Virtual Assistant Traits to Consider before you Hire!

Virtual Assistant Traits to Consider before you Hire!

1 Feb, 2018

There are many traits that you might look for in a virtual assistant. These virtual assistant traits can be dependent on the role that you would like them to perform.  They may also be dependent on your requirements for your business, along with your vision and your goals that you would like to achieve.  Let’s take a look at some simple steps in outlining these to find your perfect virtual assistant.

Vision and goals

Do you have a clear picture of where you want your business to be in 6 months, 1 year, 5 years, etc.  If you have your goals set, your virtual assistant will be keen to work towards this goal with you to help achieve your long term vision.  These can then be pulled down into smaller measurable goals which will lead to your big picture goal so when more team members come on board, everyone can work towards this vision.

What to outsource

The ventures that you should be focused on are the expert tasks that only you can perform, such as; building your business, interacting more with your customers and subscribers, building strategic alliances within your industry, expanding your reach to get your brand to new markets and planning for future growth. While you are developing these growth projects, your virtual assistant and potentially other team members can handle the remainder day to day tasks.  To decide what to outsource, the first step would be to write down the tasks that you spend time on but you do not need to, these tasks are usually monotonous and can take a long time for you to do.  They can easily be outsourced with a process to a virtual assistant that as an expert in their field will get them done quickly and efficiently.

Perfect Virtual Assistant traits

To hire the best virtual assistant possible, you will need to find the right fit for your business. No two virtual assistants are the same and they all come with a range of experience and expertise.  So once you have defined your goals and vision and written down the tasks that you would like to outsource.  It is time to find the perfect virtual assistant.  Let’s take a look at some of the virtual assistant traits to consider.  Have a think about what type of experience you would like the virtual assistant to have according to your current task list ie: Basic, intermediate or advanced experience.  Then it is time to look at some of the traits that the virtual assistant should possess to fulfil your vision and current tasks. Which are most important to you? Here are a few traits to get you started:

  • Can-Do Attitude. The virtual assistant is not scared to jump in and give it a go.
  • Forward Thinker. They see the whole picture and offer ideas and ways to implement tasks to help you reach your goals.
  • Self-Motivated. They are proactive go-getters. They don’t wait until the last minute to start a project.
  • Dependable. They ensure work is completed as requested and delivered on time.
  • Trustworthy. The virtual assistant is someone that you can build a relationship with and someone that is trusted.
  • Initiative. If they see something that needs to be completed, they get it done without being asked.
  • Resourceful. If they don’t know the answer to something or how to do something, they know how to find it or learn it.
  • Organised. Highly organised virtual assistants normally use project management tools such as Asana to stay organised and to also help you stay organised too.
  • Efficiency. Efficiency is a must in business and can be the difference between getting a sale or not.
  • Good Communicator. Good communication reduces confusion and errors. When they can clearly see your vision and what you want competed, the virtual assistant can quickly get to work.
  • Professional. They conduct themselves in a professional, self-confident way

While thinking about the traits for your virtual assistant, you may want to take it a step further and consider the type of personality it takes to do the job. For instance, if your virtual assistant will be talking to your customers, they’ll need to be friendly and be great on the phone. If they are sending emails and correspondence to your customers a great typing speed, attention to detail, along with being confident at writing correspondence is a must.

Case Study 1

Joe is a Health Professional in his own practice and is after a virtual assistant to answer the phones, transcribe letters to start with.

Although Joe didn’t mention it, he will essentially need someone to book appointments in his diary so the virtual assistant will need to be able to manage an online diary for appointment bookings and have experience in transcription.  The most important trait that Joe will need is for the virtual assistant to show empathy, compassion and understanding while speaking with clients.  The virtual assistant will also need to be dependable to answer calls in a timely manner.

Case Study 2

John is the main presenter and speaker of his training company.  He requires a virtual assistant to help with social media, newsletter, adding articles to his website, updating website pages, following up with customers and booking students in on training events.

