What Qualities to look for in a Virtual Assistant -

Qualities to look for in a Virtual Assistant

You’ve decided that enough is enough. You’re going to need to some help when it comes to running your own business. You simply can’t be the marketer, the head of social media, the bookkeeper, the buyer, customer service team…need we go on.

A Virtual Assistant seems to be the way forward for you. Someone who is flexible, can fit in with you needs and take some of the day to day tasks of your list so that you can focus on building the business.

Here are some of the most important qualities required from a Virtual Assistant who’ll be worth their weight in gold for you:

Organised

After doing some market research, it was clear that this quality came out again and again…and again. A VA will look after more than one client, plus be trying to run their own business so will need to be hyper organised. Most VA’s use a project management tool to run their businesses so look for a VA who uses something like Trello or Asana.

Time management will be key for a VA as they undertake more and more client work. A good virtual assistant will also have multi-tasking down to a fine art as well as they juggle different client projects.

Reliable

This probably goes without saying. You need someone to be part of your team who’s going to be there for you. What you don’t need is someone letting you down once you’ve given them a piece of work to do.

We’ve recently been able to help a client after she was diagnosed with Covid and was very poorly. As we have been working with them for such a long time, we were able to step in and do 95% of the day to day running of the business so that she could focus on getting well.

Professional

Your virtual assistant is going to be an extension of your team – you need them to respond to emails, answer phone calls or make enquiries for you in a professional manner. We’ve heard stories of VA’s going into discovery meetings with potential new clients swearing left, right and centre. Is this really the sort of person you want representing your business when they are remote working and you’re unable to monitor what they are doing?

Trust

This leads us nicely into trust. You’ve grown your business and it’s your baby, your pride and joy. You want to be able to delegate tasks to someone and know they are going to get done on time, in line with the brief and in a professional manner. This can be difficult initially as it’s a new working relationship but if you can start handing over small tasks and you can see that your VA is handling them well, you can increase the workload you give them.

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