How to find a virtual assistant (and how to work with them)
Are you overworked, overwhelmed, and heading towards burnout in your business? Thought of hiring someone to help you out with the millions of tasks on your to-do list? Today’s post is for YOU because it’s all about how to find a virtual assistant (aka VA), and then some tips on communicating and working with them once you find that one magical person who will most likely be your new work husband or wife.
I asked my audience last year what questions they had for me, and this one came in from a superfan:
One of the areas I would love to learn about on your podcast is how to find and outsource tasks as you grow your business. Meaning, how to find an assistant (virtual on in-person), best practices to pay them (do you use a VA so you can pay a fee and they handle the taxes) or do you hire someone as more an employee but you handle the taxes (or use a payroll company to do) and how do you write a meaningful ad to find the right people.
And then, what are the best ways to work with someone and manage expectations on your end and theirs ... and when do you know to cut them loose if they are amazing, but not always reliable. Stuff like that would be SOOO helpful.
Now I am by no means an expert on HR practices like hiring, but I have been working with my current assistant for over 2 years now, and worked with 2 before that where I did a horrible job of hiring and had no idea what I was doing as their manager (all totally on me!). So you can say that I’ve learned from my mistakes (and will totally be sharing those below), as well as have figured out a flow for working with “the one”.
I’m also including some tips and info below from my entrepreneur friend Stephanie Long, a business coach for nutritionists, who has been working with various forms of VA’s for years now. Different people function in different ways, especially when it comes to delegating, so I wanted someone else’s opinion on how to find a virtual assistant.
Now, the first thing you’re probably going to ask yourself at the beginning of this process is “am I ready for a VA?”. The answer is you’ll know when you know, however, here are some signs that it might be time to hire a VA:
If you’re working full time hours in your business but your to-do list is always overflowing.
If you’re burned out and resentful of your business.
If your spouse, significant other, friends or family make comments that you’re miserable after work.
If you dread doing certain tasks, so you either put them off and cause yourself more stress OR you just don’t do them when you know you should (also known as being the bottleneck of your own business).
If you have to do certain tasks that don’t necessarily make an income, and they could be done by anyone else (with the proper training).
Now that you probably have a gut feeling, here’s all my tips on how to find a virtual assistant, and then what systems I recommend to make sure you’ll work smoothly together:
How to find a virtual assistant
This is, by far, the hardest part. During the application process, people put their best foot forward, maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses.
In the past, I actually tried to work with an in-person assistant. The first instance was because it was about 6 years ago and working with someone remotely wasn’t really ‘a thing’ yet. It never occurred to me to hire someone outside of my local area, so my options were limited.
The second time I hired an in-person assistant who was local because I had tasks like sending mail and doing some random errands that required someone to be local to me. Again, my options were limited because I chose to work with someone in my geographical area.
For my now assistant, I still had some tasks that would have been amazing if they were local to me (again, the mail thing. I was still doing doTERRA and was mailing out multiple packages a month), but the majority of my tasks I was delegating didn’t require that, so I decided to hire someone virtually.
Now, before you even look for an assistant, there’s something really important you need to do first:
Get super clear on what tasks you’re delegating.
If you’re overwhelmed and burned out, you’re probably sitting there thinking “I just need some f&cking help” and you might not take the time to do this step, but believe me, it’s worth it.
For a few weeks or a month, every time you do a task that you either:
Want to hire out; or
You think someone else could do; then
Write it down!
It could be on real paper or in a Google Doc, doesn’t matter. Just get it out of your head as you do the tasks.
For me, I started a document called “Hire a VA” a full 2 months before I even started the hiring process. I wrote out all the tasks, and then after I was confident that I covered most of them, I organized them into my monthly versus weekly tasks.
I then colour coded them to see what tasks were what kind of skills (see example below), and then I estimated how much time it would take for each task and added it up to come up with a monthly estimate on the number of hours I’d be hiring for.
