Want To Know The Right Virtual Assistant For Your Business?

As an entrepreneur, if you want to grow your business smarter, You need to learn how to delegate first. And that’s what a Virtual Assistant can do for you. You can never wear two or more hats at the same time. You can hardly master a variety of tasks that your business is asking for. You need help somehow or the other.

Whenever you are ready to hire your Virtual Assistant. Have these following questions answered by You first.

1. What is your business management style?

2. How do you want to communicate with your VA?

3. How do you organize your things?

4. What is your budget for your VA?

5. How do you see your business growing with your VA?

And now that you are ready to take a plunge and hire your desired Virtual Assistant. The following are great qualifications should a Virtual Assistant have.

1. Honest

An honest virtual assistant does a lot of tasks. These tasks may need handling sensitive information. From managing your email to your personal information. This is including your credit card numbers in booking your trip online etc.

It’s important that your Virtual Assistant shows the importance of honesty during the interview process. Ask them how they handle sensitive information and call references to vet them before making a hire.

2. Reliable

Even though you are hiring a virtual assistant to handle repetitive tasks. Hiring someone reliable will ensure you don’t have to ever worry about tasks getting completed on time.

If you don’t hire someone reliable, you’ll end up doing extra work yourself and having a virtual assistant may be more of a headache than it’s worth.

3. Attention to Detail

A great virtual assistant will have an astute attention to detail. Virtual assistants often interact with clients, handle important booking tasks, and answer emails. You want someone who takes the extra time to look for and correct mistakes. And someone who goes the extra mile to make sure every detail is sorted out and right.

Of course, every human makes little mistakes here and there. But when you hire someone who is accurate with the details, you won’t have to go back and recheck work.

4. Full of Ideas.

A Virtual Assistant with full of ideas is for keeps. We never stop learning and turn these ideas into revenue!

5. Batching Things.

I know that everybody knows about multitasking. But learning the art of Batching. You can focus more on doing on a single task. Thru batching you reduce the number of times that you switch between tasks. This saves time while improves concentration and productivity.

6. Good at the Time Management

As mentioned before, virtual assistants have a lot of work on their plate. As such, it’s vital a virtual assistant is good at time management. They need to be able to juggle several tasks and ensure they get done day-in and day-out.

A good virtual assistant will naturally be good with time management. But a better virtual assistant will be open to using time management software. They will also review time management reporting tools to see how they can increase productivity.

What about the skills that your VA should have? Here are the necessary skills of a Virtual Assistant.

1. Excellent Communication Skills

Virtual assistants must communicate with you and your clients on the daily. This means they must have great natural communication skills. This includes knowing how to talk to people as well as being able to communicate a message via phone call, text, chat, or email. When hiring a virtual assistant, make sure they can communicate well using all these various formats.

Communication also extends to presenting ideas on how to stay in touch. This may include a weekly phone call, updates every Monday, or any unique ideas they have that help you touch base.

Computer Skills

Since you are hiring an assistant to work online, they must have great computer skills. This includes the ability to type well. A virtual assistant should be able to at least type 30 WPM in English.

They should also be good at navigating the internet. And familiar with top project management and task management software programs. They should also be familiar with top scheduling calendars, email programs, video conferencing. Also chat tools and any programs that are specific to your industry.

Internet Research Skills

A virtual assistant that knows how to navigate the internet is worth their weight in gold. Many virtual assistants have the tools they know how to use. But an awesome virtual assistant will branch out and find the best tools, the best deals, and new approaches to completing work.

When hiring a virtual assistant, ask about their internet research skills and for an example of how they have saved the previous client money. Or time by finding a new resource on the internet.

Familiarity With Top Project Management Tools

If you want to run your business operations smoothly, then you’ll use a top project management program. You may use something like Asana, Basecamp, Trello, or CoSchedule, for example. A great virtual assistant will have excellent skill in some of these tools. Or at least the ability to navigate and learn whichever project management tool your firm uses.

When you interview your potential virtual assistant, ask them what project management tools they already know how to use. Which ones they are familiar with on a basic level, and how they go about learning to navigate a new system.

Planning and Scheduling Skills

One of the most important tasks of a virtual assistant is planning, managing tasks and schedules. You’ll need a virtual assistant who knows how to make things work. And can maximize your time to fit more work into an already tight schedule.

A good virtual assistant will do this quickly and efficiently. They will also be able to use top tools, set automated schedule notifications. And reorganize your schedule at the drop of a hat.