This month Virtual Diamond is celebrating 11 years in business. This long term success comes with a few key tricks that we've learned on the way.
Prioritise Your Communication
When you're working with a Virtual Assistant communication is essential, from providing clear explanations to systems to making requests in a coherent way there's a lot to get right. We suggest starting off with what works best for you both, are you focussed on emails, WhatsApp's, phone calls or Zoom meetings? Find a steady rhythm that fits into your ways of working.
Don't Be Afraid of New Tools
When you're working with someone new there will be new tools to get used to, whether that's time tracking, a CRM or a new social media. There are new apps being developed every day and being able to quickly adapt and learn is the best way to keep on top of new topics and never stagnate.
Define Goals
Setting goals for any relationship with a virtual assistant is a great way to set realistic expectations of their role. Is your goal physical in terms of you want to grow your LinkedIn followers by 10,000 this year? Or is it less tangible such as being able to have more brain space to think about other pieces of your business?
Get Your Onboarding Plan Right
Don't just presume that onboarding is easy, when you've grown with your business you know everything about it - but everyone else doesn't! Getting your onboarding right means you articulate your business well and know about your processes. It's okay not to know this at the start of a relationship but be clear about your position.
Receive Feedback
Feedback is critical to any business, and it works both ways in a VA relationship. We should be open to learning new systems and receiving feedback when there's things to be improved. The same is said for our client, we have worked with tens of small businesses at different stages and we can offer insights into business changes that could help! All feedback is good feedback.
Know the 'why'
Knowing more than just the task at hand can be incredibly useful to us, and we're often curious about what we're doing. If you can give some context as to why you're asking us to do a task we will be able to put together the whole picture of your business and get a better understanding for the future.
Outsource, Outsource, Outsource
Never stop asking yourself - what can I delegate? Outsourcing is there as additional capacity for you and your business, and unless something requires your expertise the chances are we can help! Always ask "Can you help with X?" you never know who we've got experience with!
Just Checking In
Create and stick to regular check ins. Now these don't have to be hour long meetings each week but what fits into your schedule. Check ins are important for task clarity, updating on business trajectory and learning about news.
Boundaries are Essential
For everyone setting realistic boundaries at the start of a relationship allows you to know when to expect responses, timings of task completion and to have a good understanding of the working relationship.
Celebrate Together
Never forget to celebrate together, when there's a new sale or goal reached recognise it! Too much we move onto the next thing without appreciating our current successes and celebrating together is so important.
Never stop learning
You're never done with your learning journey, there is always a new app or tool to be able to be used, a new process to learn or some new hints and tips to grow your business.
11 years in business is amazing, and we never thought we'd have an ever growing team and client base that appreciate working with us and consistently grow their businesses.