If you’re starting to feel like you’re reaching capacity for what you have time to achieve in your health or life coaching business, it could be time to start thinking about working with a virtual assistant.

In this quick guide to hiring and working with a VA, we’ll be looking at some of the reasons you might want to explore outsourcing tasks, how to find the right VA for you and things to consider if you want to get the best out of working with your new team member.

I’ve worked with a VA since 2016, first in my health coaching business and now as a business mentor and I’ve picked up a lot of tips on how you can best work with someone, let’s dive in!

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Why might it be time to work with a VA in your coaching business?

There’s various reasons why it might be a good time to start exploring how you could work with a VA, the most obvious one to begin with is probably time.

As your business grows you might start and feel like you’re hitting capacity in terms of all the tasks you need to do.

Sometimes we just run out of time in the business and we need someone else to do some of the tasks – especially ones that don’t require ‘us’ specifically so that we have more time to focus on other tasks in the business that might be more profitable or that might help us grow.

Another reason we might want to work with a VA is tech expertise. Bringing in a VA to support you who has more experience with certain tech can make a lot of sense. A VA can often do something in 10 minutes that would take you two hours, and that’s not to be disparaging to yourself!

If a VA is using that tech all the time they’re just going to be quicker than you are so it can make a lot of sense and add a lot of value into your business to free up your time for other things.

Customer service is another good reason to explore outsourcing to a VA. If your business is growing it’s possible that the amount of customer service enquiries will also grow and having someone on hand to respond to that is really another form of helping you manage tasks you don’t have time for.

The reasons are certainly not exhaustive – but the basic premise is that it’s going to save you time to work on something that is more profitable in your business. This could also look like doing some tasks that need to be done, but aren’t yet being done because you don’t have the time as much as taking existing tasks off your hands!

Identifying what you need a VA to support you with

The first step in the process of hiring a VA is starting to identify what you could actually need support with so you find the right match in terms of skills and experience.

Look at all the tasks you are currently performing in the business. It might be worth tracking your time for a couple of weeks. I’ve done this recently just using a Google Doc but tools like Togglr can also be effective.

Once you have an idea of the tasks you could outsource, it might also be a good idea to think about any tasks that aren’t being done but that should be getting done to help you grow.

I think the best sweet spot in terms of tasks to outsource are those where the outcome of the task is as good as or better than when you do it, or that will be completed faster than when you do it.

To give you an idea of what kinds of tasks can be outsourced to a VA, here’s some of the things I get support with (or have been supported with in the past):

• Customer service emails and managing the customer service / general enquiries inbox
• Scheduling content to go out on blog / podcast / YouTube
• Creating and sharing Pins on Pinterest
• Creating content for Instagram
• Writing and scheduling emails for my live programmes and memberships
• Assisting on live events / webinars
• Designing sales pages on my website
• Setting up checkout pages on my cart software
• Assisting me in preparing for bundle submissions

What’s your budget

Now is also a good time to identify what your budget is to pay someone. VA’s tend to charge an hourly rate which may be discounted if you commit to a retainer or package of a certain number of hours each month.

You’ll also want to consider your ROI at this stage too. If you’re confident that by outsourcing tasks that currently take you 2 hours a week, you could bring in an extra £2000 to the business, then paying a VA £200+ a month would make total sense.

Create a ‘job spec’

This step can be optional depending on how you’d like to approach it, but you can write up a ‘job advert’ to describe exactly what you’re looking for. I did this for my most recent VA hire – the amazing Gem from Create and Bloom and shared it on my website and then shared that link in some business Facebook groups. It included a form to apply and then I went on to informally interview some VAs.

You might also want to think about whether your ideal VA has some knowledge and experience or understanding of your niche area if you’re a health or life coach, especially if they’ll be supporting you with content creation and customer service.

It might be that you’re also happy to help train someone up in a particular area, that would be good to include in job spec as well.

Alternatively you can just ask for referrals or recommendations amongst your network or on social media. Having some information written down that defines what you need from a VA will be helpful in making sure you don’t waste your time with someone who isn’t the right fit.

Interview

Once you have found some VAs who look like a good fit, now’s the time to interview or at least have an informal chat with them.

You want to work with someone you get on with, who you gel with and who gets you and your business and who fits your budget.

You’ll also be looking for someone who can perform the tasks you need them to. Some coaches ask prospective VAs to complete a practice project to measure their competency (and pays them for their time in doing that) but that might not always be necessary.

Check any testimonials or references and then make your decision!

Working with a VA

It’s likely that when you decide to work with a VA they’ll supply you with a contract. Make sure that important elements like ending the contract, intellectual property protection and trial periods are included in that as well as payment arrangements.

Once you start working together there can often be a bit of a learning curve while you both get to see how to work with each other in the best way.

Most VAs will have a process for managing the time they work for you and you being able to share tasks. It’s ok to communicate any problems and it’s a good idea to do this early on to ensure you get the most out of working together.

Things to look out for

As I said, I’ve worked with a number of VA’s over the years (all who have been wonderful) and I’ve worked with clients who have VA’s and I’ve noticed a few things that can help the relationship go smoothly and help you get the most return on your investment.

Firstly, make sure that you have realistic expectations. Different VA’s will have different skill and expertise levels. My current VA is a tech and marketing VA and has a high level of skill in design, tech, content creation etc.

Remember that you should be directing the VA. This is a common issue I’ve noticed in that coaches hire a VA, but then don’t direct them enough because they aren’t clear on what should be getting done themselves in their businesses – FYI this is a clear sign you could do with getting support from a Business Mentor for Coaches.

Sometimes people confuse the role of a VA with an OBM (Online Business Manager) or a Social Media Manager and this can create some issues.

Occasionally the VA takes a little too much initiative (usually all from a really good natured place!) but ends up taking the business in the wrong direction and disempowering the coach in charge – you!

All of these things can be worked out but are worth being aware of if outsourcing is new to you.

Next steps

If you’re at the stage in your business where you’re looking to outsource do check out my 1:1 Mentoring offer if you feel you need some support in outsourcing the right tasks and giving your VA suitable direction.

I’d love to know if this guide has been useful, let me know in the comments if you’re looking for a VA!

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