6 Steps To Knowing When (And How) To Hire Your 1st Virtual Assistant
I get this question asked a LOT. And I love it because it tells me that people are focusing on growing their business by outsourcing the tasks and things in their business that they no longer need to be doing - yah! Because when you can free up your time to work ON the business instead of always IN it, it means your business can grow.
Hiring your first virtual assistant (or known as VA) can be scary and a little nerve-wracking so I always recommend my students start small. There is also this limiting belief that you must be a full-time business owner to justify outsourcing to a VA vs doing it when you're in your full-time job and outsource.
I will tell you, it is NEVER too early to start outsourcing parts of your business that you don't know A) need to be doing and B) want to be doing, regardless if you're full, part, half time in your business.
It uses to take me on average 4.5 hours per podcast episode to produce from start to finish, now it is only about 60-90 minutes. Meaning I have saved myself on average 3 hours per podcast episode times 4 = 12 hours each month, just on that one task. Think about how many other tasks there are for you to outsource.
Back to outsourcing your work to a VA, there are some key elements and foundation that I always recommend students to do before bringing someone onto their team, this will help make the transition easier, smoother and more successful.
Step 1 - Identify where to start outsourcing in your business?
If you're just starting to outsource, I recommend keeping it simple. What are some easy, repetitive tasks that you find yourself doing, that you then can outsource to someone? This could be graphic creation, proofreading, scheduling social media, sending email to follow-ups, podcast production, you name it.
Step 2 - Create a workflow (process)
After you've decided what it is that you want to outsource, grab a sheet of paper and list out all the steps that go into that one task. Don't worry about getting it in perfect order because after you write out all the steps, you'll go back and put them in order. You want to be as specific as possible with this step. Let's say it is podcast production: you have everything from graphics, but where will they find the photos of the guest, title of the show, template for graphics, do you want them to name the file a certain way, where will they save/upload the graphic? Be as specific as possible. What are ALL the steps that go into producing a podcast episode?
Step 3 - Identify and create template opportunities and automation.
Once you create the workflow, the process, you'll then want to identify anything that can be automated and that needs a template. In this case of the podcast graphic, you'd probably want to create a template in Canva and store it under TEAM. That way whoever you outsource it to doesn't need to re-create the graphic every time. When it comes to automation there might not be anything that needs to be automated when it comes to creating graphics but in other cases, you can automate things in Asana (which I love) that then allow you a set it and forget it attitude.
Step 4 - Decide what you want to be outsourced.
Going with the podcast production example, maybe you identify a great place to start outsourcing is the graphics.
Step 5 - Create necessary training videos.
This looks like you recording videos of everything you do and storing them in a place that is easily accessible to your virtual assistant(s). I can't tell you how much time and energy doing this has saved me when it comes to outsourcing and onboarding new VA's.
Step 6 - Find your VA
Think about the qualities you want someone to have that can create graphics.
Visit Fiverr, Upwork, Facebook groups and post Job opportunities.
The three main tools I use to help manage projects with my VA's and communicate are Asana, Loom, and Slack.
If you're interested in learning more about how to outsource and scale your growing business, you can get on the waitlist for my signature course, Scale Your Way. Head to www.shediditherwaypodcast.com/scale your way.
In this course, I teach you the exact steps to setting up your business hub using Asana, teams to create, how to transfer your workflow, templates to Asana so that you can leverage the power of automation and the strategies to finding the right virtual assistant for you and your business.
I hope you enjoyed today's blogpost episode, please screenshot and tag me @shediditherway on IG, let me know what you think and if you haven't done so yet, I'd so so appreciate a review on iTunes. It takes less than 3 minutes and is so incredibly helpful.
Start doing it your way!
