When Should I Hire a VA?

The question keeps coming up, when should I hire a virtual assistant?

Most of the time the answer is last week.

I’m not saying a VA is a perfect fit for everyone, or everyone NEEDS to grow and build a big team. A virtual assistant is much different than a typical W2 employee. I'll save that topic for another day, but the flexibility, skill sets, and tasks that can be performed remotely these days are nearly limitless. 

Even if you just started, or the business “isn’t where you want it to be”, doesn’t mean it’s a bad time to hire a VA. 

In fact, I would argue in some cases the business isn’t going the way you want because you haven’t hired someone. 

You can’t wear every hat, all day, all week, all year without some area of your business suffering because of it. You’re not a superhero and bragging about 80 hour work weeks gets so old, so fast. 

Hire someone! 

I don’t care if it’s your mom to do bookkeeping, your neighbor to run errands or your kid to respond on social media, but you have to stop spending time on things that are not growing your business. 

I have my clients (or in this case hopeful future clients) start a list. I have them write down every task they do for their business over the course of the week. I’m talking about checking emails, customer follow ups, editing photos/videos, responding to DMs, scheduling calls, doing bookkeeping, social media, website edits, SEO work, everything! 

Start the list on Monday, and by Friday afternoon sit down with the list and a highlighter. Highlight the items only YOU could do.

Meaning that you physically, practically or specifically need to do. 

The items you highlight are usually the income producing activities you should be doing more of, and the remaining items are what should be given to someone else. 

If your list has 10 hrs/week of work, on items you don’t physically need to do, you should start delegating. 

Another blog post will cover how to afford a VA, but the short answer – if those 10 hrs/week are now used on income producing activities, a virtual assistant starts paying for themselves in the first week! 

Hire early, start delegating, focus your time on the things only you can do.