One of the most common questions is when is the right time to hire a virtual assistant?
In the last couple of years, I've noticed a point in an entrepreneur's journey where they go from thinking, "I can do everything myself" to realizing that they can't. That's when they need to hire someone for their business.
Repeatable Growth
The first sign that you're ready to hire a virtual assistant is when you've got repeatable growth in your business. This is a mistake many people make: the first time they have any revenue in their business, they hire someone right away to do the things they don't like.
This hurts you immediately because you have yet to prove that you can keep creating that growth.
When it's repeatable growth, as in you've done it a couple of times or you have monthly revenue already—for example, if you create an app or kind of a service-based business—you can be more confident in hiring a virtual assistant. You must remember that hiring an employee will be an ongoing cost to your business—yes, they can help save money or make you more money. However, it will continue, and you can't just let someone go because you are losing money in your business. You need to have a repeatable way to make money in your business; it can't just be a one-time thing and then go ahead and find an assistant to do some of the tasks for you.
You Can Afford It
Next, of course, is that you can afford it. This is one of the essential things you must remember: once you have an assistant, it can't just be that you're paying their salary but not being able to pay theirs. You have to look into the market and see how much an assistant would cost for the caliber that you need—whether that means someone willing to train someone new or someone who has been experienced for years. Both options have a salary range, so you must keep it in mind and check your numbers.
If I've made $X this month, will my recurring revenue (repeatable growth) cover the expense of having an assistant supporting me in my business? An ongoing cost is having an employee, whether a virtual assistant, freelancer, or specialist. You have to make sure that you can afford them rather than them being out of a job after three months because you can't anymore afford to have them in your business.
Your Client/Customer Service Is Slacking
The next time you're ready to hire a virtual assistant is when your client or customer service is slacking. What I mean by this is that you're not responding to clients or customers as fast as you want to, things are falling through the cracks, and you know you're serving them, but you're not able to fully get the service because you're overwhelmed. You're taking care of too many people, which is usually a sign that you need an assistant to help support some of the tasks that you might not need to do so that you can focus on your clients and focus on your customers. They can even be customer support if you have a type of business with multiple customers, not just one-to-one clients, so that's another sign that the company has grown beyond use and is on the flip side of it.
You Can't Take In New Clients
Another sign that you need a virtual assistant is if you can't take in more clients or new business. This is because you're overwhelmed, can't take in another client, and your mental ram or processing needs more to handle it.
You want to look for signs like "If client A left tomorrow, I would feel better about myself and what I'm doing because then I can serve Clients B and C better." When those thoughts start popping up, it's another sign that you need a virtual assistant.
You've Already Been Outsourcing
When you've already been recurringly outsourcing some of the tasks in your business, you might have hired a part-time social media person or a part-time specialist for your website or product. This could be anything, but if you've already started to outsource different parts of your business to freelancers and people working with you part-time, that's another sign that you are ready to have a virtual assistant.
This person could be doing some tasks you've outsourced, or they could be managing the freelancers that you're working with. Either way—when you're used to delegating a lot of the things you're doing, it will be easier for you to adjust to working with a virtual assistant.
Recurring Expert Tasks
You now have high-level recurring tasks in your business that need to be done.
Some things need to get done in your business that you can't do yourself anymore to get to that high level. These are usually, again, high-level stuff.
This comes from one of the videos Gary Vaynerchuk created a few months ago. He talked about one of the first hires you should do are the positions basically where you can't do yourself. So, for example, in legal stuff that's different from your expertise, having someone who is your legal person will be your next hype for your virtual assistant. A lot of the things that you are doing will need support underneath for you to be able to show up in the best way, for example, Your sales call if you are still good at this if this is something that you're good at then you will need support in the background to be able to get to that point. That could be your assistant doing lead generation and some marketing. They could be filtering out people before you even hop on a call with them, so again, they're supporting your high-level things as you start thinking, "Hey, I think I should kind of have someone else start doing this." It could also be that your virtual assistant is the expert for like product creation and product management because these are things that you need the headspace for you're not good at.
You've Hit A Cap In Your Business
And, of course, the classic reason it's time for you to hire a virtual assistant is you've just hit a cap in your business. You've gotten to the point where you are running around like a headless chicken. We've all known what that feeling is. You can't do it by yourself anymore; you feel overwhelmed; you feel tired; you're not sure what tasks you should do; nothing is systematizing your business; no one else is doing what you're supposed to be doing—so it's that point where again: you've hit that cap; you've been running your business; you've been building a car as you're running it—and now, at last, you can't do it on your own anymore (and neither can I!)
So this is a typical picture of someone needing a virtual assistant—and of course, if you need a virtual assistant again. I do run a virtual assistant agency! I don't usually use my YouTube channel to talk about that. But that is when you can start looking at freelancers looking to hire yourself. I have a video on how to hire a virtual assistant and, of course, look at different virtual assistant agencies that can help you.
It's about ensuring that the employee you hire—whether a virtual assistant, contractor, or freelancer—saves or makes you money.
That's something I got from one of my friends, and it's always a good thing once you start hiring for really good people because your business is growing further.
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