Step 1: Decide What You Want Your Virtual Personal Assistant To Do
First, make a list of what you want your virtual assistant to do. Will they take on general tasks such as order fulfillment, customer service, or social media management? Or do you require a virtual assistant for more specialized tasks such as marketing, video production, project management, or digital advertising? Specialized VAs require less training, but generalized VAs can help take on repetitive tasks and free up more time in your workday. To determine which type of VA is right for you, spend some time documenting all the tasks you want to outsource, and the types of outcomes that you want your VA to achieve (for example, if hiring a VA to increase sales, what sales targets do you want them to reach?)
Step 2: Create a Job Description
To hire a virtual assistant right for the job, you will need to create a job description based on the types of tasks you wish to delegate. A job description includes:
- Information about your ecommerce store (i.e., your target customer, the industry you target, what you sell, etc).
- Desired level of experience, education, and skills
- An outline of duties and key responsibilities
- Specialized apps, tools, or software that the VA will be required to use (i.e., CRM systems or proprietary applications, WordPress, etc).
Step 3: Hire Your Virtual Personal Assistant
Once you have a job description outlining roles, responsibilities, and key qualifications, it’s time to do the hiring! At Virtual Latinos, we have two main ways of connecting with the perfect assistant for your needs:
- Go through our agency. Create an account, fill out a short questionnaire outlining your needs, and let our experienced team find you the perfect virtual assistant. We’ll review your requirements and find the right assistant for your needs. We take on the interview process and choose the top 2-3 candidates for the job, letting you have final approval. Once hired, you will manage your assistant, but we provide ongoing support.
- Hire through our Virtual Latinos directory. Sign up for our directory and browse assistants through filters like experience, key credentials, and certifications. Get in touch with them via our simple email system, and interview them like you would any other employee. Once hired, you manage them as long as your Virtual Latinos membership is active.
Our assistants are located all over Latin America, from Argentina, Costa Rica, or Mexico.
Step 4: Manage Your Virtual Assistant
Once hired, your small business virtual assistant can help you maintain any aspect of your business that you require. To keep the relationship beneficial, we recommend managing your employee with:
- Periodic performance reviews. Using the job description and outcomes you designed at the beginning of the process, determine if your virtual assistant is meeting the expectations you have.
- Resist the urge to micromanage. Small business owners can fall into the habit of wanting to control everything but remember this is why you hired a virtual assistant! Relax and let your new small business virtual assistant take off some of the load.
- Schedule regular check-ins. Use easy communication tools like Slack to check in with your virtual assistant and see how they’re doing and what they plan on tackling for the day.
Call Virtual Latinos to Learn More About How to Hire a VA
A virtual assistant can help you manage several different aspects of your ecommerce store. To learn more about our process and how our virtual assistant can help lighten your business load, contact us.
