You’re eagerly excited about the possibilities of your newly hired virtual assistant.

This is the time to start strategizing and achieving what you’ve always wanted for your business.

VAs have been the secret weapon for many entrepreneurs, when their timetable becomes too tight, helping them control operation and budget.

Today’s virtual assistants are no longer just answering personnel or appointment schedulers. They can do so much more, far-reaching with their skills and competencies, in reflex to the fiercer-than-ever digital marketing world.

However, bringing in offshore help is just the first step to this new venture. Now, you have to set up a productive collaboration to get the most from your virtual assistant.

What Are Your Top 3 Fields of Virtual Assistant?

Virtual assistants are becoming more and more indispensable in every business industry, and it’s not hard to see why.

From customer service and accounting to social media management, their service range seems limitless.

So, no matter the business size, it’s pretty common to have a virtual assistant embedded in the workflow, handling the menial task and kneading the operation.

Let’s dive right into the top 3 types of virtual assistants that you might want to consider hiring today!

• Administrative Virtual Assistant

If you’re wondering what an admin assistant online does all day, they typically see through office management and personal administrative work. This variety of tasks includes setting appointments, filing paperwork, email management, data entry and preparing reports.

The idea is to provide support to leaders and executives, freeing up their time so they can focus on the more important company matters.

• Content Writer Virtual Assistant

“Content is king,” is not an understatement. Cliché as it may sound, it is one of the most powerful tools in digital marketing.

That’s why it’s not surprising at all that many businesses invest in content writers and even seek the help of a content writing agency to find the right VA to collaborate with.

The main responsibility of a content writer virtual assistant is to write excellent content in whichever form you need. They can craft press releases, blog posts, email newsletters and product descriptions — name it, and they can write just about anything.

• Bookkeeping Virtual Assistant

Payroll, payments and invoices are some of the things that will definitely bug you down whenever it’s time to do your bookkeeping.

There are many exciting ventures in scaling a business, but it’s dubious that securing ledgers all day is one of them.

Therefore, for your overall financial health, the best option is to hire a bookkeeping VA. Highly economical and trained, this outsourced bookkeeper will manage daily finances and find errors, you have missed out on due to your slammed schedule.

With several software tools available to manage financial accounts, better productivity is very much likely.

What Makes a Great Virtual Assistant?

Bravo! You’ve finally made up your mind about hiring a virtual assistant. Taking all the considerations of working with a VA, it’s a smart move; budget-friendly, more productive and work flexible.

Now it’s time to find one and to do that you need to visit freelance marketplaces, agencies and other channels where options are available. Of course, this process will be very effective if you know what to look for.

Read on and we’ll give you some insightful hacks on the makings of a great virtual assistant; the skills, talent and qualities.

• Reliable

You’re hiring a VA to handle the secondary tasks. But still, it’s a role of high importance because they are peripheral to the achievement of a core task. Thus, working with someone reliable gives you confidence about the completion and accuracy of these duties.

If there’s no reliability which is a quality pivotal in every employee, the collaboration might end up as a major headache, failing to meet deadlines and too much dependency.

• Communication Skills

Since you’re dealing with staff, clients and many business people in all diversity, it is essential that your VA can communicate effectively.

Good communication skill allows for swift email responses, company task updates and strong customer service.

A company is built through building relationships and constant networking. And poor communication just won’t cut it for conquering sales and establishing a reputation.

• Teachable

Change is the only constant in this world.

While a virtual assistant need not be a virtuoso in a specific field, being open to new methods and technologies ensures efficiency.

Willingness to learn is a great signal that a VA is eager to take challenges and is serious about improving productivity.

• Personality

Of all the mentions, this might be the most trivial quality. Regardless, a virtual assistant with the right attitude is much easier to work with.

In whichever tasks they handle, having that pleasing demeanor such as being friendly, patient and polite will do wonders, especially when faced with a client.

Rest assured if something goes south, your VA will keep calm and not easily banged up which can eventually result in more problems for you.

How Do You Work Effectively with a Virtual Assistant?

Now that we’re finally settled on how paramount a VA is and what to look for in a remote assistant to best benefit your company’s needs, the next phase is how to build that relationship.

To make things easy and productive with your new team member, we’ll go about ways to make the most out of your virtual assistant

• It’s a Two-Way Communication

When you work with a virtual assistant, it is important to establish a connection so that you can drive engagement and make them feel respected.

You’ll go about the work by not only giving advice on tasks but also asking for their input. Rendering feedback is no good at all if you don’t also listen to what your VA has to say.

Tons of companies fail to take the next level because of their adamance in the belief in only their own ideas. Remember, brainstorming often leads to brighter business concepts so it figures.

It’s a two-way street as most things are in the world of business.

• Some Micromanagement Won’t Hurt

The statement that “Micromanagement is a poison in the workflow,” can’t all be true in some instances. Sometimes, it can add efficiency to the team, especially when working with a virtual assistant, through thorough guidance.

With more experience, you can impart better knowledge and a sense of direction; getting the best out of your virtual assistant. Just don’t overdo the process, keep an eye on things by finding a middle ground.

Set clear expectations, and slowly allow your remote subordinate to make and process their work.

• An Office Environment for Long-Distance Affairs

Even though it’s a work-from-home setting, you can still enable some professionalism by the use of a better frame of reference.

For instance, you should track your VAs time and progress. There are plenty of timekeeping software that can help you monitor efforts in every project.

Of course, this is not an attempt to be overbearing, the idea is to keep the level of professionalism, ensuring virtual assistants perform on a high level.

This is a great move to get the best bang for the buck!

• Fair Compensation is Relevant

Perhaps, the obvious factor in getting the most from your virtual assistant is compensation with an added reward system.

Yes, the money power always brings the motivation aspect. But we’re not just talking about monetary matters, there are also great non-monetary ideas to incorporate to create an effective partnership, like a simple “thank you” shout-out for a job well done.

There are many arrangements of fair compensation that are all relevant in boosting loyalty and productivity.

• Winging with the Training

A win-win for both, your virtual assistant gets to learn and feel valued, while your company gets some newer perspective it needs to progress. There are affordable courses online that are credible and not time-consuming.

Your VA’s acquired skills in learning current programs will definitely set you at a more competitive pace.

Conclusion

What separates a virtual assistant from a great virtual assistant, is that the latter has your best business interest at heart.

By hiring a virtual assistant, you’re a step closer to the guild; skyrocketing sales and closing up deals.

So, once you get that VA you need, start building a strong partnership via all the tips we have mentioned; getting the most from your virtual assistant.