White dog rose.
How to Hire a
Virtual Assistant for Startup Success
Brad Hines
In recent years, the idea of small business
owners using a virtual assistant to outsource
daily business tasks has gained popularity. But many
people don't know how to hire
or benefit from one. As someone who has successfully
hired a personal assistant
for my business as well as several virtual employees, here’s an overview
of the issues
involved in setting up and managing such relationships:
Determine if a virtual assistant will suit your business
needs.
First, figure out which tasks you would like to assign to
an assistant and if it’s cost-effective.
Do an analysis of your business activities over the
course of a day if not an entire week,
writing down the minor tasks that are taking
up time.
Don’t rule out anything as a task a virtual assistant
could not do.
While a United States-based virtual assistant can earn a
salary that can start at about $15 an hour {2014} (and those with a specialty
might command higher rates). Solid administrative-task
virtual assistants from abroad, though, can be secured
for as little as $3 to $6 an hour.
2. Understand the pros and cons of hiring a
freelancer from an agency.
It might be costlier pound for pound to hire a virtual assistant who's working for
an agency,
due to overhead costs, says Rich Pearson, senior vice president
of categories and geographies
at Elance-oDesk. (His company provides an online marketplace for
hiring freelancers
through the Elance.com and oDesk.com websites.) But an agency might arrange
for
an entrepreneur to use multiple assistants to smooth over gaps in availability
or in skill sets.
Listings of available freelancers on the Elance and oDesk
platforms include those who are paid by agencies and those who work
independently. The entrepreneur can also post a job listing.
Pearson says using a freelancer who's not on
contract with an agency can result in more personalized attention, given
that it's just that one person on the gig. An agency might rotate
in multiple virtual assistants for one assignment or pull one away at a
whim. The most dedicated personal assistants almost always are independent
freelancers with whom the entrepreneur
builds a relationship with (as opposed to those
freelancers hired through an agency),
Pearson says.
When deciding between choosing a virtual assistant who's
located in the United States
versus someone abroad, Pearson says, consider how
important is it for the person to be awake
while you work and how aware of American culture
you need the person to be.
3. Do prep work to create a great
job listing. When writing your well-edited, detailed job listing,
always put in a call to action that merits a response to see if the applicant
has read the description. For example, ask the applicant to provide
examples of his or her work.
There will be indications when a candidate seems
motivated. I found it particularly telling
one Saturday to receive a phone call from
Nairobi from Joan, who’s now my personal assistant, asking if she could be
interviewed right away (even though I had not yet had a chance
to look over all the messages from those who
responded to my ad).
4 Hiring the assistant. Go through the bids that
come in and create a list of the applicants
whose responses you like, read their reviews and then
line up interviews. A platform like
oDesk's can show an entrepreneur how a candidate scored on
an English proficiency exam
and how many jobs he or she has previously done. I
like oDesk for its ability to generate
a contract, monitor work and set up
a payment system.
A video conference interview with an applicant is a must
and will serve a few purposes:
It can reveal the person's grasp of English and the
setting that he or she will likely be working from -- and if it's an orderly
place from which to make a phone call on your behalf
and the applicant's overall demeanor (enthusiasm and ability
to think on his or her feet).
5. Managing the assistant. While the hiring of a
virtual personal assistant can free up your day,
the burden is on you to allocate tasks smartly and
effectively so that happens.
Generally speaking, the more specific you are in
explaining tasks, the better.
Ideally, as a result of good management, a virtual assistant will in time learn your work
style
and you will be able to give that person more responsibility and encourage more initiative taking.
Don’t hesitate to share with the
assistant Google Drive documents outlining the who, what,
where and when of daily tasks, including relevant rules,
permissions and passwords.
A Google search for “virtual assistant tools” reveals an
abundance of gadgets
that can be used by entrepreneurs who are open to
managing assistants on their own.
Online social-media entrepreneur Audrey Melnik of
ZootRock in San Francisco explained to me
how she hires and manages her virtual assistant. “We
use two tools," she writes in an email.
"The first is called Process Street that allows you
to set up a repeatable process,"
for the virtual assistant to run through each time. The
person checks off the steps
and add comments where appropriate. "The second is a
screen shot tool that takes images
of the [assistants'] screen regularly and tracks their
productive time so you can be clear on
what they are working on when and
capture evidence of them working the hours
they are charging you for.”
Encourage your assistant to offer you feedback, lending more
warmth to the remote-work arrangement. Assistants might not provide feedback
unless you ask,
yet their ideas are often spot-on given their proximity
to the work.
It will be up to you to decide whether to trust your
assistant with information like passwords
and other sensitive materials. Start out with small
things, such as granting access to social-media accounts. You may want to
consider having an assistant sign a nondisclosure agreement.
“Big things like the virtual assistant's booking your
vacation can come later," Pearson says.
"Training starts with trust, and that means small
things at first.”
When possible meet your virtual assistant at least once
in person and try to have a video conference at least quarterly. Ultimately, a
virtual assistant is not just another cog
in your business machine, but an employee and certainly a human.
So remember to
treat this person as such.
Editor's Note: This piece has been updated to
clarify that a virtual assistant in the United States
can earn a salary that starts at $15 an hour.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/235966
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