Virtual Industry Archives | Online Business Manager

Start Outsourcing to a Virtual Assistant with the Right Mindset

10 Oct, 2018

So you’ve decided to start outsourcing a Virtual Assistant. Hiring a virtual assistant is a huge step for any business owner or entrepreneur. It can mean giving up some control over your business but it doesn’t have to be too much until you are comfortable. But it’s also your first move towards scaling up your business so that it can grow beyond its current limitations plus build a quality team to support your business.

If you’re thinking about taking this vital first step, there’s a certain mindset that you should take on.

Learn to let go

When you hire a VA, you’re not giving away the keys to your business. But you are letting go of some part of your business operations, even if it’s just a handful of tasks.

Your business is your baby and virtual assistants understand that as well as they also run their own business . Up until now, you’ve done everything yourself. It’s easy to understand why outsourcing any item of your business is scary. The way to overcome this fear is to focus on the positive. Think about the immediate benefits you’ll receive from outsourcing certain aspects of your business and what you can fill in the place of that time.

You can also alleviate this fear by being careful about what you hand over until you are more comfortable with outsourcing. Keep the tasks limited but also ensure that you spend some quality time on procedures to ensure quality is maintained. Hire a VA you can trust and start simply by only sharing with them what they need to get the job done.

Outsourcing fees

It’s certainly true that hiring a virtual assistant costs money. How much does it cost? This depends on what you need done. The more simple tasks the less the price but the more extensive tasks will cost more.

You can lessen this risk by allocating a budget you can afford. Work out the numbers beforehand and make an offer that doesn’t break the bank. Hiring a virtual assistant, if done right, will earn you greater profits in the future especially once you build a good working relationship with them. This takes time.

One way to adjust your mindset is to think of hiring a VA as buying time. You pay for the VA to take tasks off your hands so that you have time to focus on more important things.

Managing others

One mindset challenge that many face is that they don’t want to become managers. Up to this point, you’ve only had to manage yourself and, for some of us, that’s enough of a monumental challenge. But now you have an employee and you are their boss.

Working with a VA isn’t the same as managing a busy office. First of all, as the name suggests, it’s “virtual.” You give the VA tasks to do and check in regularly to see how they’re doing. Once the training and onboarding is finished, they’ll require little management, and the investment you make in training will pay off with the time you gain.

Mitigating risks

You may have heard some horror stories about virtual assistants who caused issues for other businesses. Especially the first time, hiring a VA isn’t easy and there are many things that can go wrong.

While it’s true that it’s a complex and often a frustrating process, you can overcome this by being prepared. Carefully consider the tasks you need done, search for the right person, and prepare a good training procedure and onboarding process to get them started. It also helps to realise that a bad VA experience isn’t a business-ending event but a learning opportunity.

Want to learn how to hire the right VA and get started growing your business?

Download our Cheat Sheet to Outsourcing to start your first VA relationship on the right foot. Check it out here:

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.

Building a Laptop Lifestyle

21 Jul, 2017

I can’t believe that I have been running my Virtual Assistant business for over eight years now. It has been a massive journey of empowerment and learning. I feel blessed that I have been able to work my business around my family, school drop offs and pickups, the endless sporting commitments, school holidays and of course to still be able to earn more than a full-time income with the flexibility of a laptop lifestyle.

I originally started my Virtual Assistant business as a bookkeeper. At the time, there were some legality changes in Australia for contract bookkeeping and of course further study would have been needed. I had just finished and had paid for the wrong course, spent $2,000 in advertising my new business which resulted in only one new client at 3 hours per month which certainly didn’t cover costs. So, I had a decision to make, do further study, do something else or go back to work.

These decisions are made when you least expect it. I went to a Mothers morning tea through my oldest son’s school (then 7 years old), I got talking to a Mum and explained about the bookkeeping situation and the dilemma of whether to do the study and extra hours or did I even like bookkeeping after all. She asked me about my Secretarial, Admin and PA background and asked me why I didn’t go into business offering those services and what I loved best. I asked, ‘Is there a market for that?’ and her response was ‘Yes definitely, I have been in business for 6 months and I am working full time, let me introduce you to a Liz Parker at 121 Temps.’

