Tutorials Archives - Page 5 of 5

How are you from the last time you read my blog?

If you are new, welcome to my blog!

So, you have spoken with a virtual assistant or need to hire one and do not know where to start in implementing which or such task to your virtual assistant.

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I recommend starting out small with a task that is somewhat not hard to do. When I came across some clients who first came to me, they were not sure how to give me access to their information and were at times confused how I could do the task with not being there physically or a phone call away to help solve their problems.

There are options to show your VA what to do on your virtual task.

My personal favorite in instructing a virtual assistant and you can’t go wrong is doing this in a video if you have the time. If not, you can have a step-by-step PDF or Word document guide on how you like things to be done in a specific way.

Please note that because business is mostly online based and your virtual assistant might not get it the right way (or your way on the first attempt), it’s always best to start on a trial basis.

An example was when I got my first task as a virtual assistant, A client wanted me to send out emails for them on their behalf. That client was a bit wary of trusting me with their password.

What I had suggested was creating a temporary password for me to access. If you are not comfortable with that method, you can go as far as creating a new email and giving that virtual assistant access to do your task. This does pose the issue for informing all your clients of the new email address that is being used.

What I have recommended from working with my clients is using the LastPass vault, it manages your passwords and you are felt more secure as in some cases when the password is shared you do not have to even know the password.

However, when you have moved on from that step, how do you go about tracking the progress of your work you have assigned your virtual assistant is up to what you agreed on. You can have a look at my previous blog with Tools I recommend.

Want to be updated about your virtual task?

I normally use a project-based platform by the name of Asana for both my personal and my business tasks. This is an easier tool to keep track of the progress and this is if your virtual assistant uses this project based tool or any at all. If he or she does, then the VA can grant you access to their email of the task being done at each stage and how long it will take to complete. This, again, is if the VA has this in place and has agreed to this when the contract was signed.

When you have done a trial and you feel comfortable about hiring your virtual assistant full time or part time, and you have passed doing the video tutorial for the task to be done, you can outline a job description on what you expect from the task.

What to look out for when you hire your Virtual Assistant?

Most virtual assistants mainly do a consultation before agreeing to a task, which, in most cases, is not free. So it’s best to have this information in place to outline what it is you need to be done and if the VA will be the right fit for your business.

Another option you can use when you have hired your virtual assistant to do your task is allowing the VA access to such information that you may use on a day-to-day basis in your business.

If you use any social media platforms and you know it’s time-consuming to provide such passwords for each of the VAs, you can grant access to your VA via Dropbox, Google Drive, LastPass or any other platform similar to this that you will be using.

So now that you feel confident in delegating a particular task to your virtual assistant, please make sure that you have read over the contract between your virtual assistant and you now have a detailed description of the task in place to be completed successfully. Also, make sure before a consultation that you do have questions in place to ask your virtual assistant.

After the consultation and you have way passed the confidential stage of hiring and you have met your ideal VA, here are some things to look out for before signing a contract.

Now, that I have hired my first Virtual Assistant now what?

Confidentiality plays a big role on the online platform, so make sure any and all tasks are kept confidential. Secondly, you do not dictate your pay base on thinking that you have hired a virtual assistant as an employee; they are an independent contractor (that is why the contract is there). In most cases, this will be outlined in the contract that the VA provides to clarify what a VA means.

You both will need to agree on how you will pay the virtual assistant, either if it’s full or partial payment upfront or 50 percent upfront and the other half after completion.

Finally, if the VA offers to price for hourly and or packages, either both or only packages unless the VA has stated otherwise. This is another requirement that you must understand and be clear on hiring before hand.

Most of my suggestions are what I have experienced for myself and or was educated on by other virtual assistants before me. You can, however, tailor your tasks base on what the VA has agreed to do.

You will know what task to assign your VA once you have worked with that VA and you are comfortable with the end result of the work that was produced. The funny thing is that, most times, when you hire a VA and you are so pleased with the work, even the task that the VA does not do, you are happy for him or her to learn to do, but this is if your VA has the temperament to learn to do so or can recommend someone for you.

