When you hire your Virtual Assistant, you’ll probably want them to pick things up straight away. But how do you give them the best chance to ‘hit the ground running’?
In a perfect world, you’ll have your documented, step-by-step processes, or Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), in place. If this is the case, you can simply hand these over to your Virtual Assistant.
Having Your Own Processes Is Worthwhile For A Few Reasons:
- Whenever someone new starts working for your business, either employed or contracted, handing them your documented processes is an easy way for them to become fully trained in your business. Of course, they’re bound to have some questions. But these are more likely to be about specific points, rather than generally trying to understand how you work.
- They ensure everyone is following a consistent process for your business. Which results in tasks being completed in a consistent way, and with accurate results.
- They also improve efficiency in your business. Your Virtual Assistant doesn’t need to keep interrupting you by asking you to clarify something. They can simply refer to your processes as many times as they need to.
Processes can be in the form of a written document or a series of videos.
In a nutshell, when you hire your Virtual Assistant, providing your processes saves time spent training them in how your business operates. They help produce consistent and accurate results and improve efficiency.
Your Virtual Assistant Creates Your SOPs for You
However, what if you don’t have any processes, or they’re on your to-do list but way down in the list of priorities? One of the first tasks you can ask your Virtual Assistant to do is to create your processes for you, as they get to know your business.
There are three benefits to this:
- Your Virtual Assistant will learn your systems more thoroughly by detailing each step and writing them out.
- It’s time efficient for you, particularly if you know it really needs to be done anyway.
- The induction process for new people joining your business will be a lot quicker. Particularly if your Virtual Assistant leaves you and moves onto something else in the future!
This last point is particularly important if you are a start-up business, looking to scale up quickly. As you grow and bring new people into your team, being able to hand them your Standard Operating Procedures is a lot more efficient.
And a final thought…
As your Virtual Assistant is writing up your processes, they will obviously be discussing these with you. It could even get you thinking about how you do things in a different light. Maybe there are some things that you have always done a certain way.
But as your business has grown, creating your SOPs may help you realise that perhaps there is now a better way of doing things?
Whether you keep to your existing practices, or make some changes, having your documented step-by-step processes, or Standard Operating Procedures, in place, speeds up the onboarding process when you hire your Virtual Assistant.
But not only does this help them to ‘hit the ground running’, it also helps you to quickly get back to focusing on your clients and the actions that will grow your business. Which, after all, is why you hired your Virtual Assistant in the first place!
