Adding a virtual assistant to your team can save you hours of work, lower your costs, and get you back on track so you can focus on tasks that really matter. However, this will only work if you make the most of their skills and use your time with them well.

Find out how to get the most out of your virtual assistant’s time and work with these 5 tips on how to work well with a virtual assistant.

Regular communication

When working with people who are far away, it’s important to be able to talk to them well. When working with a virtual assistant (VA), it’s important to give clear, detailed instructions for the work that needs to be done. It’s important, especially at first, to check in with your virtual assistant and set up regular meetings. This makes sure your virtual assistant knows what needs to be done and helps build trust and confidence so you can build a long-term working relationship.

Delegate tasks

Make a list of the tasks you want your assistant to help you with. In general, virtual assistants are well-equipped to do a wide range of tasks, and many have specialized skills like managing social media, keeping books, running day-to-day office operations, making sales calls, running digital marketing campaigns, managing real estate, and preparing tax returns.

Once your list of tasks is complete, give them to the right people and make sure your assistant has the right access and passwords to do them from afar.

Provide reasonable deadlines

When giving tasks to other people, it’s important to be clear about when they need to be done. If they are routine tasks that are done every day, make sure your assistant knows what you want and has the right tools to do these tasks every day. If there is a deadline or more than one deadline, make sure you tell your assistant about them in a timely manner, preferably when you give them the project or task.

Virtual assistants are, of course, only people, so they can only do so much work in a certain amount of time. By giving them a reasonable amount of time to finish the work, you’re giving them a chance to do good work.

Use the right tools

When working with team members who are far away, use effective digital collaboration platforms to make sure your team works well together. Using platforms for collaboration like Google Drive, Slack, Zoom, Dropbox, or Trello will help teams work well together.

Keep your tools simple to keep your team from getting confused. Make sure your virtual assistant knows how to use the tools you’ll be giving them and is comfortable using them to do their jobs.

Document processes

At first, writing down how things are done might seem like a tedious task, but it will save you a lot of time in the long run. It also leaves less room for mistakes and makes it easier to train new assistants.

If you don’t have your processes written down yet, the good news is that your VA can help you do it as you train and onboard them. You’ll have to give them a little more time to do this, but the investment will pay for itself many times over in saved time and better work from your virtual assistant and other team members, both now and in the future.

Working with a virtual assistant can help you and your business in a lot of ways. You’ll save time, save money, get more done, and shift your attention to what really matters for your business’s growth. If you use these tips with your newly hired virtual assistant, you’ll be able to work together smoothly and successfully for years to come.

If you want to add a virtual assistant to your team, you can start a chat, schedule a discovery call, or call us at +1 323-955-1001 to find out what kinds of services we can offer to help your business.