After all the scouting, interviewing, and preparing for a virtual assistant, you’ve finally made it to your first day with your virtual assistant. You might be excited to start your day with your virtual assistant, but let’s make sure that your first day goes smoothly. Here’s a list of things that you should do to ensure that your first day goes according to plan. Make sure your contracts are all signed Before you start working with your virtual assistant, you have to make sure you’re legally covered. If you and your virtual assistant haven’t agreed on the terms or the scope of work, you need to go over that through…
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Software And Tools To Manage Your Virtual Assistant
There are several tools and software that can make your life easier when working with a virtual assistant. Today, we’re going to cover some tools that you can use with your virtual assistant to make sure communication is flowing and everyone is on the same page. Some of these tools are essential, especially if you’re working with multiple virtual assistants at once. LastPass LastPass is a tool that allows you to store your sensitive information, including your passwords and your credit card information. The nice thing about LastPass is that you can put whatever information in here that you’d like and send it directly to your virtual assistant’s LastPass account.…
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Your Contract When Hiring A Virtual Assistant
Now that you’re getting close to hiring a virtual assistant, you have to consider the legalities around hiring a virtual assistant. Most importantly, you’ll need your contract, W-9, and any other papers your company wants your virtual assistant to sign. In today’s blog post, we’ll go over the importance of each document. General Contract You can incorporate everything, including the non-compete and the nondisclosure agreements, into your general contract, though some businesses decide to keep them separate. Before drafting up your legal contract with your virtual assistant, be sure to differentiate between whether your VA is an employee or an independent contractor. This post will cover hiring an independent contractor.…
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Knowing The Limitations Of Your Virtual Assistant
Hiring a virtual assistant can be exciting because they work so many moving parts of your business, but it’s worth to keep in mind that virtual assistants still come with limitations. Time and availability Unless you’re paying your virtual assistant a full-time wage, they’re most likely not going to be watching their inbox and working on your business all the time. They are also likely to have other clients to be able to afford a full-time income, so if you need emergency tasks done, they may not always be available. It’s important that you discuss office hours with your virtual assistant so you know when they are available for work.…
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Virtual Assistance Agencies VS. Freelance Virtual Assistants
Hiring from a virtual assistance agency or hiring an independent (freelance) virtual assistant is a choice you’ll have to make as a business owner. There are pros and cons to each choice, so let’s go over the difference between hiring from a virtual assistance agency or hiring a freelance virtual assistant. What are you looking for in a virtual assistant? Before choosing between an agency or a freelancer, you have to figure out what you want from your virtual assistant. Are you looking for someone that you can train to do tasks specifically how you do them? Do you want someone who can jump right into your business and take…
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Best Places To Find A Virtual Assistant
There are hundreds of thousands of virtual assistants in the market right now. You’ll be overwhelmed trying to filter through all of them in order to find the perfect virtual assistant for yourself. Right now, there are 5,000 virtual assistants on Upwork, 74,000 virtual assistants on Guru, 26,000 virtual assistants on Freelancer, and 5,000 virtual assistants on PeoplePerHour, according to The Week. Note that these statistics don’t factor in independent virtual assistants who work for themselves or for private agencies. You have a lot of choices. Hiring through a freelancing platform You can start hiring a virtual assistant through a freelancer platform, such as Upwork or PeoplePerHour. The positive side…
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How To Interview A Virtual Assistant?
Before hiring your first virtual assistant, you might want to interview all of your candidates. Hiring a virtual assistant is like employing someone for your business (whether you’re hiring an independent contractor or an actual employee) so don’t skip the interview process. PSI Select International says that the interview should confirm two things: Whether the candidate can successfully do the job Whether the candidate has the motivation to be a part of your business When you’re hiring someone to handle a portion of your business, doing the job is never enough. Your virtual assistant should be passionate about your business and even feel excited about working with you. You’ll find…
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Best Questions To Ask A Virtual Assistant During An Interview
Now that you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant, it’s important that you ask them the right questions during the interview process. Below is a list of questions that you can ask your potential virtual assistant. Be sure to include questions that are specific to the tasks that you are hiring for and questions related to your business. Why did you become a virtual assistant? Your virtual assistant is a human being. Asking this question gives you an idea of what your virtual assistant’s experiences are and what they may feel comfortable sharing with you. It may be a red flag if your virtual assistant seems closed off or doesn’t…
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Background Check For Virtual Assistant
Doing a background check for a virtual assistant is a lot different than doing a background check of a potential employee. Paying for a full credit check, criminal records check, etc. is nearly unheard of in the virtual assistance space, especially if they’re not going to be a full-time employee in your business. If you try to get too in-depth with asking a virtual assistant for personal information, the virtual assistant might get scared off. There are lots of job scams out there that pose as “asking for a background check” but are trying to get personal information out of the virtual assistant and eventually rip them off. So when…
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When Is The Best Time To Hire A Virtual Assistant?
It’s ironic that I’d be writing this blog post on the best time to hire a virtual assistant when I’m working with a client who hired me before the business idea fully materialized. That alone should be the answer to the question: The best time to hire a virtual assistant is whenever you want to. Don’t worry; I’ll go more in-depth with this post. There are several ways to gauge whether you’re ready to hire a virtual assistant. When your business starts overflowing Your business might have started as a one-person show. You were able to juggle every hat that your company needed, from bookkeeper to customer support specialist. You…
