Every choice you make about your business strategy is an important one, but few aspects of your business are as influential as the handling of administration and day-to-day tasks. All those things that seem mundane, boring and tiny are, in fact, the lifeblood of your business. Choosing a virtual assistant (VA), should you decide to go down this route, is an important step.
In this article:
- Choosing a virtual assistant for your business
- Why getting the right VA is key
- How to choose the right virtual assistant service for you
Choosing a virtual assistant for your business
When you’re on the hunt for a part time assistant, or full time virtual assistants – it’s important to know that not all VAs are created equal. The right choice can turbocharge your productivity and streamline your business operations, but a poor fit can lead to frustration and wasted resources. To avoid pitfalls, you should consider the specific tasks you need assistance with, which may include email management, social media scheduling, call handling, bookkeeping or data entry.
Then decide how you want to work – and this bit is important. There are various virtual assistant options on the market and they won’t all be able to offer you the same service. Your choices usually include:
- Freelance or independent virtual assistants – usually just one person working for themselves and may not have the flexibility in capacity needed as your business develops.
- Franchise virtual assistant agencies – which may not have all the skills you need and, as with a freelance option, may not be able to flex their capacity with your needs.
- Agency VAs – it can be hard to find one VA that can cover the complete breadth of skills a small business owner needs. This again means that it may be difficult for them to meet your changing needs.
- Overseas VAs – this is often a tempting offer as overseas support may be cheaper, but remember that people will work different hours, have completely different cultural backgrounds and quality varies considerably – both in terms of tasks an in general communication.
- Employed virtual assistant service – all VAs are checked, tested, validated, trained and managed on an ongoing basis backed by an established business model.
Of course, instead of choosing a virtual assistant to help with your tasks, you could employ someone – but this brings additional costs and employer responsibilities that you may not want.
Before diving into the process of choosing a virtual assistant (VA), let’s clarify what a VA does. A virtual assistant provides remote professional administrative, technical, or creative assistance, usually to small or micro business clients. This means that unlike traditional assistants, VAs are not physically present in your office and you don’t need to employ them. So when you’re choosing your VA, you need to be 100% sure that you are making the best decision for your business.
Why getting the right VA is key
Whether you hire a full-time or part-time assistant, this is a person who will be dealing with some of the most fundamental, private and sensitive aspects of your business. That is why, when you are choosing a virtual assistant, you need to be confident that you can trust them to deliver. You won’t be able to delegate without worry if you don’t trust that the job is going to be dealt with appropriately.
A VA to support your growth
While initially you may choose a VA service just to free up your working days, and take some of the more time-consuming tasks off your hands, it’s important to remember that building a good relationship with your VA is really helpful for business growth.
A good VA service will allow you to grow and evolve your company, secure in the knowledge that you are completely supported, and the day-to-day tasks are being taken care of. Virtual assistants can maintain and expand your online presence, manage your bookkeeping, organise your travel plans and generally enable you to meet new challenges with complete ease.
In addition, it inevitably takes time for new people and services to become a seamless part of your business, so it’s in your interest to make the right choice first time round.
How to choose the right virtual assistant service for you
There are a few things you can do to improve your chances of choosing a virtual assistant that’s right for you, first time round. Here are our top tips:
1. Depth of knowledge
‘Virtual Assistant’ is not a one-size fits all job title. Exactly how virtual assistants work and what they are able to do depends on their particular skills and experience. To choose the right VA for you, it’s key that their skills and knowledge fit your business needs for today, tomorrow and a year from now.
Knowing how to format an Excel spreadsheet is one thing, but knowing how to use pivot tables, vlookups or de-duplication functions is quite another. Similarly posting a tweet is quite a simple process, but being able to support the development of a digital marketing campaign across various digital platforms whilst underpinning them with solid SEO knowledge and increasing engagement is something else. Having the right level of experience in the partner you outsource to is crucial. It will save you the time it would take you to do it, but also the chances are that an experienced VA could do it a lot quicker, and at a lower hourly rate than you are worth to your business elsewhere.
So, before you start the process of choosing a virtual assistant, take the time to clearly define what you need them to be able to do for you. This will help you to narrow down the skills and type of service you choose to use.
2. Breadth of expertise
Of course, you’re thinking about choosing a virtual assistant that’s the perfect fit for right now. But what about in a year’s time? Or over the next 5 years of your business plan?
As your business grows, so will your support requirements, so it makes sense to look for a virtual assistant service that offers multiple disciplines. If your immediate need is someone to do your bookkeeping and credit control, but you have plans to utilise online marketing to grow in the future, finding a company who has the scope to offer both will save you time, effort and money.
