5 myths about working with a VA - busted!
You may have heard a few myths about working with a VA and, as VAs and business owners, we thought we’d tackle these myths head-on!
We’re not saying that working with a VA is right for everyone, or that you are or your business are in the right place to work with a VA at this exact moment in time, BUT there are a lot of people out there who can be put off by these myths.
So, let’s dive right into busting the top 5 myths we hear people talking about.
1. Our business is too small to work with a VA
MYTH:
Our business is too new/too small or we don’t make enough money to work with a VA.
REALITY CHECK:
There are actually two myths here so we’ll deal with each one separately:
New business – Just because your business is new or small, doesn’t mean that you can’t benefit from working with a VA. In fact, it’s much better to start working with a VA before you get yourself and your business into a super busy, hot mess! By working with a VA when you’re still in the early stages of your business, you can create and establish systems, processes and SOPs together to ensure that everything runs smoothly. Not only will this free up more of your time and give you the opportunity to enable you to scale your business sooner, but it also means that everything should continue to run smoothly when your business does grow.
Not making enough money – This one is really tough! Working with a VA is like any other investment in your business and so you should think about it like that. Investing in your business is one of the things that is going to help you move into the next phase of your business. There may come a time in your business journey where you find the only way you can continue to grow is to have more time available. When you start outsourcing your day-to-day tasks to a VA, you can focus your time and attention onto the parts of your business that bring in the money!
Whether your business is relatively new or you’re not making much money yet, you’ll probably find yourself in a catch-22 situation – you need more money to be able to hire a VA, you need more time to be able to make more money, and in order to have more time, you may need to hire a VA! But the earlier you start working with a VA, it’s possible that the more easily you’ll be able to scale and grow your business (and income!)
2. A VA won't really understand my business and our/my business needs
MYTH:
My/our business means everything to us (true!). No one else will understand the business, how we like things to work and where we’re headed.
REALITY CHECK:
The first thing to remember here is that VAs are business owners too.
We completely understand how you feel about your business because we feel the exact same way about our own business!
Before you start working with a VA, it’s really important that we get to know each other. We will usually start any new client relationship with an informal “discovery call” (which you can book here) where we chat on Zoom for half an hour and get to know each other. We use this call to really dig deep and find out exactly what our new client is looking for in a VA. This goes deeper than just what tasks they need completing and more into what they hope to achieve by outsourcing those tasks to us.
We also make sure that we check in with our clients regularly, usually with a monthly catch up, and that we chat about their goals and dreams for their business to ensure that we are always working towards them in everything we do.
3. A VA can do everything I need them to
MYTH:
We can pass ALL of our work over to a VA and they can just do everything for us!
REALITY CHECK:
As with most business owners, VAs usually have specialisms. Some VAs are great at copywriting, some at social media, some at graphic design, some at admin tasks…you get the idea! For example, here at Business Best Friend our specialisms are digital marketing, programme/course launch support and community management for service led online business owners.
If you’re looking for a single VA to do EVERYTHING within your business, you may struggle! That’s why at Business Best Friend™ we have a small tight knit team of us, each with our own zone of geniuses, which means that usually if there’s one of us who can’t/doesn’t know how to do something, there’s someone else in the team who can!
4. VAs need a lot of hand holding and supervision
MYTH:
If we hire a VA, we’re going to spend so long assigning tasks, showing them how to do things, checking over work etc. that we may as well just do the task ourselves.
REALITY CHECK:
I’ll be straight with you – depending on the work required, VA’s will require some sort of on-boarding and possibly some training when first starting work together (for example if your organisation uses a bespoke piece of software). This is normal and should be expected! Even a VA who has years of experience will need to get accustomed to how you do things in the business (and you definitely want them to get to know you/your team, and the ins and outs of your business early on).
But once we’re both settled into the routine of working together, assigning work to your VA should be a breeze and minimal supervision will be required…leaving you with lots of extra time to work on the things you really should be doing in your role, rather than the admin!
Note: If you do find yourself spending lots of time assigning work to your VA you may need to review your systems and processes to see what can be streamlined, what templates can be created etc. (We help with that too!)
5. My business doesn't seem to be working well, a VA will help us fix it
MYTH:
A VA is a magical creature who can come in and fix a business that isn’t working.
REALITY CHECK:
VA’s can do a lot of things…and I mean a LOT. But it’s not up to them to come in and fix a business that isn’t working due to poor strategy. Sure, we can mull over ideas with you, give feedback and more, but your success is ultimately your responsibility.
If you think you’re ready to outsource some of your business tasks, get in touch with us here to see how we could work together to not only free up more of your time but also grow and scale your business!