I went home, had a look at the 121 Temps website and signed up on the spot for the Premium Membership, it included everything that I needed to get my business started plus I could pay weekly which really helped with cashflow:

Website URL and website creation course
Marketing course
Monthly Webinars
Free Client Leads
Mentoring and Support
Plus a whole lot more.

And after just spending an excessive amount in advertising in the wrong place, I knew that this was the perfect investment to learn those things that would put my business in good stead for years to come.

From there it took me a little while to find my feet, I had three young boys, they were 7, not quite 3 and 18 months old (the younger two are only 16 months apart) so my life was hectic and filled with a school run and toddler taming along with trying to build a business. In those early days, I only had lunchtimes if the younger boys slept and after 7:30pm at night once they were all in bed. It was hard building a business on those limitations but definitely possible. Plus, I was dedicated and motivated, it was either build my business or go back to work and frankly I couldn’t afford to go back to work as the childcare fees were exorbitant especially times 3 children.

As my business grew, so did the childcare by one day a week for the two youngest children up to 3 days per week until they went to school. Eight years on I now have a 15 year old, 10 year old and 9 year old and I can say that they’ve never been in after school care or school holiday care, we regularly have their friends over during school holidays plus the boys all enjoy sporting activities most afternoons each week. I also love that I can still be there for them and earn a full-time income on essentially a very flexible schedule.

In those early days, I set basic goals, I remember my first goal being to earn $400 dollars in a month and setting tasks around what I had to do to achieve that. My mantra was ‘make this work or go back to work’ and ‘it is all up to me’. I had to get my services together and write them as benefits to attract a potential client and I found this to be one of the hardest things to do. Marketing really wasn’t my strong suit and I put my energy into learning as much as I could about it. My little hack was that once I worked out my target market which was quite tough in the early days, it was much easier to explain my services because I knew what appealed to that industry.

Eight years on, I still love what I do. I love the business and the clients I work with are amazing and inspiring. I love that if I get bored, I can change my services or do some further study to offer different services. My clients love this too and it means that they’re staying ahead of new trends as well. They love that I am innovative and nothing is too hard to do or achieve.

I have been working with my longest running client for seven years and I believe that the longevity is due to going above and beyond for my clients, along with adding value to their business. At the end of the day, I’m in this for the long haul!

Susan Wilkin

Why Hiring a Virtual Assistant is Good for Business

13 Jun, 2017

Many businesses hire employees to perform various functions within a company. Secretaries and administration assistants manage front office tasks which may include answering phones and offering customer support. Personal Assistants offer diary, meeting and office support to executives. The marketing department oversees advertising, social media and public relations. Bookkeepers or accountants take care of the finances, and so on.

Many small, solopreneurs and home-based businesses don’t have the luxury of being able to hire a staff of employees. There are many reasons for this, it could be cashflow, office space or requirements. However, that doesn’t mean you have to manage your business alone. By outsourcing to a virtual assistant or Online Business Manager, you can have specialised help when you need it and for a fraction of the cost of hiring full-time employees.

What does working with a Virtual Assistant mean?

Focus on your speciality instead: While understanding the basic concepts of what needs to occur in your business is great, there is no need to learn everything and this could include graphic design, marketing, website creation, etc. Hiring assistants who specialise in these areas will save you loads of time and frustration and this way you can focus on your speciality instead.

Balanced Home and Business Life: Business is important, but so is spending time with family and friends. Maintaining a healthy balance reduces stress, increases productivity and ensures everyone is happy.

Increased Productivity & Profits: Knowing your assistant is taking care of the time consuming tasks allows you to stay focused on more profit-producing business activities.

In a nut shell, outsourcing to a virtual assistant really does make good business sense.

Do you really need a Virtual Assistant?

Whether you are just starting your business or have been at it for several years, you will reach a point when you cannot, or do not want to do everything yourself. This is the time to outsource to a virtual assistant. Outsourcing does not mean you are giving up control. It simply means that you value your time and want to use it in the most productive way.