The main traits that John should be looking at for a virtual assistant is someone that is tech savvy and has experience with his website platform. A virtual assistant that is proactive and dependable to develop content for social media and his website.  John should also be looking for someone that is professional on the phone, a good communicator to speak with his customers as well as super organised to ensure that course information and events are organised in a timely manner.

As you can see John essentially needs a virtual assistant with a little more experience and high level skills for his business.  John is not necessarily looking for a clone of himself but someone who is approachable, friendly, uses initiative and is quite tech savvy. 

Lastly, finding the perfect virtual assistant can be hard, there are many virtual assistants out there that have many traits.  The best way is to speak with a few virtual assistants and start to build a relationship with the virtual assistant, long term virtual assistants become a apart of your team.  You can start with small tasks and build up to a full task list once you become more confident with them and trust in their ability.  You can check a virtual assistant’s testimonial and even look through references to give you some background information and an idea of their traits.  Many testimonials and references cover these in detail.

 

This article was featured on SavvySME here.

6 ways to Attract and Retain New Clients on LinkedIn

6 ways to Attract and Retain New Clients on LinkedIn

18 Jan, 2018

LinkedIn is a powerful networking and relationship building platform.  As with any social media platform, it is about being social.  On LinkedIn it is being social in a business way without being too salesy.  LinkedIn of course is a business networking platform and as such is essentially business to business. So how do you post without being overzealous in your sales posts.  Following are six ideas for you to attract—and retain—the perfect clients on LinkedIn:

Post helpful content regularly

By posting helpful and relevant content, there are benefits to you, as well as to potential clients. Remember that LinkedIn is an authority site so having fresh content there will boost you in search results not just on LinkedIn but in Google too.

Posting regular content helps keep that all-important conversation going—and keeps you in your potential client’s eye.  For a cold lead to become a client, they need to see you at least 7 times before they start paying attention to the information that you are posting.  So remember to post consistently and regularly.

Join groups

While posting consistently on your profile is important, don’t forget to join some groups.  While it is great to join like minded groups of people that do the same work as you, it is more important to join groups where your clients hang out.  A simple way to be in front of face of your potential customers is to ask and answer questions in these groups, share your articles, share others articles and generally be helpful.  Try not to post the same content to too many groups at a time. Doing so will hog the newsfeed.

Social proof

Your connections provide massive social proof, which is why you should actively grow them and connect with new people. Social proof on LinkedIn comes in many forms. Ask people who know you well, including current and past clients, to endorse particular skills. (Spell it out!)

And remember that if you belong to groups, your connections will see your photo along with influencer members, when they check out relevant groups.

Ask questions!

If you want to start a conversation, ask relevant or interesting questions. Ask them:

  • In your Groups
  • In “Thank you” and “Welcome” letters to new connections (providing they’re organic, natural questions that are easily answered)
  • At the end of your articles or posts

Publishing articles

When you publish an article on LinkedIn it will help to build your professional identity.  By publishing articles in your field of expertise you are automatically positioning yourself as a thought leader in your industry. These articles are also searchable on LinkedIn as well as through google as long as they are set for public visibility in your settings.

LinkedIn articles are known for their professional approach and high quality.  Readers can also follow you via your article even if they aren’t connected to you.  They can also comment on your article as well which brings it higher in the search results to ensure that it is seen more.

Use a ‘Call to Action’

At the end of your articles, add a call to action.  What do you want them to do, whether it is to contact you, answer a question, download an offer etc.

These are just five ways to attract and retain new clients.  What other ways do you use to connect with potential clients?  Tell us below!

Join me on my webinar ‘Finding Clients on Linkedin’ on Wednesday 14th February at 12pm (QLD time) – register here.

