What to consider when hiring a VA

Are you a small business owner trying to run a successful business whilst wearing too many hats? Are you finding that you're spending hours on fiddly admin tasks and not what you love? Is your workload becoming overwhelming and you're working into the night trying to get it all done? Are there still many unchecked to-dos at the end of the week?

If so, you may consider hiring a Virtual Assistant to outsource tasks to so you can fall back in love with your business again.

Before you go rushing into passing your hats over, there are the following important things to consider:

What are you looking to outsource?

Do you have a rough idea of the amount of hours you'd like to outsource?

Is it a large scale project which may need the support and skillset of multiple VAs? Think about what skillset you'd need in order to match with the appropriate VA/s; we all have different specialisms, degrees and experience.

Is it an ad-hoc project or ongoing?

What are your goals for the task/s or project? It is really helpful to provide us with SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic/Relevant and Timely) goals so that we know exactly what you're aiming to achieve.

Do you have a budget?

Would you wish to pay a retainer or project fee rather than an hourly rate?

Do you have a timeframe for work to be completed by? Keep in mind that we may be juggling other client projects.

As we are self-employed, perhaps with family or personal commitments, we may not have the same working hours as our clients. We also may not work weekends or bank holidays. It is worth being transparent about availability at the beginning of the hiring process.

Last but not least, a Virtual Assistant works remotely and not usually from a client’s home or office. Office support could be arranged but please bear in mind that we may not be available on a 9-5 basis and as we are not employees, we may have other clients to support.

If you'd like to discuss anything else you should think about before taking on a VA, please feel free to contact me at jennifer.palmer@thecontemporarypa.co.uk