Signs that you need a virtual assistant:

You feel overwhelmed: Are you working long hours in order to get things done? Maybe you feel exhausted by the long list of tasks you need to complete. Feeling overwhelmed at times is natural, but if it happens often, it’s time to take action and hire a virtual assistant.

You dislike the work: Everyone is good at something, but nobody is good at everything. If you have tasks that you simply dread doing, perhaps you always put them off until the last minute; consider hiring an assistant to do them for you.

It takes you forever to…. If you burn up many hours trying to draft your weekly newsletter because you struggle with the design, stop! It is not worth it when you can outsource the task and have it completed quickly.

You don’t know how to do something. One great thing about virtual assistants is that many have knowledge in a lot of areas. If you’ve been doing without something because you can’t do it yourself,outsourcing it to a specialist is the best answer. This means that it will be completed quickly and efficiently.

Tasks are getting pushed aside. If emails and phone calls are going unanswered, then your customer service may be suffering. Poor customer service can lead to lost sales. Regardless of the task, if you do not have time to do it, hire someone to take care of it for you.

The family is unhappy. Take your queues from family and friends. When family members start migrating to your office, rather than you to the family room, chances are, you’re working too much.

You are tired of doing it alone. It’s tough operating a one person business. You have to be the creative thinker, implementer, follow-up person and more. While doing everything is great for the ego, it’s not always great for business. When you tire of doing it alone, call a VA. Remember, even superheroes call in reinforcements when they need it.

You need to take a holiday. As a business owner, when was the last time you took a holiday? Wouldn’t it be wonderful knowing that everything was taken care of while you take that much needed break from your business. Once a virtual assistant gets to know your business they can cover off most items while you are away.

When you work with a virtual assistant, you can still do the tasks that you enjoy most, but you also have a support system in place for things that cause you stress or take up too much of your time. Hiring a virtual assistant allows you to reach your goals more quickly, obtain skills that you may not have, take your business to the next level, and even enjoy some free time.

Susan Wilkin
Online Business Manager

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How to Find the Right Virtual Assistant

9 Jun, 2017

Having the right Virtual assistant is the first step to a good partnership. I say partnership because as you work together to grow your business, it will start to feel like you have a partner, someone who wants to see your business succeed as much as you do. As a Virtual Assistant or Online Business Manager, I prefer to create that business partnership with my clients.

With so many virtual assistants to choose from, finding the right one is not always easy. Many times, business owners wait until they are desperate before they start looking for help. They end up hiring the first virtual assistant they find, normally based on the cheapest price but can also be on location and skills. While selecting an assistant this way can work, it can also lead to the business owner hopping from one assistant to the next and getting frustrated with the process and finding that a virtual assistant is not the right fit for them.

There’s a better method to finding the right Virtual assistant and it requires a bit of research and thought. Here are some things to consider before searching for a virtual assistant.

What skills are required of the Virtual Assistant

Before you begin your search, have an idea of what kind of assistant you need. Make a list of the tasks you want to outsource to the virtual assistant. What skills or knowledge should the VA have to complete those tasks? Do the tasks require special software or equipment?

In most cases, you will want the Virtual Assistant to have everything he or she needs to complete the work and if they are a viable business, they should have the basics set up already unless you have a specific software that you use. In this case, it might be more beneficial to train your current virtual assistant on how to do these tasks.

Depending on the tasks, it can also be helpful if the Virtual Assistant has experience in the industry that you work in or already offers the services that you require to other businesses.

Characteristics

What characteristics would you like to see in your assistant? Which are most important to you? Here are a few to get you started:

Forward Thinker. They see the whole picture & offer ideas to help you reach your goals.
Self-Motivated. They are go-getters. They don’t wait until the last minute to start a project.
Takes Initiative. If they see something needs to be done, they do it.
Resourceful. If they don’t know an answer, they know how to find it
Organised. Disorganisation leads to frustration and potential mistakes
Good Communicator. Good communication reduces confusion and errors
Professional. They conduct themselves in a professional, self-confident way
Dependable. They complete work as requested without having to be monitored
Trustworthy. If they cannot be trusted, the contract should be cancelled

You may not find someone who possesses every characteristic on your list or you may just want to make sure the important ones are covered and then you can work with the rest.