How a Virtual Assistant Can Help Your Solo Business

As your solo business grows and becomes more complex, you might feel overwhelmed by the amount of work you need to do. Some of the work relies on your expertise and skillset, while other work is tedious or repetitive. 

Just because you’re a solopreneur doesn’t mean you need to work completely alone. Hiring a virtual assistant can ease your workload — and often a natural step for solopreneurs as they grow. You can offload tasks that either free up your time for more high-value projects, or simply reduce the number of hours you work. I hired a virtual assistant earlier this year, and her assistance has completely changed what I focus on each week.

But hiring a VA can also feel intimidating if you don’t know how to get started. You need to set your VA up for success; otherwise, you’ll feel like you’re spending too much time managing the person (which doesn’t help your bandwidth).

Here’s how to go about finding the right VA for your business. 

What tasks are a good fit for a VA?

If you start your VA search knowing you need help, but not knowing exactly what you want your VA to do, you won’t be able to identify a good fit. 

Start by listing everything you think a VA could help with. Then, narrow down to those that have a very clear Point-A-to-Point-B process. At least in the beginning, repetitive tasks are best so you can explain your process to your VA and then hand over the task entirely. 

If the task involves too much decision-making, your virtual assistant might be constantly pinging you and asking questions. If you have to provide a lot of oversight to your VA, it won’t necessarily free up your time (and may even end up feeling like more work). A good VA should be able to follow a process, especially if you can outline the steps clearly. Over time, your VA may be able to take on additional work as they learn your business, but start with basic tasks.

Some good tasks for virtual assistants include:

• Data entry in tools or systems you use
• Administrative work, such as organizing files
• Email management, such as prioritizing your inbox
• Calendar management, such as scheduling meetings
• Social media management, such as scheduling posts

For example, I keep track of every blog post I publish in Airtable. Newly published posts are automatically added to Airtable (via Zapier), but some of the information I keep track of needs a human touch. My VA helps me manage my content library, which is important for my business but was hard for me to keep up with on my own. 

What skills does your VA need?

Once you know the tasks you’d like your VA to do, you can identify the skills and experience you need your VA to have.

When I first started looking for a VA, I knew I wanted someone who was familiar with the tools I use (Airtable, Trello, Buffer, and Canva). I didn’t want to spend my time teaching the VA how to use the tools — I wanted the person to dive right into the tasks themselves. 

Knowing that you need a VA to help with social media management, email management, or other tasks will help you narrow your search. If you look for a VA on a platform like Fiverr, you can review a VA’s profile and their experiences or use Fiverr Pro to help you with talent sourcing and project management. You can also look at reviews from other people who have used that VA for tasks that are similar to yours. As you start considering your options, you’ll also need to think about whether you’ll want to pay on an hourly basis or per project. 

When using a VA platform like Fiverr, you should use filters to find a VA that matches your specific needs:

The more familiar a VA is with the tools you use and the type of work you want, the more efficient they’ll be. I knew when I hired my VA that she wouldn’t be as fast as me in the beginning — while she was still learning — but eventually, I expected her to be able to complete work quickly. I rarely have to explain how to do something in a tool (like Canva) because she’s used the tool before. 

How will you communicate with your VA?

The type of work you expect your VA to do will often drive your communication. Specifically, you have to think about synchronous versus asynchronous work.

If you need to communicate with your VA in real-time or need immediate responses, you’ll need to find a VA who is either in a similar time zone or willing to work at the same hours you work. If real-time communication isn’t important, then neither is time zone. The work my VA does is never mission-critical, so her working hours don’t matter. Sometimes, we overlap when we’re working, but I’ve told her that I never expect an immediate response from her and vice versa. 

In the beginning — and every time I give my VA a new task — I record a video showing her how to complete the task and provide her with written standard operating procedures she can reference. That way, the expectations are clear. 

Find a virtual assistant who can grow with you

While it’s a good idea to have your VA do very linear tasks in the beginning, eventually, you may want your virtual assistant to help with tasks that require more decision-making or give your VA more responsibility. This happens the longer you work with your VA, and the more you build trust in the relationship. I give my VA a lot of one-off projects because she now knows how I work and how I explain my processes. So she can take on new things without much direction.

As you search for a VA that matches your needs, consider what you might want the VA to do in the future. You don’t want to get into a situation where you feel like you’ve maxed out your VA’s capabilities. Think about your immediate needs and potential future needs so you can hire a VA with the right skill set. 

This article was produced in collaboration with Fiverr, a whole world of freelance talent in a single platform.