Have you ever wondered how to get the most out of your Virtual Assistant? Well, this quick guide is for you!

1. How to Effectively Utilise Your Virtual Assistant

2. Identify Repetitive Tasks
• Your first step should be to identify what tasks are eating into your
time.
• What you can delegate to your PA, depends on their knowhow and
areas of expertise.
• Getting a list of things to suggest them to take on within their
contracted hours is a good place to start.

3. Establish Your Workflow
• Do you require your assistant to be available at certain hours?
Or would you rather they just get on with the work and give you
periodic updates?
• Establish these things early on in the process to ensure that
you’re both on the same page.
• That way you can reduce any frustration from not being able to
get in contact with your VA when you need them the most.
• Tip: Always check the time-zone difference, you never know
what time it might be where they are located.

4. Build a Rapport
• If you develop a great relationship with you virtual assistant,
things will run much smoother
• Having good working relationships are essential to getting
things done and of high quality.
• Ask your assistant about their life, and in turn share yours. You're
both human so its best to have that human touch.
• That’s the big benefit of Virtual Assistants over a algorithm one.

5. Try Different Tasks First to Gauge
Your VA’s Strengths and Weaknesses
• From there, you can get an idea of how your virtual assistant
works and what they can do for you.
• It might take some time but once you know what they are best
at, you can be as efficient as possible with the hours you have.
• By testing the waters, you can be better assured that your VA
has the skills, and if not what you might need to train them on.

6. Check in With Your VA
• After you set their first task, check in on them about 20% in.
• This is a great standard practice for any new virtual assistant.
• Everyone has a different way of doing things, and how they like
things done.
• By checking in on the progress so far you can direct you virtual
assistant so that they're not wasting both yours, and their time.
• This should only be done until you're comfortable with their
work, you don’t want to micromanage.

7. Make Communication a Priority
• In our modern society, communication has become easier and
easier
• Setting up communications protocols ensures that you and your
assistant always know how to stay in contact.
• Good communication is key to any relationship. The one
between you and your VA is like any other.
• You can set weekly skype calls, out of hours communication
preferences (such as WhatsApp), and even what day of the week
to send reports.

8. Utilise the Cloud
• The cloud makes working with a virtual assistant so much easier.
• Gone are the days where you would have to request a file form
someone.
• Now you can watch your VA’s progress in real time (If you really
hove nothing else going on)
• The cloud also ensures that is anything goes wrong with the Vas
computer, everything is safely sored and backed up.
• There are loads of other tools which can help you too.

9. Manage Expectations
• This goes for both you (the client) and the assistant.
• By managing expectations and having a clear communications
procedure, let downs can be avoided.
• Say, for example, one task may take you 2 hours to complete,
and you ask your VA to do it in 1.
• If it took you that long and you do it often, you cant expect your
VA to do it better right of the bat. Give them time to adjust.
• Conversely, your assistant should be able to gauge how long it
might take and inform you accordingly.