Having Effective Communication with Your Virtual Assistant (VA) is Paramount!
Your working situation with a Virtual Assistant depends on a relationship, and all relationships NEED great communication to survive.
Communication is key, and though there is more than one way to communicate effectively you need to find what works for you and your VA.
It needs to be clear at the start of the VA / Client relationship what your goals are.
Of course, a good VA will know which questions to ask, to get the information she needs, to do the job right but it will save you time (and money) to know how to effectively communicate with your VA from the beginning.
Communication Tip #1 – Main Goal of Project / Task
It is so important that you start every project / task with a clear goal or objective. What are you looking to achieve by completing this project / task? How do you plan to achieve it?
For example, if your VA is creating an opt-in page for you, she’ll need to know what the reason behind it is, why you want these visitors to sign up with your newsletter.
If you don’t set out your ultimate goals from the start, a lot of time can be wasted wandering around doing various tasks, but not actually getting anywhere.
Communication Tip #2 – Tools
It’s entirely possible and more than likely that your VA will not live in your province, or maybe not even your country!
In a typical environment, you might get a chance to meet face-to-face weekly or monthly to discuss goals, but in a virtual position this just isn’t possible.
There are so many ways that you can communicate over the internet that makes this working relationship a reality. Though email and text chats can have a very important place in your correspondence; emotion tends to really get lost over the worldwide web.
It is a very good idea to keep in contact with your VA over the telephone on a fairly regular basis. It doesn’t have to be a long call, even 15 minutes once a month to do a quick review of your goals and changes, etc.
Communication Tip #3 – Email Organization
Emails can pile up in an inbox, and a busy VA gets a lot of emails!
When sending each email, it’s a good idea before you hit ‘send’ to make sure you keep each email to a specific topic so that everything doesn’t get lost and jumbled.
Also as a VA we have found it to be VERY helpful when a client puts in a specific Subject Line, that way the email can be found quickly when needed.
Another way to save your VA time (and you from paying for that time) is to send all work in a form that can be easily downloaded and saved to a computer file.
Depending on what you are sending you could use a word document, a zipped file or even WeTransfer, if it is for something larger.
If you have a shared Dropbox folder that you and your VA use for sharing documents, make sure you let her know once you have updated a document, as sometimes the notifications do not reach your VA.
Emails also tend to get lost in cyberspace and not even make it to your VA at all.
If you have large projects going on consider getting a project management program where you can keep track of all the tasks and messages relating to your project without having to rely on email messages.
Good communication is so important to a productive relationship with your VA so please don’t overlook it or it could end up costing you money!
It may take some time to find what works best with your VA but the rewards will be well worth the effort.
Talk to us at VCS – More Time For YOU, we are ready to help YOU restore your work / life balance! To find the list of the business services that VCS offer, please click HERE, or fill out our contact form HERE and let’s talk!