It’s worth noting here that the skills and experience required for each are very different, and will rarely be found in one individual freelancer, whilst a service provider will be able to tailor a package of support that meets your budget and needs – and changes with you – so you get exactly what you need at a price that is affordable. Being ‘future-fit’ is not just about financial plans and projections – it’s about your working environment, capacity and resource, and this is where a competent VA service can really help your business grow.
3. Team vs individual
Many small businesses choose to work with a single freelance VA. That can work in the short term, but it relies on the VA being available, and having the particular skills that you need. You don’t want to be stuck with someone who only has a limited set of skills – you can’t afford to train them, and you don’t want a separate VA for every task that needs covering.
So look for a virtual assistant service that does all this for you – referencing, checking, employing and training. That means you won’t have to keep going through a selection, induction and settling in period over and over again. It also means you’ll have the flexibility of support you need as your business changes.
4. Value for money
As a small business owner, one of your main considerations is going to be cost. You want to be absolutely sure that you’re getting value for money – and that you can plan and budget accurately. So communication with your chosen VA needs to include transparency around costs and pricing, and clear advance warning if anything is likely to change.
Look for a service where you are paying for the actual time you are using, and where you are able to have a flexible plan that lets you roll over any unused time, and where you can add time if you need to. That way, you are in control of your administrative support, not the other way round.
5. Communicate your expectations
Clear and concise communication is paramount in all areas of business, but being clear about what you need and want from a virtual assistant is especially important. Writing a job specification is a great way to start. By doing this the VA organisations under consideration will be clear about what you expect and it will also help clarify the position in your own mind as well.
This way, you avoid wasting time with services that are inadequate, or ill-fitting. For example, if you need someone that can maintain your website, alongside call handling and administrative duties, but you didn’t specify this skill before making a hire, you will likely end up disappointed.
Look for a service that takes the time to understand what you’re looking for, asks serious questions about your needs now and in the future and will create a tailored package designed to meet them. A company who offers a bespoke service will be worth its weight in gold in the long-run.
6. Continuity and confidence
Why are you choosing a virtual assistant in the first place? It’s so that you can concentrate on running your business without the stress and hassle of doing everyday, time-consuming tasks yourself. So, at the top of your wish list is going to be finding a virtual assistant service that you can be completely confident in.
What elements give you that confidence? You’ll want to know that:
- Your virtual assistant has the skills and experience to cover your tasks properly.
- There’s no break in service for holidays, sickness or other indispositions. Is it planned in, so you know you have appropriate cover? Is it well managed so you don’t have to worry about any of your tasks falling between the cracks?
- The service understands your business, your priorities and your strategy.
- There’s appropriate, organisation-wide security in place to protect your data, your systems and your clients under requirements like GDPR and Cyber Essentials.
- You don’t have any employment responsibilities.
For example, at Oneresource, we employ all our virtual assistants directly, so we hold employer responsibility. Not only that – we have a rigorous selection and testing process which means all our virtual assistants can cover all tasks. And we offer ongoing training so our team is always up to date – and that includes security: all our VAs are individually Cyber Essentials certified. Most importantly for you, we hire on attitude – so we’re confident that every VA on our team will deliver the best service. And that gives you confidence too.
7. Follow proper procedure
Would you hire an internal staff member without interviewing them? No, of course not. So why would you hire a virtual assistant without following the same process? Showing due diligence in this area could be one of the most rewarding choices you make. Take the time to work closely with the providers you’re considering so that you can be sure they are operating in a way that makes you feel comfortable, and you know that you will be getting value for money in terms of skills, experience and service levels.
This is the point of the process where you might also want to check vital issues with your potential provider – such as whether they are cyber essentials certified or understand their and your responsibilities for bookkeeping in line with money laundering legislation.
In particular, you should check that they hold the proper insurances. This should include Professional Indemnity, Public, Products and Employers’ Liability and Cyber and Data cover.
8. Know your deal-breakers
Before you approach any VA organisation we recommend that you make a list of five things that are non-negotiable. These can be qualities or skills, but they should be the things that are most important to you and your business. For example, it might be hugely important for the organisation that you work with to have all the necessary confidentiality and data protection compliance in place.
If you take these tips on board you could soon find yourself with your very own virtual assistant service to keep you on track and keep your business ticking over nicely while you focus on creating, networking and evolving. If there is a better reason for choosing a virtual assistant carefully and thoughtfully, we certainly can’t think of one!
If you’re looking for help choosing a virtual assistant to keep your business running smoothly we offer a free consultation to help you decide if our virtual assistant services would be right for your business. If you’d like to know more you call us on 0800 994 9016 or use our contact form in the menu above.