How to Engage through your PowerPoint Presentation Slides

17 May, 2016

Most presenters use PowerPoint for their presentation slides, however many presenters make quite a few mistakes. They make their slides too wordy, don’t add enough images. The audience then just ends up reading the slides instead of listening to the presenter. The presentation is then not interesting and of course the audience starts yawning, walking out or switching off the webinar well before you get to your sales pitch. Here are a few key things that you should add to your presentation slides to induce greater engagement and keep your audience wanting more:

Less words, more images to your presentation slides

This is simple and effective. Don’t add your whole speech to your presentation slides, make the wording on the slides simple with lots of images. If you had to give out a truckload of information, then you could have just handed out a book or a digital white paper. Why would you pile on information in the presentation slides? A presentation is about your engagement with the audience and you, not that of the audience with the PowerPoint presentation slides.

Set the agenda at the beginning of the presentation

Tell the audience at the beginning what they are going to get out of your presentation. Get them excited and engaged from the start, include a funny quip if you are humorous but the main trick is to get your audience engaged from the very start.

Make your presentation slides enticing

Your presentation slides must be enticing. They cannot be just slides loaded with three to five points talking about two or three numbers and a handful of facts. PowerPoint presentations should have images, videos, audio effects and evoking stories that would make the facts relevant and fun to learn. If you bore your audience with a humdrum of presentation slides, then the first casualty would be engagement and the second would be the whole purpose of the presentation.

It’s not just about the slides

You are the expert in your field! Give your audience facts, give them information, give them quality content! Make them want more! This doesn’t need to be listed on the presentation slides. Show them with videos, share your screen if you are working through software examples or use other visual cues. You can even set up interviews with other experts!  Get your audience engaged with many different visual cues, it doesn’t just have to be on a set of presentation slides!

Ask questions

The job of conveying the message is yours as a presenter and the presentation slides are only there to set the mood. But don’t make the presentation a one way or a one dimensional discussion. You need to consider multiple views or the possibility of other opinions. As you present your facts and the information, raise questions with your audience and engage your audience to answer those questions. While you would have slides concluding with facts, have slides that raise objection, shed light on contrasting views, to set the agenda and to make space for discussions which will allow your audience to get involved.

Call to Action

At the end of your presentation, have an explicit call to action, use your business logos and contact details effectively and conclude with key takeaways. Once you are done with your presentation, encourage questions and have backup slides that would be answers or illustrations responding to those questions. You should be able to anticipate some of the queries while preparing the PowerPoint presentation slides.  Another option is to send out for the questions earlier.

Brand your Emails; the importance of an email signature

Brand your Emails; the importance of an email signature

23 May, 2013

Email signatures, when used correctly, are a powerful tool in marketing and branding your business and, directing traffic towards your website.  What is interesting is that not too many people or small businesses use them.  Without an email signature, it can be difficult to return a phone call without needing to search records or websites for contact details.

Think of an email signature as being similar to your business card.  Business cards are normally well thought out, well designed and contain all of your relevant information.  Email signatures should be developed in the same manner, ensuring that they remain consistent in branding across your business and contain all of your contact details.

Email signatures only require a few lines and should include at the minimum your full name, business name, phone number and website address.  To brand your business further, you can include your business logo, job title, social media links (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Skype) and an alternate email address.  Some people also include quotes or affirmations but we recommend staying away from political and controversial quotes.  A simple email signature template is below:

First and Last Name
Job Title
Business Name
Phone number
Website address

If emails become too long when you are replying or forwarding a particular email chain, consider using a smaller signature but stick to the rule of including your full name, business name (this can be hyperlinked to your website) and phone number for easy contact.  This will ensure that you are contacted easily and that there is no delay in a response.

There is no excuse not to use an email signature as most email programs, tablets and smart phones include an option to setup your signature to automatically append to the bottom of each email.  If you have different businesses, you can create more than one signature file to use for each business or email account and you can append these when selecting which account you are using or append for a reply or a forward option.

So get started today, set up or update your email signature files and watch your business grow!