How To Boost Your Productivity When Working With A Virtual Assistant
Running an online business or thinking of starting one? A virtual assistant might just be the extra hand you need to grow your business faster!
Hiring a virtual assistant to help you with bookkeeping, data entry and processing, online research or even managing your blogs and social media profiles will help free up some of your time so you can focus on more important things that will bring revenue for your business. It’s always a common mistake for startups to try and do everything by themselves. Nothing’s wrong with that. As a business owner, you’ve definitely invested more than time and money to your fantastic business idea. However, being able to delegate the tasks that keep your business running but essentially keeping you from getting more clients and generating business will surely help you turn a profit faster.
In the previous parts of our Outsourcing Guide Series, we have given you very easy steps on how to hire a virtual assistant according to your needs and business requirements. Assuming that you’ve hired one already, what we need to focus on next is making sure that your virtual assistant is an indispensable asset to you and your business.
Here are a few tips on helping your virtual assistant be more productive:
1. Distinguish between your expertise from your virtual assistant’s.
The most common reason that you hire a virtual assistant is to have someone else do the non-income producing tasks that are still important to keep the business running. These include maintaining products and services that your business offers, doing customer service support for existing customers, and the back-end tasks in day-to-day operations such as reporting and social media management.
Make sure that you delegate the tasks that your virtual assistant knows how to do independently, and make it clear how to go about completing the tasks assigned to him or her, and which tasks he or she needs to leave for you to do.
2. Ensure that your virtual assistant is working towards a common goal shared with your business’ vision.
In any work setting, it is important to lay out a solid foundation on the business’ mission and vision. This does not mean to say that your virtual assistant knows a particular statement of your business goals by heart. However, he or she must know what the ultimate goal is and what role he or she plays in it. This helps him or her stay focused and be able to follow the plan with all possible distractions that gets in the way.
3. Be concise in outlining the tasks that need to be completed as well as deadlines to meet.
To make the most of having a virtual assistant to work with you, you must always keep her daily schedule filled with tasks to be completed. Here is where you should be careful, as sometimes tasks can take longer to complete and thus the scheduling calendar you have agreed on with your virtual assistant may change. This is fine. All you need to do is ensure that you know what she’s working on and both of you have agreed on about extending the time required to complete tasks assigned.
4. Define your means of communicating with each other.
Working in different countries doesn’t have to be difficult and shouldn’t be a barrier in communicating effectively with each other. Early on, exchange instant messenger details, emergency contact details and the primary point of contact, usually email. Make sure that all the log-in credentials are working for your virtual assistant and that there will be nothing to hamper him or her from contacting you.
Consider investing in your virtual assistant’s hardware and equipment, if you can. You may choose to have him or her use a work phone, or a work computer, to help prevent technology issues along the way.
5. Utilize productivity tools to help both of you achieve efficient collaboration in doing projects and tasks together.
In the previous post, we have enlisted our top collaboration tools and productivity apps to help you and your virtual assistant achieve more in less time. Online connectivity allows for you and your virtual assistant to continuously have access to each other’s files through file-sharing sites, track progress of one another in a shared task through project collaboration tools, and lots more.
There are many more tips and tricks to make working with a virtual assistant worthwhile and beneficial, not only to the growth of your business, but also in achieving your work-life balance.
Get in Touch Today
Are you ready to have more time by delegating the tasks you grudgingly have to do every day by yourself? Do you want to have a partnership with someone who compliments you in your work style?
Get in touch now and our outsourcing specialists will set you up with one as soon as possible!