How to Kickoff Day 1 with Your Virtual Assistant

https://vaas.pro/blog/how-to-kickoff-day-1-with-your-virtual-assistant

You did it. You hired your first ever Virtual Assistant! Now the fun begins, right? But where and how do you start? Here’s a quick guide to day 1 with your virtual assistant to make sure you’re all geared up for success.

Set Expectations

This can’t be emphasized enough. Setting expectations with your Virtual Assistant is the single most important thing you can do to ensure a successful working relationship. This is done best via videoconference so that you are able to clearly relate what you expect from your virtual assistant. A few expectations to set upfront:

• Describe the hours (& timezone) that you’re expecting your virtual assistant to work.
• Describe the software, hardware, etc. that you will require your virtual assistant to use to complete their tasks.
• Describe the daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual tasks that your virtual assistant will need to execute.
• Describe the reporting your virtual assistant will need to complete (see below).
• Set up regular meetings with your virtual assistant (see below).

Establish a Reporting Method

Reporting will be your best friend in managing, tracking, and understanding exactly what your virtual assistant is and is not doing well. Consider the tasks that your virtual assistant will be executing and create a simple Google Sheet where your VA will track tasks on a daily basis. As you receive daily reporting from your virtual assistant, you’ll start to see patterns and behaviors that can be improved. A few reporting ideas when working with your virtual assistant:

• Treat your reporting sheets as living documents. Continually iterate, update, and improve upon the data that you’re collecting.
• More is better. It’s easier to stop tracking certain data points, then trying to retroactively populate new data points.
• Be consistent. Don’t hesitate to require daily, or even hourly, reporting from your virtual assistant. Consistency will improve the integrity of your data, producing more informed decision-making.

Create a Meeting Schedule

Meeting regularly with your virtual assistant is crucial to ensuring that your expectations and reporting requirements are being met. As you develop a working relationship with your virtual assistant, you may be able to eliminate some of your meetings. But to start, meet daily or weekly to make sure everything is smooth. These frequent meetings don’t need to be long. Here’s a few talking points you should consider:

• Reporting: Ask your virtual assistant about the data. Make sure they’re updating all data points and ask them how they’re interpreting the numbers.
• Tasks: Ask your virtual assistant for the ‘story behind the data’. Why are certain numbers the way they are? How can they be improved? Why are they able/unable to perform certain tasks?
• Improvement: Ask your virtual assistant for ways that you can improve. They’ll likely not want to tell you, but this will change as you develop more of a relationship. Be vulnerable and open to their feedback.

Get to Know Eachother

This is possibly the single most important thing you can do on day 1 with your virtual assistant. Get to know THEM. Get to know their family’s. Their likes. Their dislikes. Their hobbies. The foods they enjoy. The friends they hangout with. Their weekend/night-life. Develop a real relationship. If all goes well, you will be working with your virtual assistant for a long time. You’ll be meeting regularly and will talk about work A LOT. Make time early on to develop a relationship.

You and your virtual assistant will likely come from different cultural backgrounds. As a general rule, people work harder and more honestly for managers that they have a personal relationship with. This can’t be emphasized enough. Develop a relationship with your virtual assistant and continue to foster that relationship throughout your time together.