A lot of the time, things will go one of two ways:
- You want things off your plate so you start assigning a few things but you end up doing a lot yourself because ‘it’s just easier’ if you do (no judgement, I’ve done that too!)
- You fling that backlog at your VA and anything else you can think of.
Either way, what happens next is critical in deciding if this will be a worthwhile investment leading to positive outcomes for your business. Some of it will depend on the VA and their methods, and this article looks at some actions you can take to ensure you’re giving it your best shot.
Before we dig into it, there are a couple of important things to remember:
- Your VA is running their own business and will have other clients they look after too. While I have no doubt they’ll give your account the best they can, it probably won’t be possible for them to be respond to and action everything immediately. Sure, you will have urgent tasks from time to time so always be sure to communicate deadlines when setting tasks.
- You’ll need to be patient in the beginning. You’re probably super keen to get those pesky tasks off your plate but your VA will need a bit of time to get to know you, your business, and how you like things done. Be prepared to invest some time upfront to save time later.
Now, here are my tips to get the best out of working with your VA.
understand the tasks you’re assigning
The point of having a VA is that you no longer have to handle everything yourself but it’s important that you understand the tasks you’re outsourcing – what’s involved, how long it takes (roughly), what the outcome should be, and so on. There are a couple of reasons for this:
- It will help you train the VA for that task if you know what steps are involved
- You’ll be able to set reasonable expectations and deadlines
- You can assess if your VA is doing a good job!
set up systems for communication and task management
How will you assign tasks? How will you keep each other informed of your progress? How will your VA know when the task is due? How will you know when it’s done?
Your VA will likely have some guidelines about communicating with them, such as when they’re available, which are the best methods to communicate with them (email, Slack, Messenger, phone) and how to assign tasks. They might also have a preferred project/task management system – some popular ones are Asana and Trello but there are heaps out there. I would highly recommend using a software or system that allows you to assign tasks, give them due dates, and easily track how the tasks are progressing. This way everyone knows what’s happening, who’s doing what, and when it needs to be done by.
be open to training them in the beginning
This is a really important one that people often overlook – some business owners think that because a VA is experienced they should be able to throw anything her way and then it’s hands off. Spoiler alert: a good VA will ask you a lot of questions in the beginning, so be ready for this and make yourself available at the beginning and when new tasks are assigned.
This article by Akilah Pitts articulates how to set tasks for your VA and why they might ask questions. She writes,
You decide that [a blog post] is the perfect ‘starter’ project for your new VA and you assign it to her as follows:
“I need you to create a 1500 word blog post about why it’s important to have a morning routine to start the day. I want it to ready to go LIVE by next Friday. Thanks!”
Now, from this one assigned project, here’s just a short list of all the questions a VA could ask during the course of completing this project:
- Are there any specific points that you want me to cover?
- Are there any articles or sites that you want me to reference?
- Are there any quotes you want me to reference?
- Are there any articles or sites that you want me to reference?
- Do you want me to include any images/videos?
Read the other 30 possible questions here. Now odds are your VA won’t have that many questions but they will want to clarify some of the details of the project. This is a good sign because they want to make sure they do it right! Be prepared for it and open to answering their questions. As I said earlier, over time this will become more hands off for you but only if you invest that time in the beginning to help them get a comprehensive overview.
don’t be afraid to over-explain
Following on from point 3, when you’re assigning a task there’s no such thing as too much detail (almost). Because you’ve been doing these things yourself it’ll be second nature to you so try to take a moment and think through your usual process. This will inform your instructions to your VA. An example a task might be:
“I’m ready to promote this blog post on social media. Can you please:
- Write 4 different tweets with appropriate hashtags (or you might provide hashtags)
- Write 2 Facebook updates with a call to action
- Create 2 different Facebook graphics using black and white images, XYZ font, and have some yellow in them.
Send them to me for approval and once I sign off you can schedule them using Hootsuite – 1 Facebook post and 2 tweets for next week, and the remainder in the following week.”
You could provide more guidance but you’ll see there’s enough information there that your VA should be able to provide something that’s what you want, or at least pretty close.
Too much guidance would look like, “Can you please write an email (as me) to John asking him if he can meet with me on Wednesday at 4pm to discuss his social media strategy and determine next steps. Offer to meet at Local Cafe (or if he’d prefer somewhere else I can go to him). If he’s not available ask him to suggest 2 times and see if they’ll fit in my calendar. Thanks!”
In this case you’ve basically written the email so you might as well do it yourself when it’s that specific, unless there’s a reason it needs to be sent by your VA. If you just need to see John next week you could ask your VA to find 3 possible times in your calendar and contact John to arrange a meeting.
offer feedback and guidance
Part of keeping communication channels open is to offer feedback and guidance as your VA learns new tasks – good and constructive. A lot of people (me included!) don’t like confrontation so it can sometimes feel easier to say nothing when you’re unhappy. But that’s the fastest way to turn it into a negative experience for everyone!
If you’re not getting what you asked for, make sure you have been very clear on the task and encourage your VA to ask questions to make sure they understand. If you don’t like their work product, try to be constructive in your feedback – instead of “these graphics don’t look right” opt for “Can you please swap the yellow for blue and centre align the font?” Even if it feels vague to you it can be helpful – “There’s something about these that isn’t clicking for me. I’m not sure what it is but maybe you could try a less bulky font/different background image/different colours” is actually useful feedback.
And always try to give positive feedback when it’s due too! A simple “great job” or “I’m glad you’re here” goes a really long way.
