How should my client create a more defined role for me?

To help your client leverage your time as effectively as possible, we recommend working together to try to build out a clearly defined, ongoing long-term role for you, as time goes on.

Delegating piecemeal tasks to you here and there requires your client to stop and explain what help they require every single time they need your support.

As you will realise, this creates friction for both sides and can certainly feel frustrating for you!

But does you client realise what they are doing simply isn't sustainable and isn't the best way to use your support?

Most clients that leave Virtalent do so because they have struggled to delegate. Often, they simply never stopped to define a clear ongoing role and instead sporadically sent their VA small one-off tasks here and there.

This clash - an expectation of a smarter and more efficient way of working, versus the reality of how they actually use your support - leads them to conclude that working with a VA isn't valuable. The obstacle here, however, is often not their unrealistic expectations (working with a VA is a smarter way for them to work!), but rather that they simply haven't worked with their VA very effectively. We need to preemptively tackle that!

If we can help our clients to focus on delegating recurring, ongoing processes to you, you can take care of that task every single day and all with minimum input from them. This adds more value, saves them time and, importantly, contributes to a sustainable, productive working relationship.

Let's explore the three "categories" of tasks available for them to delegate to you at the start of your relationship together (and beyond!).

One-off Tasks

What one-off tasks are currently sitting on their to-do list?

This could include organising their next company event or workshop, replacing images on their website or researching a new CRM.

These one-off tasks are a great place to start working with you - they just need to add a little explanation and away you go!

Their busy to-do list will look a lot healthier in no time, helping them benefit from your support as soon as possible and giving them some headspace to think longer-term.

But the key is not to stop there and only take care of one-off tasks, as and when they arise.

Ad-hoc Responsibilities

Now we need to look at taking on a few recurring tasks. Your client might be slightly more reluctant to delegate this type of work, but it's important that they do!

This could include booking their travel from time to time, clearing their inbox once a day and flagging actions they need to take, or writing content (e.g. blogs) based on a content calendar.

These tasks are often easier for your client to explain than ongoing daily responsibilities, as they happen less frequently and once they have been explained once, they don't have to be re-explained again. This will help to start building out a more involved role for you.

Ongoing Processes

Finally, we want to look at the tasks that take up most of their time: the ongoing tasks that currently still take over their day, every day. These are the tasks your client is likely to have kept hold of so far... we need to try to change that!

These tasks should ideally form the core part of the role you manage within your client's business, if they want to leverage your time as well as possible.

Your role could include managing an inbox, responding to sales enquiries, handling client projects or scheduling the client's social media posts. The key here is "the whole inbox" or "all sales enquiries", not dealing with a specific email they forward on to you. The idea is to look after something regularly for them.

These will require your client to invest some time in training you to take care of these processes, but, long-term, this is a much more effective and sustainable approach to working together.

Struggling to get hold of your client?

As you'll understand, your client is an extremely busy business owner or executive. They are likely to feel stressed, overwhelmed and simply too busy. If your client seems 'too busy to delegate' and you struggle to get hold of them, don't be afraid to proactively book in a call with them into their diary. Get their attention, rather than reactively wait to be contacted.

Carve out time in their day to dedicate to putting a plan in place to how you can help support them. More often than not, the client will appreciate your proactivity and willingness to help. Don't forget, they wanted to work with you because they knew they needed help. Help them to help you!

Work with your client to build out a solid process for you to follow, ensure all steps have been explained clearly... and then help your client to enjoy the benefits of having a talented professional look after that process, every single day, so they don't have to!