The virtual assistant business was growing rapidly before Covid-19, and like other remote work–enabling businesses, it accelerated during the pandemic. There are lots of virtual assistant companies offering admins for hire, as well as freelancers working for themselves and getting business through multiple freelancing platforms.

Why the boom? Without an office, just about every role is now remote, so the barrier of geography is less of a consideration when accessing help with everything from software development to executive admins. Also, virtual assistants can be hired on-demand for specific tasks and in an uncertain economy, the model offers a lot of flexibility for executives that need part-time support. 

Three ways to engage a virtual assistant: 

1. Hire a freelancer. 
2. Hire a contractor through a virtual assistant agency. 
3. Use a managed service provider that hires virtual assistants and manages them for you. 

There are pros and cons to each model, and with each model, there is risk. Any hire, full or part-time, has financial and time-based risks. If you hire someone and they don’t work out, you’ve lost time and money.  

1. What will they do? 

This is really a question to ask yourself, but it’s important. Before engaging a virtual assistant freelancer or company, you should be clear on what you want the assistant to do. This may sound obvious, but you might be surprised how many entrepreneurs don’t really know how much time they spend on tasks, and how hard it is for them to get what’s in their head delegated to someone else. Be specific because lack of clarity can quickly lead to miscommunication and unmet expectations. Be specific about the tasks and outcomes you expect. Typical tasks virtual assistants do are: 

• Scheduling meetings and calls 
• Calendar management 
• Email correspondence 
• Light bookkeeping 
• Sales follow-up 
• Travel planning 
• Expense accounts 
• Invoicing and payment processing 

Note that some of these tasks involve contact with customers, which will mean you want a level of professionalism that matches your brand. Outcomes mean how much time you expect each task to take on a daily or weekly basis.  

2. How are they trained and onboarded? 

Knowing if a virtual assistant is qualified and trained to do the work you need can be a challenge, especially with freelancers. There is no degree or credential to validate skills. You need to know: 

• Do they have experience with your tools? 
• Can they get up to speed on your processes?  
• Can they help you get what’s in your head into theirs? 

With freelancers, you take their word for it. Maybe they have references. Some virtual assistant agencies are little more than matchmakers, handing you a stack of resumes to choose from, but they may have done some due diligence for you. Managed service providers hire, train, and manage the virtual assistant providers and bear most of the risk for the quality of the service. The managers onboard the virtual assistant onto your tools prior to the engagement, so they show up ready to work on day one.  

3. Who manages them? 

One thing clients don’t always think about in hiring a virtual assistant is the amount of management it will require. Are you looking for more people to manage? This is an important question as the reason you’re looking for a virtual assistant is to make your life easier. You’re looking for someone you can trust to be your mini-me. You need to think about how much added management burden you want to bear. If you’re comfortable taking on new staff, a freelancer or agency might work if you find the right person. A managed service provider, as the name implies, does the performance management on your behalf. You give feedback to the account manager, and the account manager coaches the virtual assistant behind the scenes. 

4. What happens if they quit? 

The nature of part-time work is that the workers are often: 

• Not always reliable. 
• Always looking for better opportunities. 
• Serving other clients that might be a higher priority. 

We’ve all heard of (or experienced) the disappearing freelancer or contractor. They vanish and take your time and money with them. The risk is especially high with freelancers. Agencies can have turnover too, and the contractors they hire may have clients through other agencies or work as freelancers on the side. Managed services, on the other hand, mitigate this risk. Managers document all processes and train back-up assistants that can step in if your primary assistant sick, on vacation, or moves on.

5. What are their retention rates for assistants and clients? 

The first four questions have to do with how the virtual assistant company or freelancer delivers their services. This question has to do with the quality of the service they deliver as well as the quality of the experience they provide for their virtual assistants.  

• A high retention rate of clients is one of the strongest indicators available of the quality of service delivered. 
• A high retention rate of virtual assistants speaks to the value the business offers its employees or contractors.  

High turnover rates are bad in basketball and bad in business.  

6. What About Price? 

The price of a virtual assistant usually boils down to an hourly rate. Like many services, you need to look beyond the number to the value you’ll get for what you pay for. For example, if one provider costs more but can take more off your plate, it might be worth the extra money. Also, you need to look at additional expenses you might incur such as: 

• Computer 
• Software 
• Training 
• Payroll taxes 
• Your time training and managing 

7. What is your security policy? 

In the age of cyberthreats, you also need to consider the security of a virtual assistant’s hardware and software. Independent contractors and freelancers typically don’t have business-grade security systems. Some businesses, like healthcare and financial services, have strict security requirements. There are three areas of security to address: 

• Network security—is the assistant’s network secure? 
• Device security—if you provide a company device or not, what happens if the computer is lost, or the assistant disappears? 
• Human security—does the company or do you do background checks and have confidentiality agreements? 

