A friend asked me for advice on hiring a virtual aassistant to "delegate some of the mundane."
This "Horse with a barn for sale", asked me to be his assistant to help sell his barn. Then later on the trip, he had sent word to his cousins to have me help them sell their barns too!
Having a virtual assistant is a whole new level of responsibility!
Have you realized that part of your responsibility will be to help your Virtual Assistant grow in their skills? The best virtual assistant relationships include a willingness to teach, and a willingness to learn.
I have a daily target for helping my Virtual Assistant grow. In fact, I refer to him as my "Very Important Assistant".
Daily I try to compliment my VIA. I remind him, and prod him. Unfortunately, sometimes he is too scattered with his personal life, and too distracted by politics. "If it is worth doing in politics, politics is awash with money to pay you to do it, no reason to be poor as a church mouse if your head is going to be in politics all day." My advice to a former client. I digress.....
But I mention this mainly just to remind: Don't underestimate the burden of managing any kind of offsite VA.
How can you best manage your virtual assistant:
* First: Have your own well groomed list of tasks, and carefully focused daily targets. Simpleology is a great tool for this task.
* Second: Find your virtual assistant "small, win big" things to do at first
* Third: Test your Virtual Assistant on these smaller tasks before you really depend on them.
* Fourth: if something is a critical path, don't be afraid to do the item yourself, with a quick "just good enough" solution, and then let your VA know what you did and that you couldn't wait. If possible let them continue to complete the task from your guidance, especially if the task is part of teaching them a key new skill, or giving them a chance to demonstrate their ability to do it better than your quick off the cuff "good enough" solution.....
One of my mentors, Mark Joyner, had other great ideas on hiring on a recent mentoring call for an incredible mentoring group I am in. In my notes about what Mark said, I titled that section "10x'ing your results on hiring".
My friend is in the same group, so I referred him to check out the calls, and also to look at my notes, for the call, that I share freely with that group.
UPDATE: Case study Of Point #4: My VIA volunteered to show me how well he could do a funnel, to partner with me in getting my friends and customers to sign up for the next One Funnel Away 30 Day Challenge. I thought "fabulous!", and I immediately offered to split the proceeds from using his funnel to sell to my customers. A commission on the results of his work seems like a great way to align our interests..... As a lead in to his funnel, I wrote my "Fun With Funnels" article to share three key new ways of thinking that the class taught me.... I sent him the article, ready for links to the funnel he promised me.... His life has some things going on, and I understand, but this next class is not going to wait for our lives to happen, and I will be visiting many of my existing customers this week. I need to get them in the next class with me ASAP..... So, I went ahead and added a list of benefits, Russell's offer stack for the challenge, Russell's (likely well A/B tested) order buttons, and I just jumped straight to my affiliate link for class signup. No time to wait for my VIA's funnel. I ended up producing a much more complete script for the funnel than I wanted to do, but it is done "good enough". It would be much better as a funnel, it could include order bumps, and OTOs that is not easy to do on a single article on my own site, but I needed a good enough solution now.... So I sent that to my VIA, and I am still letting my VIA have the chance to perform his mission, for these reasons: 1) I need him to get comfortable with Click Funnels, I am convinced it is worth using as a key element of my businesses. 2) If he isn't as skilled as he claims, i want to give him the chance to learn this skill. 3) If I am going to depend on him to write funnels for others, I have to start with eating my own dog food, that is, I need to use his services first. 4) Let's see if he can follow the script I gave him, and even improve on it. 5) There will be more funnel classes in the future, I can still use his funnel later, and split that revenue..... I hope he succeeds. But with his help, or not, my starship has to sail to the next quadrant. That is my responsibility, as an Admiral, continue to execute on my mission, while hoping to train more of my people to be captains of their own starships in my fleet.
Would you like to read the book I wrote about "How to 10x The Results From Your Hiring"? I have worked with teams all over the world, and with managing onsite professionals, and even prima donnas! I wrote this book with the help of my mentors, some of the most experienced in the sales world with many successful startups under their belts. I share the advice they gave, much of which I wish I knew back then.
Please ask me how to get my book on getting the most from your hiring, virtual, or otherwise.
I haven't sold his barn yet, but this horse is very pleased with all the fame he has now from my selling his framed picture all across the nation!
He wants you to check out my online stores listed below for your very own beautiful prints to inspire you to your goals.
Sandy loves her framed print of her new horse friend, and Charles loves the beautiful aerial print of his home! When Sandy saw it, her eyes lit up, and she exclaimed "Wow, I had no real idea the size of our home before this!"
I love when my customers eyes grow wide when they see their house as I see their house from the air!
Experience some more of what I see in my two sites below.
One of my online stores is at Pic-Fair. You can buy some of my most popular scenes, and even license your own use of the pictures.
Pic-Time offers an incredible set of inspirational and motivational sayings available as stunning wall art. Also wallet sized prints available for sharing.