So a friend of yours just fired his VA. Naturally, you are curious to know about whatever went wrong. What did the VA do? Is it only because the VA failed to deliver the work? Whatever makes anyone quit on their VAs? Intrigued to learn the common reasons why business owners decide to let go of their VAs? Hiring an offshore staff to manage some tasks for your business could be a daunting task. When some choose to move on with another VA who is better than the last one that they fired, most people who got burned due to bad experience simply decide to throw the towel and give up. Because we are an outsourcing company and we want to help our fellow business owners navigate this often trickypath of outsourcing or hiring an offshore staff, please watch this video from Charley Valher as he shares some interesting and perhaps surprising points that you need to consider when you decide to work with a VA. Or, check out the video below:
Most common mistakes people make with their VA and outsourcing and How to avoid them:
1. Expectations
A lot of people get excited with the idea of hiring a virtual assistant or even just hiring a team member in general. What’s funny is that they are expecting an automatic clone of themselves, expecting someone who can do everything just like they do. I’m sorry to burst your bubble but such expectation isn’t just the case, at least not at the first few days or weeks working with a VA. No one has the same path as you, same education or the same training as you, and that’s what makes us all unique. The great thing about that though is that someone else can have a very different education and experience and that can actually work to your advantage and become an asset to your business. For instance in my case, I’m not very good with design but when I work with someone who has design experience, then being able to add that with me allows me to create some really cool things. So when we hire a VA, let us not expect an instant clone but rather a staff with a different set of skills, someone whom we can train up to be really effective working for your business.
2. Not allowing time to train and integrateI think this probably is one of the biggest factor why outsourced Virtual Assistants fail. The lack of time to train and to shape up into staff whom your business needs. Implementing systems or procedures to train them up into the business is important when working with VAs as these systems will guide them on how to work at their best. They usually come with a skill set and then we just kind of expect them to find their way. Well, that is a huge mistake because the thing is, it doesn’t matter if your VA is 50% effective or 100% effective because you are paying the same rate per hour. So why not make the most use out of it? Yes, it’s definitely a good idea to have them follow systems and procedures when working on some tasks. That way, the VA can do really well.
3. Lack of communicationIf you’re a business owner who’s got several team members, it’s really important to get your VA to communicate with all your team members. In the beginning, it will really take time. The first 30 days will probably be the central time to spend on familiarising your VA to some training systems and procedures so that they can pick up more information and become one of your team in no time.
4. Poor task descriptionsThis is an absolute cracker. You can’t just use only skype in an online work. You really need a project management system or way of keeping records of what tasks you are doing or what you’re going to assign to your VA. In the beginning, you need to be extra descriptive. Sit there and make sure you are putting out the descriptions and details like the logins, steps on how to get through it, and what outcome or result are you looking to see in the end result. You can use ScreenFlow, or SnagIt or CamTasia where you can record a screencast video of instructions for the task, rather than just doing texts. You can also do a video screen share where you can talk to your VA about tasks and show him or her how you want things done. This is a fantastic option for making sure that your VA will get things done quickly the first time around.
5. Lack of planningThis is really an interesting one and I’m going to break it down a little bit here. As a business, you probably have goals and you probably have things that you’re trying to achieve. To give you a good example: if I have an e-commerce business and I sell things and my aim is to grow the store by 50% over the next 12 months, which is a really good goal, what are the things that are going to happen during that time? There’s a good chance that you’re going to have to process 50% more orders, which means 50% more support tickets or questions coming in. So you will want to have a VA trained up and planned into that role so that with this load increases, you’ve got somebody there who’s going to handle them. The worst thing you can do is not taking in consideration with your planning what your VA is currently doing. If you got them focused on an area that isn’t going to grow in your business, then it could prevent you from getting the most out of them. So have a think about where you are headed and the things that are coming up and take the time to do some planning on top of where you’re headed.
6. Not asking for helpAs a business owner, I’m sure we’ve all been to this point where everyone expects you to have the answers and that builds something into us where we often get scared to ask for help or not know things. The truth is a lot of people think they know how to work with the VA. They think they know how to run a virtual team. I looked and I can see it’s terrible. But their ego and the fact they think they know what they’re doing, stops them from asking for help. So when it comes down to it, sometimes we just have to go. “
All right, someone is doing better than me and I want to know how” and we grow. So what I would encourage my friend to do in the future is for them to know to go and ask for help. Let me show you how I’m doing it so you can follow that same path. For anyone out there that does have a virtual assistant or thinking about getting a virtual assistant that’s what Outsourcing Angel’s here for. That’s what makes us different as you can ask for that support and help in getting your team running well and getting all the doing, where the work should be. So if you have any questions please leave a comment below. If you want to talk to me directly or any of the outsourcing angel team please
contact us. We are here to help. This is the type of stuff we do, day in and day out! ar more from you soon!
