TRANSCRIPTION

So, today we are going to talk about when looking for a virtual assistant (VA), what kind of factors, what factors do you consider?


Right. So, the first factor I will look at is ‘initiative’. So, the thing is that when you work with a virtual assistant, right, I will expect, okay, I will expect the person to have some kind of initiative. For example, if this person, right, know that in the next couple of days, they are not able to complete a certain KPI. They will have to tell my management team, they’ll have to tell my project manager, say, “Hey, I’m not able to actually complete this KPI, this task, this job, because the thing is that it’s too much for me. And I will fall short. I will not meet the deadline.” All right.


So, the virtual assistant, right, the VA will need to actually inform our team, say, “Hey, I’m going to fall short. I’m going to actually miss the deadline. And I’m not able to do that. And these are my suggestions.” Okay. They must have initiative to make sure that the work continue. To make sure that the solution is there for us to resolve, right. We do not want to work with those VAs, right, that have problems with initiative. They ghost us, they disappear if they cannot complete their KPI without informing us. They literally just drop the ball and disappear. Right. So, this is the first thing that we want to look at when we hire a VA. ‘Initiative’.


So the second thing, right, is ‘to be responsible’, okay, for your task. The VA (himself), right, of course, this may sound like common sense, that the VA needs to be responsible. But the thing is that you’ll be surprised at, there’s some VAs who actually, like I mentioned earlier, they just disappear and they just never report the things that they have done for the day, and do they meet their KPI for this? So, right. Because the KPIs, it’s actually in tune with that week’s performance for a company, or that month’s performance for the company. And also you will actually be on track, okay, for the yearly goals, as well.


So, it just takes one or two persons, right, in your team who are not responsible with their work, they dropped the ball, and this will affect everything itself. Okay. So, that’s the second thing. They must be responsible for their work. If they are not able to actually understand what you’re trying to actually tell them, or if they don’t understand the work, they must come back to you and say, “Hey, I need more training in regards to this. Can you teach me on how to do this?” So we want to actually find VAs like that. Okay, responsible for their work. Right.


And the third thing is, they must be ‘responsive’, okay, during their working hours. I’m not talking about during weekends, when they are resting, during after office hours, or those times when they are not working, I don’t expect them to reply my messages. I do not expect them to work if they are not working, if they’re on leave, if they are trying to relax their minds. Right. But the thing is that, when during office hours or during the working hours of my VA, we expect them to respond, not immediately, maybe within one hour or two hours. Within the business day itself. Right. So, my rule is within the business day itself, please respond.


Some VAs, right, they will not respond after three working days. Right. So, this is not going to be very responsive, and some of the things, right, for example, if we have certain campaigns with influencers, if we have certain contests with influencers, then that will be game time. Because this kind of contest would need to be dynamic and we need the marketing team to be there. So, if the marketing team, right, is not responsive during the period of contests, let’s say, for example, there’s maybe a live giveaway by the influencer, and our marketing team is going to be there to actually support influencers, using our Facebook page to make sure all the landing pages are okay. To make sure that we still have stock in our Amazon store. And that period of time, right, is when we need our VAs to be responsive. So, can you imagine, right, one or two VAs from marketing team and they are not responsive, this will actually be a major disaster when you actually work out a live contest, a live campaign with the influencers.


So yeah, the three things, okay, the three factors to consider is initiative. Do they have initiative, right, with their work? Are they responsible with their work, and are they responsive during office hours? All right. So, normal communication, one business day, but during live campaigns, live contests, then they need to be there. Right. Maybe for about one or two hours, that’s about it, during the office hours. All right. I’m not talking about work day or rest days. Right. So, yeah. So, I hope today’s podcast will help you to see what are the factors that you consider, that you should consider, all right, when you hire a virtual assistant.