How to Hire a Virtual Assistant (Tips from a VA and OBM)

Virtual AssistantHiring a TeamWorking with a Virtual AssistantBusiness Tips

Aug 3

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In today's fast-paced and interconnected world, businesses are seeking new ways to streamline their operations and boost productivity. With the rise of remote and gig work, the concept of hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA) has become an increasingly popular solution to tackle mounting tasks and responsibilities. A Virtual Assistant is a highly skilled professional who provides remote support, effectively bridging the gap between talent and time zones.

Whether you're a busy entrepreneur looking to offload tasks or a growing business seeking to optimize efficiency, this comprehensive guide will equip you with the knowledge and tools to successfully hire a Virtual Assistant. I'll walk you through each step of the process, from identifying your specific needs to fostering a fruitful working relationship, ensuring you make the most of this powerful resource.

Join me as we explore the ins and outs of hiring a Virtual Assistant, uncovering the valuable insights and best practices to maximize productivity, minimize costs, and propel your ventures to new heights. Whether you're new to the concept of VAs or looking to refine your hiring process, this guide is your go-to resource for unlocking the full potential of virtual assistance in the modern business landscape. Let's embark on this transformative endeavor together and discover how a well-chosen Virtual Assistant can revolutionize the way you work, giving you the freedom to focus on what truly matters.

Assessing Your Needs

The first thing that needs to happen before you start looking for a virtual assistant is you need to know what you want them to do. One thing I see so often in the online space is an entrepreneur posting that they are looking for a VA but with no other, or very little specifics.

In reality, virtual assistant is a super vague term that doesn’t really tell anyone anything about anything other than you’re looking for someone to assist you virtually (remotely). Assist you with what exactly? Exactly. 😉

So be specific! Do you want them to help with social media? Do you want them to handle customer service? Are you looking for someone who’s techy to handle the backend tech stuff of the business? Someone to help with launches? All of the above?

It’s very important to make sure when you start looking for someone that you define the objectives and expectations from the start. Unless you start working with someone who’s new to the virtual assistant world, you’ll probably find that most VAs you talk to have a speciality. Sure, you can find experienced virtual assistants who can offer a wide variety of support. But you’ll also find VAs who don’t do certain things. For example, I love tech and working in that area, I don’t mind customer service and enjoy that, but I don’t do social media.

So you need to be super clear on what tasks and projects you’re looking for and keep an open mind when it comes to hiring. You might not find someone who does it all. That’s okay. Pick the most important things for you to get off your plate and find people who excel at them.

Once you’ve decided exactly what tasks you want to pass over to a VA, you’ll need to determine what their skill set and experience needs to be. For the most part, you’ll likely be able to hire someone who’s got some experience and knows the online space. If you’re running a multi 6-figure or 7-figure business with other contractors or employees, you’ll want to look for someone with more experience who can handle working with an environment like that. Hiring someone is new to the VA world is amazing (we all started somewhere, right?) But they are probably going to be better suited to work one on one with their first few clients until they get their feet wet and get comfortable.

But believe me when I say, there’s someone out there for everyone!

Finding Potential Virtual Assistants

Now that you know what you’re looking for in a VA as far as tasks go, where exactly do you find someone? I’ve got a few options for ya!

Freelance platforms and websites for hiring virtual assistants. These are your websites like Fiverr and Upwork. While these aren’t my all time favorite way to look for help (or get hired, to be honest) they do work and can be a great place to get started. The platforms work like a search engine. So you can type in what kind of help you’re looking for and you’ll be met with a ton of results of people on the platform who match those results. Then you’ve got to search through all those results to find the people you want to reach out to. But, again, it’s a good place to start if you need some help quickly.

Recommendations and referrals from peers and colleagues. This is probably my favorite way to work with new people. There’s nothing better than a recommendation by someone you trust. If you’re not sure who to hire, ask your biz bestie! Does she have an awesome virtual assistant who could work with you a few hours a week too? This really is a great way to find someone because the VA gets rewarded for good work by being recommended a new client. And you can be sure you’re getting someone trustworthy because someone you know has already worked with them. It’s really win-win.

Now I will add a little disclaimer here that we know that not everybody will click with everybody. So if you get a recommendation that someone raves about, but you don’t click with, that’s fine. Stop working together at the end of the contract or end the contract early if need be and move on. It’s not a big deal.

Virtual assistant agencies and specialized service providers. I have not worked with or tried this, but it’s worth mentioning. You can hire a virtual assistant through an agency. This would be a place like Belay where they have a number of virtual assistants on staff. You pay the company for however many hours you would like support and they assign you a VA for those hours. The company pays the virtual assistant. An important thing to keep in mind with a service like this is that the virtual assistant works for the company. While they will take the work they do for you seriously, if you’re looking for someone to grow with your business, this might not be the best route. But if you are looking for some quick support now, it may be the perfect option for you.

