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- How to Hire Your First VA
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Today we’ll be discussing how to hire a VA the right way.
While installing a Virtual Assistant into your business can free up time, it can be also be a headache if done wrong. Fortunately, there are some tips you can follow to avoid wasting time and reversing your productivity.
Let’s dive in.
Learn about a platform focused on payment processing, financing clients, deal closing, financial management, and affiliate management that enables coaches and digital entrepreneurs who sell courses and services online, to scale their business.
They work with major brands, including Tai Lopez, Alex Hormozi, and Ryan Pineda, that have scaled their businesses to millions a month in revenue.
I, the founder of Passionate Income, filmed a video sharing my experience…
Watch it here.
Since first getting into business I've hired 25 if not 50+ virtual assistants.
Some of which were great, some of which were mediocre, and some of which were downright terrible.
Fortunately, by learning from others - and through trial and error - I developed a method for hiring high quality candidates the first time around.
Here are my best tips:
#1 - Start With a Test Project
For better or worse, most people trying to work online are either unskilled or incompetent.
In the case of the unskilled, odds are they're simply new to their career and don't have enough first-world experience.
In the case of the incompetent, it's likely they either over-estimate their skills, or don't even see the need to build a skill before offering it as a service.
Either way, you need a strategy for filtering out the majority of people who apply to work with you. And when it comes to hiring VAs, your mechanism for doing so is to give them a small test project.
This can be paid or unpaid depending on the commitment level.
In fact, in my experience, the best VAs are so confident they'll be willing to do the test project for free to show their skills (some even offer to do some free work without you having to ask, which is a great sign).
With that said, using a test project doesn't mean you abuse the fact you're in a position of power.
It just means you ask people to demonstrate that they are, in fact, capable of doing the job you're asking them to do.
As an example, in the past when I hired lead generation VAs, I'd have them gather contact info for five prospects from my target spreadsheet.
Doing this took a maximum of 15-30 minutes to complete. However, by doing this, I was able to filter out the people who:
Weren't serious enough to do the bare minimum
Accepted the test job but then flaked
Didn't have good enough English to follow my instructions
Thought their own way of doing things was better
Worked abnormally slowly
Etc
So, given you'll likely be hiring someone off a website like Upwork or PeoplePerHour, consider putting the best applicants through a test project.
#2 - Hire Multiple Candidates
While it's a little aggressive, this has been a game changer.
When you hire one person for a job, it's easy for that person to relax into their comfort zone now that they've secured the position.
But when you tell someone you're hiring 2-3 candidates - and will be testing them to see who performs best - it creates an atmosphere of competition.
This works especially well when each of the VAs can see that you've legitimately hired multiple people. I personally enabled this by creating one project spreadsheet that had multiple tabs for each of the individual VAs.
With each person's work readily visible and updated on a continuous basis, it was obvious I wasn't playing games when I said I'd be hiring multiple people.
In fact, not only could they see that they were competing, they could see how their progress and the quality of their work stacked up.
Does going this route cost more?
Yes.
But that's the price you pay to find a top performing VA.
Further, it's not like you're going to pay all three of them for 40 hours/week.
Instead, you can select the best candidate and terminate your contract with whoever you don't want to work with anymore.
Last, if you're lucky, you'll realize you have two high performers.
In which case you can keep both of them on contract and give them each different projects, or keep both of them focused on the same project and get it done twice as fast.
#3 - Ask for Suggestions
This is something Alex Hormozi has been talking about a lot lately.
And in all honesty, it's something I did by accident.
Long story short, if someone's really good at what they do, they should know more about it than you.
In which case it's not only possible, but likely they have suggestions for how you can do things more efficiently or effectively.
Admittedly, when Hormozi talks about this, he's talking about hiring A Players for critical company roles. In which case this concept applies at a much higher degree relative to hiring $7/hour VAs from the Philippines.
But make no mistake about it: The same principle still applies.
From suggesting software you don't know about / might not have considered, to implementing new methods or tactics for getting things done, all the best VAS I've worked with had their own way of doing things.
However, in most cases, they'll be too shy to tell you unless you ask.
Meaning, to get the best work out of your VA, wait until a week or two after you've started (in which case they'll get the feel for your way of doing things).
Then ask them if they have any suggestions for getting the work done faster / more efficiently.
While there are no guarantees they'll have an answer, if they do, listen to what they have to say and consider integrating it into their instructions.
Especially if you're paying them by the hour. In which case them getting the job done faster saves you money.
#4 - Actions > Words
While freelancer profiles are great as a jumping off point for gauging someone's skills, that's where their utility stops.
I've worked with plenty of VAs who had great profiles and reviews, but whose performance failed to live up to my standards.
At the same time, I've taken long shots on people with newer profiles who totally exceeded my expectations.
So, while I refuse to budget on my "4.5/5 stars or higher" policy, understand most of the stats related to hours worked and dollars earned tell you nothing about someone's abilities.
What you can rely on are people's actions, including:
Response times and turnaround times
Ability to follow instructions
Ability to admit when they did something wrong
Not making the same mistakes over and over
Meeting deadlines
Etc
In conclusion, while there's no sure fire way to guarantee you hire the perfect VA on your first attempt, following the above strategies can help you avoid the lion's share of headaches.
Even better, once you realize the power of outsourcing bullshit work you don't want to do yourself, you'll quickly realize getting the right VAs in place is well worth the hassle.
💡 Takeaway: To avoid headaches when hiring VAs, start with a test project, pit multiple candidates against each other, ask for suggestions and judge people on their actions and performance instead of their profiles.
🎁 Resources:
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