Once I had a larger list of tasks, I could see that they were split into two areas: my doTERRA business tasks and the other side of my business tasks (which at the time was mainly my Brand, Build, Blog course).
I realized that it was probably going to be harder to find someone who could do everything (since that person was me, and I’m a unique snowflake 😂), so it might be easier to try and find 2 different VA’s, one for doTERRA and graphic design, and the other for general task support.
I then took all those tasks above and split them into these 2 different categories and estimated the time it would take each month (FYI: I increased the time that I personally spent on these tasks, since a decade into my business I was a well oiled machine. I think I doubled the time I spent on them just to be sure):
You can see that I was already planning for the worst, in which case I could only find one out of the 2 VA’s I thought I needed, and they didn’t have the experience with graphic design. Graphic designers can be expensive, so I didn’t know if my $20 an hour budget would attract them or not.
I’m not professionally trained as a graphic designer, so I didn’t spend thousands on school for it, but I could only imagine if you did that you wouldn’t be able to afford food, rent, and school debt at that pay rate. I imagined that I’d be hiring someone with working graphic design experience like myself, so they could do other tasks OR I’d be hiring someone who could do most of the tasks and then hiring out the graphic design.
The part that blew me away is that I put off hiring a VA for so long because I thought it would cost me thousands each month … but when I sat down to do this exercise, I estimated I would only have to spend about $400 a month even if I hired 2 VA’s!
It was at this point that I was like “Ashley, stop being a cheap ass and get a VA hired ASAP!” (FYI: I was making over 6 figures in my business at this point). Like, I should have had a VA for years before I actually hired one.
I would say that if you’re making $50,000 or more in your business each year, you’re probably ready to hire a VA, especially when they can be so affordable at only a few hundred dollars a month.
what to pay a virtual assistant
This amount varies, and varies by a LOT depending on what country you hire a VA from.
I have business acquaintances that have hired a VA in South Asian and paid them only $5/hour … and then I know of other friends who pay their VA $40/hour.
Why the huge difference? Location and experience.
If you hire a VA from South Asia or Eastern Europe, you might be able to find one for less than $10 US/hour. This is because the cost of living is much lower (some people even move to these locations so they can have an amazing quality of life at half or quarter of the price of North America), so they don’t need to charge as much to make their income goals.
Now, they don’t need to charge as much, but do you really want to brag about paying another human being an amount that you would never consider working for yourself? It’s 2021, people!
Hiring a super low wage assistant just doesn’t sit right with me. You probably wouldn’t feel comfortable buying clothes you know were made in a sweat shop, so how is this much different?
Now let’s talk experience. Here’s a great article from The Virtual Savvy about what to charge as a VA (therefore, what to expect), and this excerpt shows us exactly what different skill levels should be charging:
If you have general Admin, Design, or Marketing Skills (data entry, social media posting, simple graphics, basic calendar management, etc) the going rate is $25 – $40 per hour.
If you have Advanced Skills (Creating graphics, WordPress Edits, Writing Optimized Content, Course Creation, etc.) you can easily charge $30 – $50 per hour.
If you have Specialized Skills (Web Design, SEO, Building Landing Pages, Social Media Strategy, Infusionsoft, etc) your rates should be no lower than $50 per hour. You can go up from there as needed.
P.S. I’ve been in high level programs with Abbey from The Virtual Savvy, and I know that she’s had hundreds of VA’s through her training programs. So I know that she’s the expert on what to charge and pay virtual assistants.
When I first hired my current VA, I started her at $22 Canadian per hour (she’s located in Canada, although not locally to me).
The next questions about hiring a VA is do you hire them as an employee or a contractor? This is based on where you run your business and how many hours they’ll be working for you. Even if you hire someone as a contractor, in some locations they could still be considered an employee if they work close to full time hours.
