I convinced my boss I needed a VA
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In 2021, I hired a full-time assistant. The goal was to take many tasks and marketing initiatives off my plate. After ten months, my assistant decided it wasn’t the proper role and departed.
I was left with all my tasks back on my plate while also continuing to find new ROI strategies I no longer had time to implement. I concluded that a full-time role was not right, but instead, I thought about hiring a VA or virtual assistant to help me with day-to-day tasks.
I started reading more and more about how VAs allow more flexibility compared to part-time in-office team members. It’s a win-win for everyone.
At the time of writing this, my VA has worked with me for 3 weeks and I’ve already seen 10 hours of time returned to my weekly schedule!
How I knew I needed a VA
— PART 1 —
I want to share my journey of hiring a virtual assistant because I think there is a fundamental value that most people can use regardless of their industry.
How did I convince my boss I needed one?
My boss is my brother (more on that), and we have a very open line of communication regarding our workplace needs. So chatting with him about my VA's tasks was easy.
But I did have a plan I shared with him.
For a few months, I gathered 20-30 tasks I knew I could assign my VA and estimated the time it would save from my schedule. I only needed a part-time assistant to help with 15-20 hours of work a week.
What you should prepare to show your boss:
What tasks will be taken off your plate
How much time you anticipate freeing up
Share how you plan to manage your VA
Think about measurable successes you can share
I organized all this in a Monday.com board for easy consumption and eventually transitioned into my VA’s workboard (more on that next week!).
Once my brother said OK, it was time to get started.
Establishing The Tasks to a Standard
What do I mean? This was one of the most important steps along the way.
My goal was to standardize all of the tasks I was preparing to give to my VA, so there was ONE way it could be done - which would leave little room for error and easy training.
Unfortunately, you also have to plan that your VA role will be a rotating door - so by standardizing your tasks, you can easily pass them to the next person without disruption.
It took about 40-60 hours to standardize these tasks with both Loom videos and the Scribe guide, and I added them to my list on Monday for training.
Created A Standard Calendar
Because many of the tasks I was passing to my VA were repetitive, I created a Google Calendar with all the notifications and events copied from my calendar.
Along with the events on the calendar, I added the training document links so they could easily be tracked and seen while day-to-day tasks were going on.
The key here was to make this a calendar I owned, so I could share and add what was needed - keeping in mind future staff changes that may change in the future.
Where did I hire from?
Despite many VA agencies, I took a stab at hiring by posting something on Twitter to see where it went. If it didn’t work there, I planned to go on LinkedIn and eventually a job board like Indeed.
WARNING: If you post something about “virtual assistants” or “VA” on Twitter, you will in fact be inundated with many DM requests offering services.
So do it at your discretion.
After posting that I was in the market for one, I started getting connected to a few people on Twitter and emailed them for their resumes and experience.
Because I standardized my tasks, marketing experience was not required for this position, giving me a bigger pool of candidates.
With a bigger pool of candidates came more options and more budget-friendly options.
I started my interviews…
Part 2: coming next week…
Next week I’ll dive into more of the process of how I hired and what I expected, including:
The Interview Process
Factoring a Fair Hourly Rate
Organizing Tasks & Schedules
Measuring Success
Is a VA right for you?
Have questions about hiring a virtual assistant?
Feel free to comment below, and I would be happy to answer!