Conducting Interviews

Yay! You found someone you want to work with! How do you make sure it’s a good fit? With an interview of course.

Now, I personally, and most other VAs and OBMs I know conduct some sort of discovery call with potential new clients. You don’t want to just jump into a working relationship with someone not 100% sure if it’s a good fit or not. Depending on how you’ve found your person (agency, referral, etc) will determine how to set up an interview or discovery call. If it’s with an agency, they probably have their own method here. If it’s an individual, they probably have a calendar set up for calls with potential new clients they can send you.

Your new VA will come with a set of questions as they’ll want to get to know you and the kind of support you are looking for. You should also have some questions ready for them to make sure it’s a good fit on your side too.

Things to consider asking in your interview/discovery call:

How do they communicate with you during working times and regarding projects
How quick can you expect a response from them regarding tasks and projects
What’s they’re typical turn around time
Briefly discuss what you’re looking for help with specifically and what apps/platforms they use

The list can go on of course. 😉 It’s okay to keep the call kind of casual to get a feel for their personality and whether you’ll enjoy communicating with this person on a regular basis.

Setting Up a Trial Task

There’s a bit of controversy in the online space around trial tasks so I wanted to be sure to include it here.

Trial tasks are FINE as long as you pay your VA for it.

I see so often that business owners want to try out a project with their VA before committing to a contract of any kind. I get it. You want to make sure your money is being invested in someone trustworthy who can do the work you need done. Nothing’s more frightening in the online space than investing money into another person and then not getting the services you paid for.

There’s also nothing as frightening as a VA than to spend hours completing work for a client only to have them not pay.

So before you start working on a trial task, determine a fair rate to both you and your VA for the project. If you decide not to work together long term, that’s fine. It’s better to cut ties before contracts are signed. However, it’s still important to pay the VA for their time and completing the task for you.

Now that that’s out in the open, trial tasks are a great way to test your compatibility with your new VA. Making sure they understand your directions, are familiar with the platforms with your business, all that fun stuff!

Select something simple that you’d like to have help with but that won’t take hours and hours. It’d be ideal if it’s something they can do in one day in just a few hours. Maybe it’s scheduling some content for you or creating a landing page.

When they’re done, review the work to see if it’s up to your standards. If it’s not perfect, is it something that’s easily fixable you can discuss with them for next time? How was the overall process? Did they reach out to you with questions?

If everything went swimmingly, then yay! You have a new VA! If things weren’t great, that’s ok. Pay them for the project and their time and move on to another potential virtual assistant. It’s as easy as that.

Navigating Legal and Contractual Aspects

Now the fun legal stuff. I need to preface this by saying I’m not a lawyer and can’t provide legal advice. So I’m just going to go over a couple of things you need in place and refer you to a business friend who can help you with the actual legal stuff. 😉

First up you need to decide on payments. How are you going to pay your new virtual assistant? Monthly? Weekly? Is it for a specific number of hours? Are they on retainer? Do the hours roll over at the end of the month? Will they send you an invoice?

Most of that will be determined by your virtual assistant and how they choose to run their business. That’s totally fine, you just need to know what the plan is here.

Next, you need a contract in place. One that outlines the scope of works, number of hours per month, how the payments will work, etc. Typically, I provide my clients with a contract to sign. Meaning, you should expect one from your virtual assistant. But if they don’t offer you a contract, you should have one ready. There needs to be some kind of agreement between the two of you before work begins.

Make sure you’re covered incase work isn’t completed on time or as discussed. Can you get a refund? Likewise it’s to protect the VA. What can they do if payments aren’t made on time, etc. You both need to protect yourselves here. So, whoever provides the contract, you both need to review it to make sure it protects both of you.

Now, where can you get a contract? My friend Braden Drake has you covered. His Contract Club is just $30 and walks you through how to put together a contract (written by a lawyer) that you can use right away.

Conclusion

Whew! That was a lot of info! 😅

I think you know the benefits of hiring a virtual assistant. You probably wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t already given this some thought. They can take tasks off your plate so you can get more money making ish done in your business. Heck, they might even be better at some of it than you are 😱 meaning not only do you not have to do that thing anymore, it’s getting done better than it was before!

So if you’re in a place in your business where you’re considering hiring out some tasks, do it. It will literally only help your business when you have the right support.

You might have to talk to and work with a few different people before you find that just right unicorn of a person. That’s okay. You might also find that you need more than one person to really give different areas of your business the focus that they need. That’s okay too. Take your time to find the right people.

xx,
Delana

PS: Ready to add a virtual assistant to your team? I’m currently taking applications for new clients! Imagine having those pesky tasks that take up all your time (that you should be spending on more important things) off your plate and handled professionally. Looks good doesn’t it? 😉 Apply below.

Apply to Work with Delana