What Kind of Relationship Do You Want? 

Ultimately how you engage a virtual assistant has a lot to do with the kind of relationship you want. Is it a short-term assignment for some not-so-important projects that you need to get done? Then a freelancer might be fine. Are you looking for long-term help from someone who will add increasing value to your team? You should look for a virtual assistant company that is aligned with that goal. Managed virtual assistant services are built to acquire and grow institutional knowledge about the businesses they serve, and to scale as needs and capabilities grow. 

Written by our partners at Prialto.

Read more on their services and how they can help you by checking out our review page here!

Looking for VA services? Schedule a free consultation call!

5 Daily Tasks a Virtual Assistant Can Do for You

There’s a great Black Mirror episode called White Christmas, which, besides the general plotline, describes the VA technology of the future. 

Basically, a company created clones of every client and then made them smaller and put them into a VA device, from which they would do their virtual assistant tasks: get their hosts breakfast, check their daily schedule, etc. 

In this episode, the VA technology looks very cruel and, honestly, even a bit scary since the clones were physically and mentally forced to do their job. 

Luckily, the real virtual assistant technology is not this inhumane, even though it’s not as developed. However, it still can make your day easier and help you manage everything on time by doing key daily tasks that usually take you some time to complete. 

What are these tasks? 

Let’s take a look. 

1. Administrative Tasks

First and foremost, you can use a virtual assistant to get your daily administrative tasks in order. A virtual assistant can easily help you sort out:

• Emails and correspondence. Email is one of the most popular means of communication, and each of us receives several emails a day. That’s why it can be quite tiring to go through each of them. A virtual assistant can manage that for you and even send follow-ups to the emails that you’ve sent earlier. 
• Contact information. If you have dozens of contacts in your contact list, it will take you some time to retrieve the necessary information and make a call or send a message. A voice assistant can get you any contact information in seconds and also can retrieve contact information from social platforms. 
• Schedule. Having a voice assistant managing your schedule is a great way to do everything on time and make sure you don’t miss any meetings. 
• Finances and invoicing. Since a virtual assistant has access to your documents, it can easily send invoices and manage your financial information in general. 

See VA companies that can help you in this field here.

Having a virtual assistant can also be of great help for project managers who have to follow strict deadlines and need to make sure everything is done on time. Virtual assistants can set reminders and send notifications to make sure that everything is going as planned. 

2. Daily Social Media Checks

Routine social media checks in the morning can take a lot of time, especially if you are an entrepreneur, and staying active on social media is important for creating more awareness for your brand. 

If you recognize yourself here, using a personal virtual assistant can be a good solution for you. An assistant can run through the social media feed and prepare the most relevant entries, so you don’t have to waste time browsing dozens of posts. 

Besides, a virtual assistant can integrate with services like Google Alerts and notify you of the daily news tailored to your interests. 

If you need more than this, please see your options for a Social Media Strategist here!

3. Research

This task is also among the most time-consuming ones. If your work or studies involve a lot of research, you know that it will take you about an hour or two just to get all the sources of information you need. 

At this point, a virtual assistant can also come in handy. Most of them have the option of voice search, so you can actually do your research and browse for information while doing some other task. 

Also, you can ask a virtual assistant to retrieve some information for you. For instance, you are about to write an essay, and you need to get examples from Subjecto or any other online essay database. Your virtual assistant can search for the relevant example and save it for later use. 

One more point in favor of using virtual assistants for research is collaborative tasks. Some virtual assistants have a whiteboard feature that allows you to connect several people to the project. Thus, you can research and brainstorm ideas while your virtual assistant will save all the information. 

4. Marketing Tasks 

If you’re running a business and have a multichannel marketing strategy, it can be quite hard to keep track of all the activities. But luckily, you can outsource some of your marketing tasks to a virtual assistant. 

Just to provide you with some context, let’s take a look at which content marketing tasks, in particular, your virtual assistant can do for you:

• re-purposing content
• planning and running your content calendar
• editing your visual content
• researching content ideas
• promoting your content
• schedule and upload posts on social media
• create content for emails
• analyze data received from your content strategy

As you can see, there are quite a few time-consuming marketing activities that a virtual assistant can take off your back. Thus, you’ll have more time to focus on business growth and not worry about routine tasks. 

