In this blog, I hope to walk you through how to know if you need a virtual assistant and what to do next. A lot of our clients ask me how I even know if I need a virtual assistant in the first place. Hopefully, by the end of this blog, you'll learn different questions you might need to ask yourself and mark other signs you can look out for to know that you need a virtual assistant.
YOU'RE OVERWHELMED
You need a virtual assistant if you're doing 80-hour workweeks, burning yourself out, and tiring yourself from working in your business. If you're doing more things that don't bring in leads or sales and are just doing admin work or background work, that's a sign that you need a VA. You've reached the point where you can't scale up any further without help; you're just pushing, but nothing seems to be happening.
DOING TASKS THAT YOU CAN DELEGATE
In the book E-Myth by Michael Gerber, he talks about tasks that are more in your business than your business, which is taking care of your business and growing it. You're just trying to contain the ones that you have. And you're losing grasp of what that looks like doing tasks just running your business versus growing your business could also look like you're just going days without any progress. You can have just been stuck at the same spot 60/90 days ago in the exact location where you hit that wall and have plateaued in one area of your revenue or business. And again, that's another sign that you need someone to help take you out of things that are just running your business so you can focus on the things that help grow it.
NO DOCUMENTATION IN YOUR BUSINESS
The next time you need a virtual assistant is when you don't have any documentation in your business. What I mean by this is that you can't create repeatable results because you don't have a way to maintain things and even grow things over and over again. You could have every document on how things are usually done as standard operating procedures (SOPs). And if you need a video on creating a sign-up for an SOP, I have one for you here. But, if you don't have any way that things are written down, it's easy to give someone a task without showing them how to do it the first time or how to handle something different than usual. A virtual assistant can produce this documentation for you, saving you time.
YOU KEEP REMAKING TEMPLATES
Templates are something that I find a lot of people do have an invoice template that they use and keep losing it, so they have to keep making a new one or a complete contract. It could be just a document that you have to keep using over and over again. But you don't have a simple way to find it to store it. And to have it be easily repeatable. Again, this is something that an assistant can help you out with, and this is something that they can even fill in for you to double-check and check if everything is good, and eventually, they can even send it out themselves. So this kind of the magic of having a virtual assistant is they can start focusing on the things you don't want to do anymore because it doesn't help you grow your business.
Do you know the 80-20 principle? For those who don't know, the Pareto principle is that 20% of your stuff brings in 80% of your business. It's a super simple concept. And what you have to do is identify those two things that are bringing in the most perfect 80% and then get rid of all the other stuff that doesn't matter so that you can focus on doing those two things right now. And that's where I think a virtual assistant can come into play because you can get those things out of your way to focus on doing those two delicious things driving your business to success.
YOUR FILES ARE EVERYWHERE
Another sign that you need a virtual assistant is your files are everywhere. There's no way for you and no single way to find the documents you need; there's no way for you to easily see where things are at because everything is just everywhere else space. You've been the only one running your business, and no one else's come in kind of help, so you're just throwing things everywhere. You have a messy pile of emails that need to go through.
NO CLEAR WAY TO GENERATE NEW LEADS
It would be best if you had a virtual assistant because you have no clear way of generating new leads. There's no way for you to know that a client will come in soon, or you don't have a trusted way to set up a system so clients can come into your business. This could be because you don't have a way to reach out to them on LinkedIn or because you don't have a social media system that brings in clients through different posts about your business and every other way you can help potential clients. There's no way that people come in without your outreach and connections, so virtual assistants can go in and do the heavy lifting to reach out to people or be active in posting on your social media and finding different ways to help generate those leads for you. This universal system focuses on essential things, like running your business. Then you can also start bringing in leads, which will undoubtedly help to grow your business.
YOU HAVE A REVOLVING LIST OF FREELANCERS
Another sign that you need a virtual assistant is if you have a revolving door of freelancers. What I mean by this is that some people just have, you know, a graphic artist they need from time to time. It's always the same person, or they have this content writer they need from time to time, and there's no way for you to keep tabs on them. A virtual assistant can come in and make that list.
YOU ARE STARTING TO HATE WHAT YOU DO
One of the people you want to work with, you know, does that maintaining of relationships as you are, again, working on growing the business. One of the most significant signs that you need a virtual assistant is you are starting to hate what you do. And this is usually just the rock bottom feeling of I don't want to show up at work anymore. I don't want to show up at the job I created for myself. And I remember feeling this way about my YouTube channel. I remember loving starting, creating scripts, and all of that, but it just got to the point where it became drag it in and look forward to it anymore. So having a virtual assistant has helped free me up, so they don't have to be stuck editing my videos eight to 16 hours a week. To meet the needs of your business, you need to delegate tasks to others.
WHAT ARE THE NEXT STEPS:
Create A List Of Task That You Want To Delegate
What are the things that you're just not good at? What are the things that you are not the master of or the things that are repetitive that it doesn't need your attention anymore? It can be as easy as creating invoices or managing an email. What are those tasks? Right, that list.
Create A Wishlist Tasks
Next, list tasks you want to do one day or have someone else do in your business. For example, it could be something as small as changing one little thing on your website and creating a content calendar for your social media. Start making that list of other things you would delegate to them if you had a virtual assistant (VA). Your wish list is tasks that you wish someone could get to later on or you can go to later on.
Create Training Videos Of How You Do Your Tasks
Next, you can make training videos of your processes. You could use tools like Loom or Vidyard but start by simply recording yourself whenever you're doing a specific task. Once you hire and onboard your virtual assistant, this is also a way for you to ensure that there's a uniform way that you do things inside of your business. This is some way that you can start cleaning up on where files are, not where documents are at and can begin as a virtual assistant that helps you iron all of that out.
Process of Hiring A Virtual Assistant
Next is not the process of hiring a virtual assistant. You need a good job description and a skills test to determine if they're good at their work and whether there's someone full-time and part-time or someone who is a specialized virtual assistant or just a general virtual assistant. And it would be best if you had a virtual assistant or an executive assistant, which is where we come in at 2xYou. We specialize in hiring and managing administrative assistants for many of our clients.
Onboarding and Training Your Virtual Assistant
Once you have a virtual assistant, you need to train them in the things they need to do in your business and their skill set. This may include teaching them tasks they need to perform in your business or helping them improve their skills. If you want to build loyalty with your assistant, you need to give them opportunities to grow while working with you, and this will help build loyalty for the long term and help them become invested in your business.
Take the 2xYou Scale You Scorecard now to see which part of your business needs a boost: 2xyou.com/scorecard