Before you dive in, let’s get a general overview of the game and learn about the ins and outs of the playing field.
Just like in sports, we need to begin with the fundamentals. Once you understand these principles, you can tailor your approach to streamline the process. And this is a process—one that should be followed step by step.
Here are the basic rules of the game:
1. Your virtual workers are people, not a program. Though communication with your virtual staff takes place via e-mail and web-based audio and/or video chat services like Skype, VAs still deserve the same respect you would give any human being. It’s in your best interest to understand each worker’s communication customs and to be aware of his or her cultural holidays and traditions.
2. Put quality in, get quality out. The quality of work you receive from virtual employees is proportional to the quality of the instructions they receive. Are your instructions clear and concise? Or are you giving them a jumbled mess of instructions and hoping they can connect the dots?
3. One size does not fit all. All VAs have strengths and weaknesses, but they may not want to tell you that. They want to please you and will try to figure out ways to do whatever you want. This is a double-edged sword. Take care to match the right VA to each of your needs. We’ll go into this in a lot more detail.
4. Super-VAs don’t exist. There is no one virtual assistant anywhere on the planet who can handle everything you need help with in your business. Think about it: When your roof is leaking, you don’t ask your electrician to pop around and fix it. You call a roofing expert to come over and do the necessary repairs. This is one of the biggest myths in virtual staffing so I will discuss this in more detail below, but bottom line: hire for the role, not for the task.
Now that you know the rules of the game, we can get to work!
Reality Check: The Myth of the Super-VA
The idea of a super-VA is the big kahuna—the one mistake that I see entrepreneurs who are getting started with outsourcing make over and over again. Read these words carefully: there’s no such thing as a super-VA. It drives me crazy when an entrepreneur sets out to find that one special VA who can do all of the work in his or her business. I can’t tell you how many requests we receive at Virtual Staff Finder from entrepreneurs who are looking for VAs who can handle all of the following tasks and more:
• update blog posts
• manage social media
• edit video
• transcribe audio
• create custom images and icons
• design and develop websites
• respond to customer support tickets
• research and recruit affiliates
• do Amazon shopping for birthday gifts for loved ones
There’s nothing wrong with trying to outsource a scattered group of tasks and projects, but a single VA is not your answer. As a business owner, I can relate to the multiple hats entrepreneurs need to wear in order to get things done. However, filling your business with more entrepreneurial types who also think that they can do it all is the last thing you should do. Your focus needs to shift from finding a super-VA to identifying the specific roles your business needs to fill.
Remember, empire-building equals team-building—and you have to identify the positions your team needs before you begin recruiting the players.
Introducing the General Virtual Assistant (GVA)
I’ve had the pleasure of speaking on stage and working with business owners from all around the world on the subject of virtual staffing and outsourcing. No matter where I am or who I’m working with, my basic message remains the same: Every entrepreneur needs a GVA!
Even though the super-VA doesn’t exist, the general virtual assistant is about as close to one as you can get. They can’t wear all of the different VA hats out there, but GVAs will help you run your life and maximize your productivity by freeing you of time-draining, repetitive tasks that no business owner should be handling. Your GVA is your sidekick. Batman had Robin. Sherlock Holmes had Watson. Hardy had Laurel. Michael Jordan had Scottie Pippen.
Working with a GVA is the first step to realizing the power of virtual staffing. Your GVA will immediately begin saving you time and allowing you to work on your business instead of being trapped working in it.
Are you struggling to stay up to date with or roll out the following types of tasks on a regular basis?
• researching competitors’ websites for lists of products and prices
• compiling a list of local events that you could sponsor or where you could exhibit
• combing your blog’s analytics to find out which pages or blog posts are receiving the most traffic
• keeping your social media channels updated and interesting for followers
• getting featured in local, national, and industry-related press
• transcribing your online videos and podcast episodes to use as future e-books and in info-graphics to promote your products and services
• keeping your calendar updated so you don’t miss an important golf date with your top client
Delegating these small tasks begins freeing up extra time for you each day. Ten minutes here and thirty minutes there can add up quickly. Delegating also gets rid of all those unresolved items you’re carrying around in your head. As David Allen points out in his book Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, this is one of the critical factors that will allow you to focus.
“Your conscious mind, like a computer screen, is a focusing tool, not a storage place,” he writes. “You can think about only two or three things at once. But the incomplete items are being stored in the short-term memory space. And as with RAM (random access memory), there’s limited capacity; there’s only so much ‘stuff’ you can store in there and still have that part of your brain functioning at a high level. Most people walk around with their RAM bursting at the seams.”
It’s crazy how many things you’re probably juggling in your head right now. But it’s stuff that needs to get done, right? So it has to go somewhere. This is where your superhero syndrome begins to kick in, leading you into thinking that working harder is the solution. But again, the real solution is not longer hours—it’s leverage.
As entrepreneurs, time is our most valuable commodity (MVC). Money will come and go, but once you’ve invested your time into something, that time is gone forever. It stands to reason that if there are any actions we can take as business owners to free up more time in our daily routines, we should take them.
Hiring and working with a GVA will help you do just that. Think of your GVA as a
