trello: Utilize virtual cards to manage and organize team tasks.

Asana: This is for saving initiatives on course and hitting all the important deadlines.

communicate, collaborate and work on documents in Basecamp

Security and file sharing

You can create and share your work from anywhere with Google Drive.

Dropbox: Share, save and upload files for your team.

It is a fresh, safe and properly legit encryption-established password manager that really works like LastPass.

When should I hire a VA (virtual assistant) and how?

Unless you generate an entire staff from the start of your business, you are probably wearing multiple hats and have to spread yourself across many roles.

Delegate your business and company-wide responsibilities to others in favor of becoming a CEO. Focus solely on the activities that will push your organization further.

You will need to dedicate your time accordingly to activities with a higher hourly rate that pay dividends for you to make the necessary income.

The reality is that a lot of entrepreneurs are afraid to hire people to help them grow because they see it as an expense instead of an investment. If you’ve ever felt this way about recruiting, try the following exercise:

Virtual assistants will help you focus on what really matters for your business, anywhere.

If your development has been draining you and making you fatigued or distressed, then you are in excellent company. One of the leading reasons that entrepreneurs put in long hours is simply because they have not yet developed or mastered the ability to delegate well and value their time.

Most small business owners think they can do it all themselves and, thus, end up doing just that. The upside is that they would put in a significant amount of effort, albeit in a highly inefficient manner.

Well, then, it’s time to change the frame. The role of an entrepreneur is to architect systems and hire people who can manage and run the business on their behalf, not just create jobs for themselves.

This way, you can spend more time on things that actually impact your life and business.