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We are living in exciting times. More and more things are going virtual, being scaled down and bringing the focus back to its core existence rather than the bells and whistles. Many entrepreneurs run their businesses from coffee shops, their homes or on the road. On the other end of the spectrum you’ll find driven, educated multitaskers who wish to redefine the constraints of a routine office job and find it exciting to do many different tasks for different business needs. Virtual assistants have opened the door to co-working possibilities for these types of individuals.

Kudos to you if you’re a business owner already outsourcing to a VA!

It is important to understand that even though you might not be sharing an office space or have physical meeting sessions with you VA, any good working relationship is built on a few basic principles that ensure an effective and productive workflow that achieves set outcomes.

Make Communication a Priority – Dorie Clark, Forbes

We cannot stress enough the importance of establishing clear communication with your VA, I’d go as far as to say that it is part of the foundation of outsourcing. Whichever channel you choose, it is vital that you are able to communicate with one another frequently, clearly and concisely. This eliminates misunderstandings, unsatisfactory outcomes and vague deadlines.

Use the right tools – Nathan Resnick, Sourcify CEO

Gone are the days of doing everything in your business manually and succumbing to tedious and ineffective processes that do nothing other than to frustrate you. There is a multitude of virtual tools available that will make both your lives easier. Tools can save you money in terms of hours spent on using dated systems. Using the right tools can help both of you keep track of tasks, streamline your workflow and address issues as they arise.

Try different tasks to gauge your VA’s strengths and weaknesses – Gregory Go for American Express

Most VA’s have a broad administrative skillset while others are more specialised in certain industries or tasks. However, everyone has areas of strength and weakness. You might find that different tasks require different assistants based on their strengths, skills or experience. It might also affect the cost you incur to hire them. Finding out what your assistant’s strengths are through different tasks will help you allocate specialised tasks to an assistant that has the relevant experience required for the task and will save you the time and cost of training an assistant who has never done said specialised task.

Taking your business virtual or simply establishing a workflow with a VA should not make you anxious. Let us help you find an virtual assistant best suited to your business’ needs and guide you through creating a beneficial working relationship.