I often come across posts about hiring a VA in health coach Facebook groups. One thing that is clear from these posts is that many wellness business could benefit from hiring a virtual assistant, but many health coaches and fitness professionals are not yet ready to include a VA in their business.
What is a virtual assistant?
A virtual assistant is someone who can help you with a variety of tasks and who works virtually. Tasks that a virtual assistant can help with depends on their specialty, and they don’t have to be simply administrative tasks:
- website updates, management and design
- Social media management and engagement
- Content management - posting content to websites, podcasts, social media, etc
- Customer service
- Online program updates and creation
- Client onboarding
- Email automations, campaigns
- Sales page creation
Some VAs will specialize in a specific type of task or specific product. Others will specialize in an industry. I specialize in helping people in the wellness industry create, optimize and market their programs, courses and memberships.
One thing to note is that a virtual assistant is not an employee. They are independent contractors. Some are part of virtual assistant agencies, but many have their own businesses.
There are different types of VAs, each specializing in different areas. There are social media VAs, tech VAs, content marketing VAs and of course admin VAs. But virtual assistants do more than just admin tasks, and you may find them under many different names like social media manager, website manager, or product launch specialist.
Do you have your processes documented?
This isn’t absolutely essential, but it helps. If you have processes documented then they are easy to pass off to a virtual assistant so they can take them over without asking a bunch of questions. Some tasks are more important to have documented, for others your VA may already have a process that is ideal for what you want to do. For example if they specialize in content management, they would likely have a process for creating images, loading content, updating SEO content and creating related social media posts.
Is your branding documented?
This is a simple thing for you to do, but necessary. For many tasks, the VA will need to know your branding, that is your preferred colours, fonts, logo and messaging. If you want your VA to do social media posts, marketing material or even website content, if will help immensely if you can provide this.
Do you have tasks that can be passed off to someone who doesn’t know your business?
If you plan on having a VA for a while, then they will probably learn quite a bit about your business. But to start with you will want to pass off tasks that don’t require as much business knowledge. You don’t want to spend more time answering questions or fixing what was done because it doesn’t fit in with your messaging.
You also want to make sure that you don’t commit to more work than you have. This could mean that you are constantly trying to create tasks for the VA to do.
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Are you willing to give up control?
On the other hand, you need to be able to give up some control to work effectively with a VA. A VA might not do things in exactly the same way that you would. How much control you give up will depend on the task and the experience of the VA that you hire.
Do you have a project that has you stuck?
You probably have big plans with your business, but then you realize you don’t know how to do everything or don’t have the time to do it all. It could be creating a coaching program, getting a membership launched or creating a workshop. If you find a virtual assistant who specializes in that area, they can help you get unstuck by focusing on the tasks that you don’t know how to do or don’t have time to do.
If you want to get a program online, then you might want to hire a VA that is proficient in using the platform that you want to use. For example, I’m a MemberVault certified partner, so I know the ins and outs of getting things online with MemberVault. If on the other hand you would rather use Kajabi, the finding a VA that knows the ins and outs of Kajabi might be beneficial.
Are you available for answering questions and providing what you need to?
Hiring a VA will free up a lot of time for you, but you still have to do your part. You can’t expect a VA to have a blog post ready for Monday morning if you don’t provide the content until Sunday night. Or if your VA asks a question, you need to understand that your lack of response could slow down the task completion.
Are you financially ready?
Being financially ready often holds people back from hiring a VA. But although the expense of hiring a VA can be low, consider if your business is at a state where you can afford it.
By using a VA you are buying time. So if that time can be used to create more revenue in your business, then it might be worth it, even if finances are going to be tight.
Are you spending too much time on tasks that you don’t like or you’re not good at?
These are probably two of the biggest reasons for hiring a VA. There will be certain tasks in your business that you will have to do whether you like them or not, but there are many tasks that can be outsourced.
You are also likely spending time doing things that are not in your zone of genius and these are also perfect for outsourcing. Find someone who can do these things really well and it will help to move your business forward and give you more time to focus on what you are good at.
How to find a VA?
There are several places you can find a VA. You can of course start here. Check out my offerings to see if anything fits with what you are looking for. You can also try sites like UpWork especially if you have a one time job that you want to try a VA out with. If you are looking for Canadian VAs then CAVA is a good place to start. There are also several agencies out there that have different types of VAs to help you with different types of tasks.
Summary
Hiring a virtual assistant can help you to save time and be more productive in your business but you need to make sure that your business is ready for a virtual assistant before you hire one.