I’d consult with a local accountant and maybe even an employment lawyer to learn for sure if you’re hiring properly for your particular business. You want to keep it legal, right?
job posting and applications
This was the start of the part that I sucked at. I took it as evidence that I had previously hired 2 people who just didn’t have the skills that I needed (don’t get me wrong, they were great people personally, just not a good fit for my business), and you can say that I was scarred from the experiences.
So instead of making an expensive mistake again (not only paying someone, but it takes so much time to train someone properly! When it doesn’t work out, you don’t get any of that precious time back), I decided to bring in a pro.
I reached out to one of my friends and doTERRA team members, Laura Bourne, who just happens to be an expert in all things HR, especially hiring. I asked her (did I beg? I’m not sure 2 years later 😂) if she could help me and how much it would cost. We worked out an exchange that she would help me hire an assistant (which would normally cost thousands) if I made her a website (which would normally cost thousands).
I was like “uh, yeah!”, and Laura started the daunting to me but incredibly energizing for her process of hiring.
I’m not going to the lie, the reason I have such a kickass VA right now is because of Laura. She has a knack, after almost 15 years in HR, of sniffing out the fakes and the people who were just not going to be a good fit with my personality, all before I even had to talk to anyone.
Laura started with coming up with the job posting. She wrote the copy for the application page, which I’m sure I tweaked a bit while designing it, but she included important sections like a description of the successful candidates’ personality, along with the non-negotiables and positives of the job.
From there, a button to apply took them to the application which was set up in Google Forms.
There were 12 questions that required longer answers (which told us more about their personality and how they handle different situations), and then a list of software and applications that I use in my business and were possibly going to be used on the job (like Google Docs and Sheets, Canva, Photoshop, Planoly, ConvertKit, Squarespace, etc) of which we asked them to rate their skill level on a scale of 0 to 10.
To market the job posting, I published one single Instagram post (below):
I could have sworn that I sent an email to my entire list, but nope! Nothing is there 🤦🏻♀️.
That Instagram post had 47 comments (either people telling me they applied or tagging someone they knew that might be interested), and I got 31 applications. This honestly was a relief to me, I was worried I would get like 2!
If you don’t have a big following on social media (I had about 1900 Instagram followers at the time), I’d post in your own personal Facebook page, as well as sending out an email to your business email list and to any professional networks that you might have.
How Stephanie found her assistants
Two of my assistants have come from referrals, and one is a friend in the nutrition industry who I knew was looking for some extra work.
I felt confident bringing on my two assistants based on referrals because I truly appreciate other people’s positive experiences and would rather bring someone on who has been vetted by someone I trust - for me, I feel more secure knowing someone else I know has worked with them.
I still ran interviews for both and actually for my first assistant, I interviewed about 4 people and ended up with the one person who was referred to me originally.
My current assistant was already working with an entrepreneur like me, and I was able to ask that person a ton of questions about my current assistant, gauge their work ethic, personality, strengths, weaknesses, etc., and this REALLY helped me feel confident in hiring her.
job interviews
From here you get to the interview part, which is a total art. Laura totally earned her payday (of a new website ;) with this part, as she interviewed 19 people. This first interview was done a week and a half after the first applications came in, and were 10-20 minutes long.
This was just the first interview with Laura, the candidates didn’t even get to talk to me yet. With her HR ninja skills, and the fact that she already knew my personality so well, she was able to feel out who was a genuine good fit.
We narrowed it down to 3 candidates, and that’s when we did the second interviews with both myself and Laura on a Zoom call.
Before the second interview, we sent each candidate an assignment to be done before we met. The assignment directly related to the kinds of tasks that they might be doing on the job.
Here’s what we sent in the “congratulations you made it to round 2 of the interviews” email:
As you are aware, Ashley has created her Brand, Build, Blog course and is eager to reach new audiences (read: sales). Part of that growth is dependent on exposure to new markets. And where do we hear about new programs and products that interest us? Podcasts!