Your VA, in most cases, can find the additional support for you if he or she is unable to do so. But please check to see that what you need is something your VA can offer. If not, he or she can research this information for you.

It was nice of you to stop by.

Until then, happy hiring, and best wishes with your business.

Don’t forget to check the sidebar and footer of this website for awesome resources!

Photo Credit: Haute Stock

Your beginning will not always be your present situation.

My journey is not one of those moments where you will think that it was an easy and successful one. I came into the virtual assistant industry by accident. I will talk some more about this.

I am Julian, but I prefer to be called Juli. I am from Jamaica and I went to school and studied to be a Guidance Counsellor and also did some Data Entry courses during my time in college when I was studying for my degree.

Fast-forward a year later, graduated and getting ready for the workforce with no work. Yet another year passed with me volunteering at schools, staying online on social media, and still no job. I must say I love to watch TV and this is where I saw an advertisement for a boot camp on how to make money online.

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How my online journey started from a freelancing site.

I went to the boot camp, which introduced me and educated me vastly on how to make money online. I signed up to the Fiverr platform and Upwork (formerly known as Odesk) and choose to offer virtual assistant services because I did have some experience in Data Entry.

Little did I know that this is where my journey would begin. Fiverr, I must say, was where I had made the majority of my income when signing up; I was not as successful on Upwork, but I wanted to do more with my career and I was not planning on staying on a platform to make an income starting at $5.

Mind you, I know that Fiverr presents the opportunity to make more and to be successful, but this was only the tip of my iceberg on my journey and I did not want to solely depend on Fiverr because, even though it was my learning ground or school to be educated in this industry, I was getting more and more frustrated with the many issues that I was facing with the platform.

I will show you how I researched and learn.

I researched every day on different ways for me to earn. I even joined another platform to see if I could earn more than what I was earning now. That was not successful either. I came across groups and social media platforms such as Linkedin, Twitter, and Facebook, which was more than a graduate school in itself.

This is where I learned in groups that, as a virtual assistant, the potential is there to work and build relationships with your ideal clients, and of course to make more money.

Discovering myself on my journey.

The first thing on my journey that I discovered which I learned, was that coming into this industry, it’s imperative to have a website. Little did I know that this was only the beginning stage of this process; I thought that that’s all I needed until when I was in groups I saw other person’s pitching their services.

I signed up for almost everything just to be educated. Some seemed to be fruitful and some were just not for me, but what I did learn and appreciate from all the information that I gathered was that I learned each time when I signed up for a webinar.

Social media played a big part in my journey in this industry because I learned from others in various groups that I was in. When I needed support or a question to be answered, I did get that support.

Offer services that you love and outsource those that you don’t like!

I learned from day one to stick with services that I liked or preferred to do. What I mean is that tasks that were time-consuming and were not easy to manage, I stopped offering such services before it was something that I thought would make me leave the industry before I was ready to.

Another one was I did not want to be attracting the wrong types of clients that would not understand that this was something intended to be beneficial to both myself and for these clients receiving my best service.

As a small business owner myself, starting out your business, we tend to make the mistake of not hiring out for help from day one or putting in place measures that can assist us in the growth of our business.

We tend to not want to let go of the horns of the bull of our business because we think we can do it all.

Wrong! Misconception. We have to put measures in place; some of the time, we do not think of what will happen if you are unable to work tomorrow if an accident were to happen or you being sick for a day.

Mind you, we might not think these occurrences might happen, but how many of you have put in place a backup plan when this happens, because days like these when you will be unable to, your business and customers are still there and this is where a virtual assistant will come in, that will assist in getting the flow of your business growing.

Now I am at the stage where I will be working hard to meet those ideal clients and to deliver the quality to my clients. My journey is not yet done in this area; it’s only the beginning, but I am glad that I did start the race to do this business and I will continue to do so until I reach the finish line.

It was nice of you to stop by.

Until then, happy hiring, and best wishes with your business.

Don’t forget to check the sidebar and footer of this website for awesome resources!

Photo Credit: Haute Stock