Check out our content marketing webinar here! We also have a list of VA companies that specialize in content creation here!

5. Travel Arrangements

Although it’s probably not very relevant right now because of the COVID-19 pandemic, traveling will still return sooner or later. Airports will soon get as busy as before, and it will become a challenge to get an airplane ticket again and a hotel reservation again. 

Planning your travel arrangements can take a lot of time. However, if you choose to delegate these tasks to a virtual assistant, you will be able to do it in no time. A virtual assistant can help you track the most affordable tickets and hotel offers and book them for you as well. This can be especially handy for those whose lifestyle involves a lot of traveling. 

Find other VA companies for Personal Tasks here!

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are a lot of daily tasks that a virtual assistant can do for you. All these tasks can take quite a lot of time to finish and can really clog up your daily routine. 

So, if you have other more important activities, it’s better to outsource some of your day-to-day tasks to a virtual assistant. They could run your administrative activities, check your social media, do research for you, perform some marketing tasks, and even fix all your travel arrangements. 

As a result, you will be able to focus on more important things: launch and grow your business or even finally find time to meet with your family. Having a virtual assistant allows for an easier and more enjoyable daily routine. 

There are a ton of Virtual Assistant Companies out there that can help you achieve your goals based on your unique needs.

One of our partners, ClearDesk, are offering a free consultation call to see how they can help you! They also offer a free 7 day trial – you have nothing to lose! You can read my review on ClearDesk and find out more information about the services they offer by clicking here. 

Remote Marketing Team Management Guide

Managing a remote marketing team can be particularly difficult when you are new to the whole thing. It’s not easy to coordinate everyone’s actions correctly when you can’t meet in-person. Luckily, there are some things you can do to streamline the process of managing your remote marketing team. Hence, here’s the guide to remote marketing team management.

#1 Plan A Remote Hiring and Onboarding Process

First and foremost, you need to plan a remote hiring and onboarding process which will help you create your remote marketing team or work on the one you already have. Here are some tips to get you started with the hiring and onboarding of your team members:

• Search for potential candidates on such platforms as LinkedIn and Indeed. You can also post job listings on them as well as on other popular job boards to promote your vacant positions. When posting the job listings, make sure to add that the job is available for any location and will need to be done remotely.
• Outline your virtual hiring process by starting with the resume review process and getting to the actual hiring. The best thing you can do is have a virtual interview with potential candidates and maybe even give them a test task to see what their abilities are and whether they will fit your job position.
• Be objective during the hiring process and don’t judge the candidates by their location. This could prevent you from finding good talent. Look at their experience, education, skills, and achievements instead.
• Inform your chosen candidates that they got the job and welcome them into the team. Explain to them all the basic requirements of their job and introduce them to their team members. Make sure they fill out all the necessary paperwork to get started.
• Check-in on the new members of your remote marketing team after some time has passed since you hired them. See whether they are satisfied with their job and how well they are performing within your team.

#2 Find and Use Digital Productivity Tools

One thing that doesn’t seem obvious but could actually be very useful is finding and using digital productivity tools. These can help you maintain consistently high productivity and performance levels in your team for long periods of time. Even the calendar you use for scheduling events and meetings could help a lot with productivity.

Use a project management tool like to create daily, weekly, or even monthly tasks. This will allow you to keep track of all the tasks planned, completed, and canceled by all of your team members. Moreover, this can also help you get more accurate data about the performance of your employees. Some suggested tools are:

1. Monday.com – Monday.com is an award-winning cloud-based work operating system (Work OS) that enables teams to collaborate and build custom workflows. After you sign up for a free trial and create an account, you can log into the web app. Here, you’ll see a blank calendar and your dashboard. There is a minimum of 3 seats per plan, so pricing starts at $24/mo for 3 team members on their basic plan.Sign up for a free trial!
2. Workpuls – WorkPuls provides you with insights that you would not otherwise be able to see. Such as identifying tasks taking longer than you’d expect, which team members are working the fastest, amount of idle time, and much more.

WorkPuls is an employee monitoring, time tracking, and automatic time mapping platform.

This software provides a range of tools and features that enable managers and business owners to increase their employee’s productivity.

The company and WorkPuls’ support staff are based in California, U.S.

Pricing starting at $6 per month, per employee.

Sign up for a 7-day free trial!

3. DeskTime – DeskTime is an employee time and productivity tracking tool. This software provides a range of tools that helps business owners and managers boost their team member’s productivity.