Here is the “assignment”:
Research, and share with us a podcast (or podcasts) that you feel would be a great fit for Ashley to reach new audiences to spread the word on Brand, Build, Blog.
Provide an outline about the podcast(s) you are recommending and why.
Feel free to be as in depth as you feel is appropriate.
We would love to know why you selected these podcasts.
How does it fit with Ashley’s brand?
Demographic of the audience?
You get the idea! Have fun with it!
They were given a deadline to complete the assignment and send the details back to use. We were trying to see who was able to follow and complete tasks without us reminding them, and also if they understood my branding and my ideal client.
Each candidate successfully completed the assignment, and we had about 45 minute interviews with each of them.
From there, I had a positive, strong feeling about 2 of them.
One candidate was a great fit for the more general tasks + doTERRA tracking, and the other had a great design eye and I felt that she would be a good fit for the graphic design tasks.
I sent emails to both of them (that Laura pre-wrote for me) to let them know I’d like to hire them, and I also worked with an employment lawyer that Laura recommended to draft up a contract for each of them.
These VA’s were going to have access to my proprietary systems, assets, as well as financial numbers, and I needed to protect myself. Hiring a lawyer and getting a contract drawn up was not cheap (it cost me $1,695), but imagine if someone I hired stole my intellectual property? That could have cost many tens of thousands in legal fees, not to mention going through the stress of having your business baby stolen.
Each successful candidate was sent an email about 2 weeks after our interview, and both accepted at the rate of $22 Canadian per hour for 10 hours per month.
Phew, that all sounds like a lot, mostly because it was! I started the process 3 months before with the document of what I needed to hire out, and we’re just now getting to the good part.
Here’s what I learned:
The more time you spend on hiring, the better. It takes so much time to train new contractors or employees in your company, and if you can work with someone for years, and not have turnover all the time, it’s worth the amount of time you invest at the beginning of the process.
Listen to your gut. I knew right after the interviews who I wanted to hire and who wasn’t a good fit. If you’re forcing something, it’s probably not the right fit and you should keep looking (kind of like a life partner!).
Trust when people show you who they are. If you send them an assignment to do and they half ass it, guess what they’re going to do when they’re being paid? On the flip side, if they don’t have experience on paper but they blow you away with their personality or willingness to learn? Trust that they’ll keep doing that. You can always teach people skills, but you can’t change who they are.
About 2 weeks into working with the second VA who was doing more graphic design tasks (mainly creating Pinterest pins), I had the gut feeling that she just didn’t have the required skill level. Her own stuff was beautiful, but it wasn’t translating to my brand. I quickly decided to let her go (which was a hard decision for me).
I realized if I was going to hire anyone to do graphic design tasks, that the pay rate would probably have to be higher than what I was expecting to pay out. I looked around for VA’s who specialized in creating Pinterest pins, but they were very expensive (hundreds of dollars a month US for 10 or 15 images).
I decided to just make my own Pinterest pins for the short term, which lasted less than a year before my Pinterest manager added that to the Pinterest marketing she was already doing for me.
I knew from the beginning that the second VA was either going to work out really well or I’d know quickly if she wasn’t the right fit, and my gut was right. But my first choice VA always has been, and still is, an amazing partner to work with in my business!
How to work with a virtual assistant
Now to the fun part, where you get to start unloading the tasks you hate (0r just need help with) to someone else … but wait, not just yet! It’s not that easy.
You’ve got to upload your brain into someone else’s since they don’t automatically know what you want them to do, and you’ve got to do it with crystal clear communication.
This is sometimes easier said than done for a people pleasing woman such as myself (especially when a task is done and it isn’t quite up to your expectations).
There are lots of different ways you can communicate tasks to your team, my way is just one of them. Steph will share her process below mine.
Ashley’s VA floW
When I first started working with this VA, I was doing everything in my business. Which meant that I just automatically knew how I wanted things done and how all my software worked.
The way that worked easiest for me is the next time I went to do that task (for the last time!), I recorded myself doing it on my computer with my Zoom software.
