Hi everyone! Today I am bringing on my virtual assistant Savannah, and we're talking about what is a virtual assistant, how to let go and delegate tasks to a virtual assistant and what kind of tasks they can help you with on your business.
Rather listen?
Savannah, tell me more about your business and how it began and all that good stuff.
Hi, I'm Savannah! My business began in the middle of Covid, just like most people started their small business 2020. I started because I wanted to explore more of the online space of online businesses and be able to get more in touch with like my creative side. I really liked the idea of being a part of other people's businesses and being of help so I looked into how I could do that. And then I had a friend who started her own virtual assistant business around that time as well, and she kind of showed me the ropes and gave me a really good foundation to start with.
What are virtual assistants?
A virtual assistant is quite literally exactly what it sounds like, someone that can assist you in whatever it is that your business needs but virtually online. Whatever they can handle without needing to be in person. It's a really broad term and it's tailored to whatever the assistant or the business owner themselves wants to handle or wants to be a part of in someone else's business.
It's someone that you can bring onto your team and have them handle things that you might not want to handle or you might not have the expertise in handling
When do you think is the right time to hire a VA?
I think the best time to hire a VA is multiple things. 1. Acknowledging that you can't do everything alone and when you feel like you're overwhelmed and you are taking on too many things by yourself is probably the first indication. You want to grow your business and you just can't do it all yourself.
2. Being able to trust whoever you're bringing on to your business. When you're at a point when you feel like you can trust a stranger to come in and delegate things for you and trust that they know what they're doing.
3. Allowing someone else to handle aspects of your business that you don't feel like you're an expertise in.
When it comes to scaling your business, what would you say is the next step when hiring a VA?
1. Establishing what it is that you expect from your VA and yourself growing together. 2. Figuring out what roles you want them to take on within your business long term.
Ideally, you would want someone that you wanna work with long term because you want your business to grow.
Having a good foundation as to what you expect from a VA, how you want them to be a part of your business. Setting good groundwork of what they're going to be handling or what you would rather handle and just having a lot of open communication I think is really important.
What are the benefits of delegating tasks to a VA?
I think the best advice for when you are looking for a VA, don't be afraid to ask for past work or maybe past clientele that they've worked with. So you can get an idea of their expertise and who they work the best with.
You have to be able to let things go and allow this other person to handle xyz for you. And if it doesn't work out, you can always move on. But I think it's a lot of trial and error and you can't be afraid to do that trial and error. If you're not willing to test things out with someone that's essentially a stranger and someone fully online, it's going to be hard to scale your business at all.
That's usually the case with most things when you're bringing people onto your team, you're bringing someone completely new and you are having to trust their expertise with little to no experience with them. So I think the best way to go about it, if you're a little hesitant on bringing an assistant on to your business is asking for social proof and past work.
Don't be afraid to ask: 1. Can you show me more of like people that you work with or what do you like to do? 2. What do you enjoy doing?
3. What's your expertise?
That's a good way to cancel out specific relationships or building trust with that person and then you feel more comfortable with bringing them onto your business, 'cause it is your baby, your business. So I understand the hesitation.
What's the best way to effectively hand off a task to a virtual assistant?
I think giving as much information as possible is definitely the best way to go about it. So there's little room for confusion or questions.
I think the biggest misconceptions with hiring a VA is you might not realize that in the beginning it's going to be very collaborative because you're bringing on someone new into your business and they don't know the ropes right away. So you have to be open with being a little more hands on because they can't read your mind, they don't know the ins and outs of what you've already built. Someone from an outside perspective, acknowledging that they're coming in with fresh eyes. 1. Being willing to be collaborative and give as much information as possible
2. Think about what questions would they ask and then try to answer those questions before they have to.
The goal as a business owner is you want to be hands off and be able to give these tasks to the assistant, but in the beginning it's going to be a little more collaborative.
How can we gain trust with our VA?
1. Social proof
I think helps a lot of people. Seeing who someone has worked with before and seeing the results with their business or seeing what they did for this other business kind of helps put people at ease.
2. Starting off small
Start with small tasks like data entry if you're a little more hesitant on bringing in a stranger to your business.
3. Contracts Their like safety blanket. The legality of a partnership always makes people feel better, that there's some kind of like written form of "this is what I'm gonna do for you" and "this is what you should expect".
What kind of tasks would you say are easy to hand off?
Let's say we're talking about someone that needs help with social media...
1. Copy
2. SEO
3. Engagement
4. Small design adjustments
Make sure that you're checking over it before sending it off to a client if it involves your client work.