After installing this software on the computer or device your remote team members are using, you can track their time, the apps they’re using, see screenshots, and track other productivity metrics.

The company and DeskTime’s support staff are based in Riga, Latvia.

Pricing plans start at $0/month for one user with their LTE plan.

Sign up for a 14-day free trial.

4. Hubstaff –  Hubstaff is a time tracking software built for remote teams. The company was founded in 2012 and their fully remote team is “based” out of Indianapolis, Indiana. Hubstaff offers several productivity monitoring features like an app and URL tracking, optional screenshots, and customizable reports. It’s designed to give you insight into how your remote team is spending their time so you can help them be more efficient.

VAA Exclusive: Use referral code VAA15 for 30% off your first 2 months of service! Hubstaff comes with a 14-day free trial 

5. Fiverr Business – Fiverr Business is an online marketplace and freelancing platform. Fiverr Business differs from other freelance platforms – like the Fiverr marketplace – by vetting freelancers and introducing collaboration tools. The annual membership is priced at $149 per year. At the time of publishing, however, Fiverr Business is waiving that fee for the first year. That means you can sign up and start using the platform today for free.

6. MyTimeIn – MyTimeIn is a next-generation remote productivity platform that helps business owners and managers increase the overall productivity of remote employees.

This software provides a suite of tools that enable you to track time, monitor what your virtual assistants/employees are working on, track attendance, see screenshots of their workflow, and much more.

The company and MyTimeIn’s support staff are based in California, U.S.

Pricing plans start at $29.99 per month. If you want to see how MyTimeIn works, you can schedule a time to see a demo of the software.

#3 Schedule and Run Virtual Team Meetings

The next thing you should do is start planning the way you will schedule and run virtual team meetings. In addition to that, you will also need to plan out one-on-one virtual meetings. Here are some things to keep in mind:

• Decide which meetings you actually need rather than having as many as you can. This will help you channel your time and energy into the meetings you will actually make productive rather than meetings that will end up with not very significant results. If you need a monthly meeting to discuss performance and set new objectives, make sure to set it up in time. But if you don’t need a weekly meeting, just don’t run it.
• Have a regular schedule for meetings. There will be times when you need to organize them on the spot, but you should mostly stick to a premade schedule so that everyone has the opportunity to attend at a suitable time.
• Prepare for every meeting separately. Have an outline for every meeting so you know what you want to discuss, especially the specific points you might end up forgetting if you don’t write them down beforehand.
• Choose the software you will be using for virtual meetings. Make sure that everyone knows how to use the software and run some tests to see how the meetings would go. Educate everyone about how they should deal with technical issues they might encounter at one of the meetings.
• Be mindful of the time zones. This is especially important if your team members are located all over the world. If your team is not too big, you probably won’t struggle with time zones too much.
• Create a shared calendar where everyone will be able to see when the next meeting is. Add all the necessary details to every meeting scheduled on the calendar.
• Discuss the meetings beforehand with the team members that you would like to present at the meeting along with yourself. You can also discuss meetings beforehand with other employees to see if they have anything they would like to submit like slides, latest data, etc.
• Wait for everyone to join the meeting once you launch it. If anyone is experiencing technical problems, try to help them however you can. If the problem is too big, consider rescheduling the meeting.
• Let your team members talk during the meeting instead of only talking yourself. Brainstorm ideas, analyze past performance, and so on. In other words, run the virtual meetings just the way you would run regular ones.
• Wrap up the meetings on a meaningful note and ensure that you went through every important point. Likewise, use an icebreaker at the beginning of the meeting if you feel there is some awkwardness.
• Improve the virtual team meeting procedure over time. Change the schedule if it’s needed or make more team members present if you want interaction. Consider collecting feedback regularly too.

#4 Respect Boundaries and Remember Time Zones

As mentioned earlier, remembering time zones when scheduling virtual team and one-on-one meetings is one of the most important things you need to do when managing your remote marketing team. Having a meeting when the time is good for you but it’s nighttime for the other person is definitely not a good idea.

At the same time, you need to respect boundaries just like you would in an office. Don’t encourage discussing politics or any private matters that are not essential to your work. It’s just not a good idea and doing so will just lead to more problems rather than resolutions. After all, being professional should be your number one priority.

