Question 1

What tasks can Virtalent NOT help my client with?

Accepted Answer

There isn't very much we avoid helping clients with - these areas would generally fall under the following 'categories'.

Being "On Call"

As you work with your client on a 1:1 basis and only log the time you spend carying out work for them, we feel it is unfair to ask you to be available 24/7 for a client. You should be able to log in and out of a client's account, completing any work required as set tasks.

This means we will usually avoid asking you to answer live chat messages on-demand or handling incoming calls, throughout the day, though we can recommend some great providers that many of our clients use in tandem with their Virtalent VA. These tasks would require you to be "online" all day as it's impossible to know when these chats or calls could come in to the client's business.

An exception to this 'rule' can sometimes be made if you are already online for a client throughout the day. If you are working on other tasks for a larger client, say, every day from 9am to 3pm (and logging this time anyway), then most of our team are happy to receive calls/messages during this time.

This is very different to supporting a client on a 10-hour plan who is asking you to be available all day, "just in case" something comes through - this approach is not workable or expected.

Highly-Specialised Work

A client shouldn't see their Virtual Assistant as a 'replacement' to hiring a trained, qualified professional to carry out tasks that it's reasonable to feel should need a license or professional accreditation to be completed, or are simply very specialised in nature. For example:

We generally can’t help with highly complex marketing campaigns involving technical implementation of SEO/SEM, PPC or affiliate marketing campaigns. You might well be able to implement certain aspects of these projects, under the guidance of the client or their marketing agency, but we shouldn't be launching highly specialised campaigns from scratch.
We can certainly help with financial admin tasks (sending out invoices, making bill payments, etc.) but it is important to point out that we don’t offer bookkeeping, payroll or accountancy services. You can’t act as their agent with HMRC, reconcile bank transactions or prepare a VAT return, for example.
We aren't there to provide highly-specialised advice to a client. It is one thing to recommend some CRM software, but a completely different thing to advise them how to run their business more widely. We aren't there to act as their business coach or consultant, but to assist them in the running of their business.

Spam

We also generally don’t help with:

'Bulk' cold-calling campaigns, where you are expected to call through a long list of cold leads. Our team don’t usually come from this type of sales-driven environment - we prefer digital or online campaigns - and client expectations are usually out of sync with the reality of such campaigns. It is one thing to follow up with an existing sales lead, and another to call through 1000 people in a database the client has purchased online.
Sending spam emails - it is one thing to send targeted messages on LinkedIn or email (to B2B recipients), but another to send 10,000 people the client's latest newsletter, without them having asked to receive it.

Something That Doesn't "Feel Right"

Anything both very small and short-term in nature. We aren’t a temp agency and we don’t help with small one-off projects or tasks. We support our clients on a long-term, ongoing basis, building trusting and long-lived business relationships. We feel this is a really important factor of your work with Virtalent. The client shouldn't see us as an equivalent to Fiverr!
Anything that would reasonably make you feel uncomfortable (or break the law). We reserve the right to reject any task assigned to us, as do you. Please always let us know if you are ever asked to do something you don't want to do!

Still not sure? Do contact your Client Success Manager, they will be happy to help you with any queries.

Question 2

My client is struggling to delegate. Do you have any advice for me?

Accepted Answer

You can download our e-book 'The Art of Delegation' here.

Pushed for time? We have also summarised a few key points to keep in mind below.

Step 1 - Make Sure You're On The Same Page!

To understand what your client should delegate, it's useful to first understand what their objectives are. Why did they hire a Virtual Assistant to begin with?

Are they trying to free up more time, so they can simply get home earlier and spend less time working?
Do they want to free up more time to dedicate to clients, their team or other people in their business?
Are they looking to increase sales, and want to spend more time on value-adding marketing work needed to do this?
Do they want to lower their stress levels and achieve greater clarity, with fewer "plates to spin"?

Likewise, on a professional level, what are they hoping your support will achieve for their business?

Improve customer service response time?
Increase new account sign ups?
Grow their social media audience?
Implement new systems, to make existing processes more efficient (and effective!)?

Whatever goals they have in mind, do encourage your client to clearly communicate these with you. The more you know, the more you can help! Talk through why they need your help, and set your relationship together in a wider context.

We know you are highly capable and have helped support many, many people in their position before - be sure to let your client know they can lean on you!

This process also helps set clear priorities for the relationship - both for you and your client.

Step 2 - Define A Clear Role

Once you're working towards a common goal, the next step is to define exactly what you can do to get them there. What do you need to do?

Work together to create a list of repeatable and ad-hoc tasks that you are going to be responsible for (and make sure these tasks are clearly explained).

Not sure where to start? Suggest your client makes a list of everything they are working on this week - this is why a to-do list app like TickTick is useful, as you'll always have a note of what they are working on and what they've already completed - and then separate out those tasks. You may spot some ideas in there that your client hasn't even considered taking off their plate!

They can then look at their to do list and see what they should be doing out of those tasks and what they would prefer not to be focusing on.

First start with one-off tasks that require little explanation. This could be planning an event, reviewing a document for typos, researching X. Delegating these smaller tasks helps get the ball rolling - you'll start clearing their plate and get things moving for them. This gives space for them to think more clearly about a longer-term role. It's also very motivating as they will see things happening - and satisfying for you too!
Next, look at ad-hoc tasks. These are things that crop up from time to time. These require more explanation, sure, but the benefit is that, long-term, they'll always be taken care of. This could be making website updates, booking travel arrangements or creating content (e.g. an eBook). Once they explain the process behind these tasks, they can delegate them going forward.
The ultimate goal is to create a role based largely around recurring, day-to-day tasks. These are the things that take up most of their time and, therefore, need the most explanation and training, however will reap the most value by being delegated. This could be managing their inbox and diary, billing and onboarding customers, managing new enquiries, managing social media channels. These are the tasks that eat up their precious time. Once handed over to you, they can enjoy the benefit of having an uninterrupted day ahead to focus on what really matters to them!