You could also take the overarching task, the big task and break it down into smaller steps and then we can move up the scale and then eventually get to the larger thing that you want to hand off, which is probably why you hired them in the first place.
So how can we create an empowering work environment for everyone involved?
I think a lot that comes with hiring a virtual assistant is they add an element of accountability into the business.
But you really want these three things:
1. Kindness
2. Good vibes within relationship. This is important to me.
3. Respect
You want your VA to care about your business almost as much as you do, at least. So I think having the element of accountability translates that well.
What tasks can a VA do and do you really think that the VA you're choosing really needs to be an expert in what you want out of them?
I think it really depends on their expertise. I know some VAs that really focus on marketing, project management, social media or some that just focus on administrative tasks. For example, email or client onboarding and offboarding
I definitely don't think that they have to be like an expert in the task. I think what's more important is that they understand you and your business more than being an expert in this task because how you as a business owner go about executing these tasks might be very unique to you. So you want someone that is able to understand your vision, understand your workflow, and then 99% of the time, I think that they would be able to execute whatever task that you're trying to delegate to them because they get you and your business. It's like a parallel to being able to do the thing that you want them to do because they get it, they get you and they get your business.
Of course, experience helps. You could ask them...
1. Have you done this thing before?
2. Are you comfortable doing this thing? I think also when it comes to delegating tasks, listening to your gut as a business owner. Are you getting along with this person? Do you like how they portray themselves virtually? Do you feel like they understand your business? And then go from there.
What can you do to choose the right VA?
I go about it as looking at it from a business owner's POV, right? A lot of times when I want to work with someone like me, as within my own business, if I'm trying to outsource something, then I will go about looking at how they portray themselves online.
If I vibe with it, if I feel like, oh, I really like their online presence that they're putting out there, I want to talk to them more. It's mostly because it's a projection of what I would like to portray. So if I see someone online that I'm like, oh I would love to make my audience feel how they're making me feel, then that's a good sign for me to want to work with them.
Really looking over everything that they're putting out, whether it's their website or just like their social media and seeing if you resonate with all those things.
You could be the best person ever, but if your Instagram is showing someone with like a very boho like 2012 vibe, I'm not even going to consider it. So I'm assuming that other people do the same.
What kind of questions should you ask when choosing a VA?
I think there's a lot of questions to be asked, honestly. But a few could be...
1. What kind of brands do you currently work with or have worked with in the past?
2. What do you enjoy doing? If you delegate something to someone that they enjoy doing, they're going to do it much better and faster.
3. What is it that you do now for others?
4. What do you do already that you're comfortable with? So I can be more selective as to what I'm handing off to you.
5. What does a realistic relationship look like?
6. How often do you expect like check-ins or how often can you check in?
Just kind of foundational things to have that solid relationship and to find out if you guys are in the same level of expectation in all those areas.
You should also be asking if you should delegate specific areas of your business all to a VA or if you should outsource to someone that's an expert in that specific thing that you're looking for. For example, if you're a big design agency and you need a junior designer, you probably shouldn't like go and ask a VA first. You should go and find someone that advertises themself as a junior designer. Go for someone that only focuses on that one thing, if that's like the main thing that you're wanting to outsource.
What can I expect when I hire a VA?
You can expect someone keeping you accountable. That's probably my favorite thing to mention because I enjoy that aspect of being a VA, keeping people accountable. I think it's just helpful especially when you're running a business, and it might be just you having someone that's giving you reminders or supporting you.
Someone to grow your business with I think is something else to expect if you do decide to keep this person, if you work well with this person. Doing that trial and error in the beginning I think is very worth it. Because you want your business and you want someone to care about it almost as much as you do, at least.
The last thing that I'll say that you can expect is a cheerleader. You want someone that you enjoy them as a person. Someone you might be friends with in real life, and you want them to support you and to cheer you on in your business.
The only way to grow your business or account, which everyone wants to do, is to outsource. You really can't do it all on your own, you know?
Where can people learn more about you? Are you taking on new clients? Where can people find you?
My Instagram is the best place to find me. I feel like it's a nice portfolio to start with. My Instagram is @bysavannahjewel. And on there you can also find my website and learn more about my services.
Currently I am starting to take more clients in April. I would love to answer any questions anybody has, feel free to send me a DM if you're hesitant about hiring on a VA. I get the hesitation, but I think it's worth it in the end if you're trying to grow your business.
Looking for a Virtual Assistant? Here's Savannah's Contact Details Instagram: @bysavannahjewel Website: www.bysavannahjewel.com
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