How to Grow Your Business pt 4 – Hiring Support

In this series on how to grow your business we have covered:

Now we are going to jump into hiring support for yourself and your business. While your first inclination might be hiring support to help you assist clients, the first level of support should be for your own needs first. This could be either personal or for business. Let’s begin with personal needs.

Hiring an in-house childcare provider so you can focus on more of your work throughout the day is a way for you to get more done without hiring a VA. You might even consider hiring someone to clean your home or cook meals. Remember that hiring an assistant should serve your biggest and most impactful needs first. If you begin hiring a team but don’t have the bandwidth to manage them because of other duties and personal commitments your business will be affected. Negatively.

When thinking about if your personal needs should be taken care of first, perhaps it is time to think of yourself as a client, not a VA. Begin by writing out your own job description. Don’t wing it. Know the right person to hire and why. Is the person you are going to hire supporting you or are they going to support your clients? How and how often will you communicate with this person? Will this person be communicating directly with your clients? When will you have time to manage their work and keep your clients satisfied? Don’t assume that every VA will be the right fit for you.

There are also different ways to hire virtual assistants. Will you hire subcontractors where you will add a fee on top of theirs and bill the clients directly? Or will the client pay the subcontractor directly and does the client know this? Hiring subcontractors could mean your work comes second or third to their personal clients and you need to know what kind of priority and deadlines can be met.

When you hire VAs on retainer then you are purchasing their hours in advance to have priority of their time. However, that can’t be assumed. Remember hiring a VA means you cannot dictate when your VA is online or set their hours. That would be an employee/employer relationship.

While hiring VAs is definitely a way to save on the expense of having employees, hiring employees means you get to have far more structure, set a company culture for your employees to abide by, and there is no competing with their other work or contracts. You can have far more guidelines and policies & procedures in place.

There is no definitive right or wrong. However, there is a best case scenario for you and your business and asking yourself the right questions along with weighing your options will help ensure success each and every step of the way.

Need more help and support in finding the right VAs for your business? When you join the Association of Virtual Assistants you have access to like-minded virtual assistants who you can partner with to help grow your business. You don’t just want to hire support. You want to hire the best and right support for your business. The AVA is here to help!

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