Daily business tasks can be incredibly time consuming for small business owners. Further, they can easily distract attention away from practices that could help lead to future growth, stifling a company’s chance of success.

But today, this no longer has to be the case for your business. That’s because you can easily hire a virtual assistant to handle simple tasks for you, saving you precious time that you can spend doing other, more important things.

If you are planning on hiring a virtual assistant, it’s extremely important to take the right steps to ensure that you find an individual that will do everything correctly. And below, we’ll give you the guidance you need to find a virtual assistant that will keep your company moving forward and maintain their work over time.

5 Steps to Finding and Managing the Right Virtual Assistant

 When you choose to hire a virtual assistant, it’s essential that you take the time to find one that will serve all necessary purposes for your business. And, by following just 5 simple steps, you can do just that.

1. Evaluate an Assistant Based on Your Business Needs – The best place to start when hiring an assistant is by evaluating whether or not it’s both cost-effective and reasonable for your company to hire one. Identify what minor tasks are taking up time and what hourly pay will work when you want to hire an assistant.

2. Determine if You Want to Use an Agency or Freelancer – Another factor you must consider is whether or not you want to hire an individual from an agency or an independent freelancer. While an agency is costlier, they will provide you with multiple assistants with a variety of skills. A freelancer is often less expensive, but you might want to take care to find one with the unique skillset your business requires.

3. Create an Appropriate Job Listing – Your job listing should be reflective of your company and your standards. This means that your job listing should be detailed and well-edited. You might even want to add in a call-to-action (like instructing applicants to include a specific word at the top of the proposal). This way, you can attract the right type of applicants and determine whether or not they’re a good fit for your needs.

4. Hiring Your Assistant – Once you’ve received all of your responses, you’ll want to determine which applicants you like. From there, it’s often worthwhile to set up video conferences for each to determine their proficiency in English and other skills you find essential for your job.

5. Proper Management Practices – Your job isn’t complete once you’ve simply hired your assistant. In fact, proper management is just as important. Always assign tasks with specific details to ensure they’re done properly and effectively. Of course, you might want to take advantage of a platform like Google Docs to make things even simpler.

Ease Your Business Burden With a Virtual Assistant

More than ever before, small businesses are recognizing the true benefit of utilizing virtual assistants for their needs. And when done properly, these assistants can truly ease your work burden and simplify your business while freeing up time.