#5 Check-In with Team Members Regularly

Checking-in with team members regularly might not seem like something particularly important, but it can actually help you in so many ways. Just reaching out once in a while to check the performance or satisfaction of your employees can help you:

• Connect with Them Better: By reaching out so often, you will be able to better understand your employees and find a way to connect with them better which will improve your relationships.
• Ensure They Are Satisfied: You will also be able to make sure they are satisfied with their job and are mentally well. Stress can be a big issue, so it’s worth checking your team’s mental health once in a while.
• Get More Feedback: There will also be more opportunities for getting feedback from your employees which will help you improve the different aspects of your remote marketing team.
• Improve Overall Performance: By checking the satisfaction level of your employees and connecting with them better, you will be able to motivate them to increase their productivity which will improve their overall performance.

#6 Form A Work Culture of Inclusion

Forming a work culture of inclusion is not an easy feat as it will take some time to actually develop. Here are some ways you can make this happen faster:

• Create Opportunities for Bonding: Instead of waiting for something to happen, create such opportunities yourself. Make sure your employees have a messaging channel for casual chatting and host movie nights where everyone can watch a movie from home while discussing it in a chat or meeting.
• Connect In-Office and Remote Teams: Don’t just talk to your remote marketing team separately. Instead, make sure that all departments have the ability to talk to each other both while working and during breaks.

#7 Set Up Proper Communication

Speaking of communication, this is the last and by far one of the most important things you need to do. Setting up proper communication will help you manage your remote marketing team more smoothly and allow you to have way more control and organization than you would with poor communication.

A dedicated messaging platform like Slack will allow you to have multiple channels for messaging while also letting you have direct-message conversations. Your virtual team meeting software will also help you with communication, but it’s important to remember about emails as well because they let you send much bigger files and longer tests than a messaging platform does.

#8 Hire a team from a professional company!

There are a ton of Virtual Assistant Companies out there that can help you achieve your goals based on your unique needs.

One of our partners, ClearDesk, are offering a free consultation call to see how they can help you! They also offer a free 7 day trial – you have nothing to lose! You can read my review on ClearDesk and find out more information about the services they offer by clicking here. 

Final Thoughts

All in all, managing a remote marketing team is not as difficult as it may seem at first glance. Once you get the hang of it, managing your remote marketing team will become relatively easy. Use the tips in this article to start managing your team more effectively.

Check out Virtual Assistant Assistant’s Resources & Tools page to find further information!

Melissa Mauro is a freelance writer who creates quality and original content. She is
working for the companies Best Writers Online and Online Writers Rating writing services
review. She believes that creativity and improvement are things, which distinguish a good
writer.

Thank you for your contribution Melissa!

How can Fiverr assist you in your path to success?

Whether you are looking hire a freelancer for a one-off task, to scale your business, or looking for online training – Fiverr has a program for you! Schedule a free consultation call with me to find which is best for you!

Fiverr Services

Fiverr works a little differently than other freelancing sites. Instead of creating a job posting and waiting for workers to bid on your job, on Fiverr the workers state what they can do for you, and in what budget and timeframe.

You’ll find just about every virtual service imaginable, but it’s more of an a la carte menu system than a request for proposal system. (Though if you can’t find exactly what you like, you can submit a custom request too.)

Get help with:

• Graphics & Design
• Digital Marketing
• Writing & Translation
• Programming & Tech
• Video & Animation
• Music & Audio
• Business
• Lifestyle

Check out Virtual Assistant Assistant’s page here and see other user reviews!

Fiverr Business

Fiverr launched a platform called “Fiverr Business”, which is designed to make scaling and execution seamless for teams.

The B2B platform provides teams with access to a vetted marketplace of on-demand freelance talent, collaboration and project management tools, one centralized payment method, 24/7 live chat support, and their own Business Success Manager that can help match their business with the best talent for them.

The annual membership is priced at $149 per year. Fiverr Business is waiving that fee for the first year. That means you can sign up and start using the platform today for free.

You’ll find freelancers to carry out just about any tasks that can be completed remotely. This includes:

• Graphic design
• Digital marketing
• Writing
• Video and animation
• Music and audio
• Programming

Check out Virtual Assistant Assistant’s page here and see other user reviews!

Fiverr Learn Services

Fiverr Learn is an e-learning platform providing online training. Where Fiverr Learn differs from other learning platforms is that the instructors have been handpicked to create content for the platform.

The courses offered cover the following categories:

• Marketing
• Graphic Design
• Website
• Writing
• Business
• Video and Photography
• Programs

Individual courses range from $23-$94. But also offer bundled prices if you were interested in multiple courses.

Check out Virtual Assistant Assistant’s page here and see other user reviews!

Interested in the above or looking for other Virtual Assistant/outsourcing services?

Schedule a free consultation call with me – let’s find what you need to be successful!