Hiring Your First Virtual Assistant: When, Where, and How to Do it Right (Greatest Hits)
Jul 4, 2024
auto_awesome
Learn from experts John Jonas and Nate Hirsch on when to hire your first virtual assistant, how to find the best talent within your budget, and common mistakes to avoid. Explore the benefits of outsourcing tasks, setting clear expectations, and promoting role flexibility for growth in your business.
Hiring virtual assistants provides breathing room for strategic focus in business operations.
Role-based hiring emphasizes English proficiency and communication skills over technical abilities.
Setting clear expectations and avoiding perfectionism are essential for successful virtual assistant recruitment.
Deep dives
Benefits of Hiring Virtual Help
Hiring virtual help can provide business owners with breathing room in their schedule and mental bandwidth. This allows owners to focus on business strategies rather than day-to-day tasks. John Jonas and Nate Hirsch, with extensive experience in remote management, highlight the benefits of virtual team members in delegating work effectively.
The Impact of Hiring First Employees
The podcast discusses the transformative experience of hiring the first employee. It emphasizes the liberation felt by offloading tasks, such as writing and article submission, leading to increased efficiency and focus on strategic business aspects. Real-life examples provide insight into the significant shift from working in the business to working on the business.
Considerations for Hiring and Delegating
The importance of hiring for English proficiency, attention to detail, and reliability is underscored for roles beyond technical positions. Hiring for roles rather than specific tasks encourages employees to grow and excel in their responsibilities. Additionally, the discussion delves into effective recruitment strategies, emphasizing written communication over voice calls and leveraging asynchronous communication tools like Skype messages for efficient coordination.
Rethinking Hiring Strategies
The podcast challenges traditional hiring norms by focusing on role-based hires and emphasizing employee dedication and communication skills as crucial criteria. Entrepreneurs are encouraged to invest time in recruitment processes to assess candidates thoroughly before making hiring decisions. Utilizing strategic questioning and written communication tests can reveal valuable insights into potential hires' reliability and attention to detail.
Setting Clear Expectations in Hiring
Setting clear expectations right from the beginning is crucial in hiring, as highlighted in the podcast episode. Communicating preferred communication channels and outlining success criteria help prevent misunderstandings. Examples from the episode demonstrate how miscommunications can lead to issues, emphasizing the importance of setting high expectations to ensure alignment.
Avoiding Unrealistic Expectations and Prioritizing Communication
The podcast addresses common mistakes in hiring, such as expecting a single person to excel in various tasks, and demanding perfection from the start. It stresses the significance of understanding that finding a 'perfect' hire is unrealistic and that patience and communication play key roles. The importance of over-communicating and being upfront with expectations, particularly in virtual work arrangements, is highlighted as crucial for successful hiring experiences.
We all have a limit to our capacity. For some entrepreneurs and small business owners, that’s a tough pill to swallow.
But when you’re up against that ceiling you've got two options. You can:
Settle in.
Get help.
This episode is about growing your team in such a way that you have some breathing room in your schedule and in your mental bandwidth to do the work that’s required of a business owner.
Even though I’ve been hiring virtual help in my businesses since 2005, I’ve still got a lot to learn! This is something that’s been on my mind this year as I think about where I want my current operations to go and who can help get me there.
To help dive into this topic, I’m excited to welcome John Jonas and Nate Hirsch to the show.
Between them, they’ve got more than 60 virtual team members and have been practicing remote management for more than a decade.
They both run platforms to help you make your first virtual hire as well:
John heads up OnlineJobs.ph, the largest remote job board and resume database for workers in the Philippines.
Nate created FreeeUp.com, a curated freelance marketplace for workers all around the world. He also founded Ecombalance.com, a monthly bookkeeping service for Ecommerce Sellers/agencies, and OutsourceSchool.com where he teaches his hiring processes.
Tune in to hear John and Nate’s take on when it’s time to hire, how to find the best talent for your budget, and some common mistakes to avoid.