We'd recommend you start with the quick wins, the 'low-hanging fruit', but the most important point is to not stop there. Focusing on one-off tasks requires them to continually explain a task, every single time they need help, and this will soon prove frustrating and probably delay things. Ensuring they make a concerted effort to delegate recurring tasks - the ones that require some upfront training, but then can be left to you to take care of every single day - is where the real magic starts to happen.

Step 3 - Define Your Expectations

As well as understanding the practical task instructions, it’s important to understand what the client's expectations are.

Do some of the tasks need to be completed in a certain way?
Is there a “house style” or best practice within the company or industry you should follow?
Are there key deadlines involved? Are these business critical or simply a preference?
What other tasks or projects does this task relate to?

Leaving out key information can lead to you making educated assumptions and, naturally, your client might not have made the same assumptions.

Taking an extra few minutes to carve out a better explanation now will save you both more time (and add more value) further on down the line.

Step 4 - Encourage New Ideas!

In most cases, they'll often know what they want to achieve on some level, but they might be unsure of the best way to get there (or even what the end result should look like exactly). Likewise, you will want to contribute in the most valuable and meaningful way to them and their business.

Step 5 - Communicate Consistently

Even if your client has allowed you to be incredibly self-sufficient, it's important that you "check in" with them from time to time.

On a practical level, it's always beneficial for you both to have a dedicated time (e.g. a weekly or monthly phone call) to communicate, ask each other questions and see how tasks are progressing.

But on a more strategic level, it's important to remember that the client and their business is not set in stone. Things change! Once you've been working together for some time, it's likely your goals have changed - perhaps they are now getting back to customers at lightning speed as they wanted to, and getting home from the office before 6pm is more common than not. But what next?

Make sure that you occasionally review what you are doing for your client, but also, most importantly, why.

Question 3

How should I share a to-do list and stay organised with my client?

Accepted Answer

Does your client already regularly use a digital to-do list app? If so, we would usually recommend that you join them there, and share their existing lists.

But if your client doesn't, then it could be worthwhile making a recommendation. These could include:

Asana is often better for more complex projects with milestones.
Trello is very versatile, but tends to be better for project-based work, rather than a daily to-do list. It is, however, much simpler to user than Asana.
Internally we love to use TickTick. You can create shared to-do lists with several people, complete with comment threads, tags, due dates and more.
Google Tasks - this is lesser-known option, but quite popular. This is often considered the simplest and therefore easiest option to use, in many respects!
Google Sheets - if you will be creating or managing content for your client, or completing a long list of tasks in 'batches', we’ve also found a G Sheet works well. You can create one using your Virtalent G Suite address.

Question 4

What tasks CAN Virtalent help my client with?

Accepted Answer

You can find a list of the service we generally provide to clients here, as well as an overview of the tasks we do NOT help with here.

To explain, team members at Virtalent generally fall into 3 'categories'.

Some of our team come from a PA or Executive Assistant background. They will have supported senior business leaders (CEOs, VPs etc) or have worked with the Director of a small business before.

As such, they can comfortably handle a variety of administrative support tasks, however complex! This could range from diary management to booking travel.

Others come from a marketing background. They will have usually worked in senior marketing roles (e.g. Marketing Manager) or as an independent Marketing Consultant before. Marketing VAs support clients with a range of (usually digital) marketing tasks and projects.

They could help a client by managing their social media, email marketing, content writing, relationship building and much more.

Others then fit into the “all-rounder” category. They have solid experience in both EA and marketing roles, and may also have additional skills in customer service (replying to customer enquiries, taking payments, etc.), financial admin, website maintenance and more.

These VAs usually come from a small business background and/or have run their own VA business, so are used to completing a wide range of tasks for a client.

You'll likely to know which category you fall into and the kind of tasks you enjoy the most, as well as where your skill set truly lies. If you can't help a client with something, does it fall into one of the categories above?

Perhaps you would consider yourself to be a PA, but your client needs help with social media, for example. In this case, the best option is to usually ask Virtalent to discuss this with the client with the view to adding an extra team member to their account.

If your client is asking you to do something on that you don't have the experience or skill to carry out to a high standard, please contact your Client Success Manager.

Question 5

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

Accepted Answer

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!

Question 6

My client has asked me to do something I can't do. How should I handle this?

Accepted Answer

Please keep your work within the realm of what should reasonably be expected of a professional Virtual Assistant.

The best question to ask yourself is "am I the most suitable person to handle this task?".

If you don't feel you are:

Could another Virtalent VA could be added to the client's account to do this work? This is our preferred approach as it is more convenient for both you and the client to secure extra help this way. You can find more details on the support we generally provide clients here - just because you don't have a particular skill set, doesn't mean another Virtalent VA won't!
Alternatively, if you are 100% sure that Virtalent cannot provide this support, please help the client resource this by researching and hiring an external supplier. These tasks could include preparing legal contracts, complex graphic design projects or providing tax guidance, for example. This is always going to be a grey area, however you can find a list of tasks we avoid helping clients with here.

Do speak with your Client Success Manager if you ever need support in this area.