PPB May 2020

The goal, by the way, is to build out a VA team, not just hire a single virtual assistant. This point is critical in your success. So many people fail at working with VAs because they hire one VA and overload this person with work. Instead, look at VAs as specialists and hire them for specific skillsets and projects. Remember, you are not committed to give a VA a specific number of hours per day (or even per week/month), so there’s no reason to expect a VA to be a jack of all trades. You want to hire VAs who are masters in specific areas. Understanding Objective Vs. Subjective Tasks Objective tasks are those that are done correctly or incorrectly; there’s no room for variation. On the other hand, subjective tasks leave room for interpretation. It’s for this reason that when starting out with VAs, you should assign them tasks (and projects) that are objective. Think of this step as training wheels for both you and your VAs. Eventually you can add subjective tasks to your VAs’ responsibilities but set yourself up for success from the beginning by only focusing on objective tasks. Objective Tasks In Your Distributorship Here are three objective tasks you can start out with when hiring your first (or next VA). Again, look at your list of priorities before you hire, know why you are hiring and have a plan in place. 1 Adding New Client Opportunities To Your CRM System This task is as objective as it comes and as simple as it gets. You may be teaching your VA to do this task and asking yourself, “Why am I having a VA do this when I could just do it myself?” It’s totally natural to have these thoughts. Yes, you can easily load a new client opportunity in a CRM within minutes but remember that any time you get off task, studies have shown it takes up to 15 minutes to get back on task. Adding new clients to my CRM is a disruption in my day (and probably to yours), doesn’t require my skillset and is a tedious task that doesn’t stimulate the side of the brain I use to be effective. When a new or current client / buyer emails me about a new opportunity, I simply forward the email to my VA asking him or her to create a new opportunity in the CRM. It’s that simple. This is the easiest win you can get and it’s a great starting point to learn how to work with VAs. 2 Follow-Up Opportunity Reports I have been running “opportunity reports” every Monday in my business since 2015 and it’s been one of my secrets to closing more business than the average distributor. I use commonsku and it’s simple to run an opportunity report that spits out all the potential new projects from the week prior. However, this task doesn’t require my specific skillset. I’ve created a template for my VA to email my clients to follow up on new opportunities. I have chosen to allow access to my email account so my VA emails frommy email address (and name) so it looks like I’m personally sending these follow- up notes to my clients. You can certainly hire a VA who has the skill to do email address redirects and all sort of techy things if you don’t want to allow access to your own email address. Either way, this is another objective task that is simple to do and builds off the first task. I definitely recommend getting this going as soon as you can. 3 Feedback Forms commonsku also has amazing feedback forms built into every invoice. You can easily click a few buttons to send a feedback form to your client within seconds to capture results on a recent program or campaign. Despite this being extremely easy, the commonsku users I’ve talked with over the years often times overlook using this feature. Why? Because we’re an industry of salespeople. “On to the next sale …” The truth is, a feedback form provides an amazing touchpoint, reinforces your interest in making sure your client had a great experience in working with you and provides an opportunity to gather testimonials. I teach my VAs to run this report and send out the forms every Friday on projects that were invoiced the week prior. It’s easy for a VA to do this and it’s another vital task that does not require your skillset. If you do not use a program that makes generating this form easy, you may need to get a bit creative such as using JotForm, Google forms, SurveyMonkey or a similar program and train your VAs how to find your buyers’ contact information and to run and send these reports. Before even thinking about hiring a VA, you must first be crystal clear on all the tasks you currently do and be able to prioritize them. | MAY 2020 | 57 THINK