I logged into my Zoom room, where I was the only person, shared my screen, and recorded myself through the entire task. Then I uploaded it to YouTube as an unlisted video so my VA could watch it.
Then, I created a board called “Assistant Tasks” on Trello (other popular tasks management software includes Asana, Airtable, and Clickup), and created various lists based on regular monthly tasks, additional tasks, and other topics that seemed to go together.
Here’s a look at our current Assistant Tasks Trello board that my VA and I use:
I attach the YouTube video, link to any of the login pages for pieces of software she might need, plus any further instructions, into a new card that I make for each task:
I use a program called LastPass to share passwords with my VA. It’s $36 US per year, but it allows her to use my passwords without actually seeing them. She simply installed the LastPass plugin on her Chrome browser, and when she goes to log into a website (and she can only log into websites that I’ve approved her for specifically), it has a dropdown which she can select, just like other saved password functions.
For repeating, monthly tasks that my VA does, she simply goes into the Trello card and changes the due date to the next month.
Since I have access to the same Trello board, I can change the due date for her, update the tasks details, and she can ask me questions and tag me on them for answers.
For any additional, one-time or project-based tasks, we put those under a different list on the same board. We may use those tasks again, so we don’t delete them, but they no longer need updated due dates.
For team communication, we have meetings every 4 weeks that usually last between 1 and 2 hours. We catch up, I tell my VA all about any upcoming projects or tasks over the next month that she needs to know about, we discuss new projects, and she asks any questions or brings up problems.
If we need any other calls between those regular meetings (like for new projects where she needs clarification), we’ll book those whenever we need them.
For smaller questions and keeping in touch throughout the month, we chat on Voxer or she sends me questions over email.
Over time, we’ll move all those individual tasks into a master “Ashley Srokosz Manual” that my VA has started, aka our Standard Operating Procedures (or SOP’s).
This way, as any new members come onto the team (which I’ll hopefully be added to this year), they can start by going through that master document which introduces them to our systems.
stephanie’s VA floW
When I first started working with my assistant, we had an on-boarding session where I took her behind the scenes on my whole business, shared what programs I used and what I’d want help with moving forward.
From there I shared some Loom videos that I had recorded previously of me doing some of the tasks in my business, which gave my assistant the opportunity to learn in real time. I provided all of my passwords through LastPass so that she could access my programs safely and securely. My assistant did a bit of research into programs and processes that she was not familiar with, but other than that, she was able to catch on really quickly!
Every month we have a 1 to 1.5 hour meeting to discuss monthly projects and tasks, but every week my assistant knows what weekly tasks need to be done (IG posts, uploading client recordings, membership engagement, email admin, etc.) and then any new projects are relayed through Slack messenger platform.
Each day my assistant checks in with me and gives me an update with what tasks she’s completed, and we track all of our tasks on Asana which keeps things organized. We will also be creating some SOP’s for each task/project she does in case we need to delegate that job to someone else in the future.
I pay my assistant a set amount monthly for 32 hours of support, which I find is more than enough at the moment to support me with my clients, membership, programs and projects.
I’m sure that as my business grows and my VA takes on different tasks, that our workflow may change. I’m open to any new systems that will save us more time and energy! But for now, this system is working (and I use the same Trello card system to copy down the steps for my own tasks so I can smoothly hand them off if/when the time comes).
I sincerely hope this post has given you some ideas of how to find a virtual assistant, and then how to work with one when you do find “the one”. Like I said earlier, I should have hired a VA a few years before I did. If you wait too long, it’ll feel more daunting.
I’d recommend hiring a VA as soon as you can afford one. Even if it’s only a few hours a month (like mine), it’s good practice for effectively being “the boss” to someone else who isn’t yourself, because sometimes explaining the ideas you have in your head is harder than you think it’s going to be.
Practice makes perfect! Make your mistakes when your business is small so you can grow it faster and easier.
