The 5 Biggest Objections To Hiring A Virtual Assistant

By Author: Donald Archer
Total Articles: 10
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We’ve been in business for over three years now, doing our clients’ admin on a per hour basis. Most of our tasks are completed virtually and we have 11 virtual assistants (VA’s) in our team.
“It’s one of the best business decisions I have ever made. Tricia, my assistant, has enabled me to focus on what I do best and less of what I either don’t do well or don’t enjoy.” Michael Hyatt, Author and speaker.

We discuss some of the main concerns new clients have when they decide to hire a VA.

1. I’m not sure which jobs to give her. Deciding on this point requires two steps:

1.1. Identify your strengths. This means literally writing down the 3 or 4 activities you do that are most important to your work. They will most likely be things that no-one else can do. For example, if you’re a doctor with your own practice this will include seeing patients and writing prescriptions.

1.2. Off-load everything else. The rest of your activities are open for delegation. For some ideas on the most typical jobs the VA’s at AdminAssist receive, click here.

Staying focused ...
... on your core business is key to increasing your impact and making more money.

2. I don’t know how many hours the work will take. You really won’t know how much time you’ll need until you have decided what you will have your VA do.

Take a few minutes to write down all the things that you would like to delegate. Now estimate how long each task will take based loosely on how much time you allocate for the same task.

Keep in mind though that a task won’t necessarily take your VA as long as it takes you. In most cases you will be pleasantly surprised to find that, once your VA is trained, she will be more efficient than you :)

And remember, the VA service also has a pretty good idea of the time certain tasks require and can help you to estimate.


3. How will I know whether my VA is really doing the work? How do you know if any of your employees are really doing their work? Like everything else, you just have to be intentional about managing them:
• Schedule weekly calls to make sure you are on the same page.

• Request status calls or reports

• Use Skype/Whatsapp for instant contact

• Evaluate her performance just like you evaluate any other employee, by the results she achieves.

• Include your VA on conference calls and invite them to your annual retreats and strategy meetings.

At AdminAssist our clients are welcome to request at any time an account of how their hours have been used. Our VA’s keep careful time-logs so that the information is available on demand.

4. I don’t want to commit to something before I try it. This is totally understandable and the main reason why we offer the Ad Hoc Hours option in addition to the package/retainer options. Ad Hoc Hours allow you to ‘test’ the arrangement for a month or two to see which communications routes work best, whether you and the VA are a match and on average how many hours the tasks require.

AdminAssist doesn’t just assign you a VA at random. Instead, we find out what you need and then go through a “matchmaking” process to match the VA’s strengths to your requirements.
A virtual relationship, just like any other though, takes commitment from both parties to work.

5. I’m not sure this will help me make more money. This is difficult for most clients to wrap their heads around, but think of it this way:

• Which business activities could you have been doing with the time you spent on admin?

• What is your time worth per hour? Could you have been busy making money in the time you used for admin?

• Hiring a VA is a less expensive and less risky than hiring a full-time employee.

• If your mind was less cluttered could you be busy working on planning and devising strategies for expanding your business instead?

• Would your life feel more valuable if you could have a few more hours to yourself – to spend on a hobby, going for a run or hanging out with your family?

Questions: Are you using the services of a VA? What are some of the concerns you had and how did you overcome them? What is the best thing about having a VA?

For more information visit us:- http://www.adminassist.co.za/