We have a few tips and best practices for successfully onboarding a new virtual assistant and for everyday work in a virtual team, and we'd love to share them with you.

title of blog with keyboard and flowers and phone

1. Prioritize a Weekly Meeting

The client/assistant team needs one weekly meeting, preferably by video. In the first 4-6 weeks, you may need 45-60 minutes, depending on the tasks you're taking on as a team. The longer you work together, the more likely you will see these weekly meetings average out to 30 minutes. Each of you should arrive with a written agenda during this weekly meeting.

CLIENT: (10-15 MINS)

Prioritized list of tasks for your assistant - with a due date
Update on the previous week's meetings -- have you received new clients that will be added to the schedule? What are the needs of that new project? Are there any actionable takeaways from any other meetings that your assistant can help with or needs to be aware of?
Feedback from last week
Weekly Task List (see below) filled out

ASSISTANT: (10-15 MINS)

Follow up on last week's next steps.
Successes/milestones/accomplishments from last week.
Concerns from last week
Questions you need answers to on any projects or tasks. Of course, these can be addressed by email or messenger during the week as well. Questions that aren't urgent or directly affect a project-in-progress are usually held off and discussed during the weekly meeting.
Progress report for unfinished projects.
What's on your plate / Goals for this week

Weekly meetings are also a great time to bounce new ideas around between the two of you. Perhaps the assistant has worked with a program that she feels would increase productivity in a particular area or the client is hoping to expand her business in a new direction and uncertain how the assistant can step in to help. Set aside 5-10 minutes for this and have some of your ideas mapped out (written down) when you arrive to the meeting.

Daily calls/meetings are unnecessary and do not yield a good return on your investment. 1. They eat away at the small number of hours you have per week. 2. These could easily be replaced with one strategically planned meeting per week that should last no more than 45 minutes, as outlined above. 3. Not only does foregoing the daily calls give your assistant more time to get in and learn and work, but it will also help the client learn to step back and let go.

2. Create Weekly Task List

Especially at the beginning of a new engagement, I've found that implementing a Weekly Prioritized Task List helps the success of the new partnership. This task list can include questions like this:

Please list your top 3 priorities for next week:
What was not completed this week that is still a high priority?
What tasks do you have on your plate that you feel are falling through the cracks?
Is there anyone you need to meet with that is not already scheduled?
Are there any projects you need help with this week?
Any personal priorities that you’d like me to help with?

Tailor the questions to your needs! Bring this to your weekly meeting, and make sure you go over it with your new assistant.

Background: One of my first clients and I started on very shaky ground. I was fairly new- I had only been a VA for about four months when beginning with him. He is skeptical by nature and works in an environment where the data he handles must be kept confidential. Simply-- it took him quite a while to back off and trust me. Completing this document each week encouraged the growth that made our relationship as strong as ever. We are very close in a strictly business sense, but I also consider him my friend! I thoroughly enjoyed working for him!! We used these documents as Google Docs, and they were shared between the two of us. I added the template to the top each week, so each document was an active, growing document. This also allowed us both to see areas of needed growth along the way and accomplishments.

3. Clearly Communicate "Pop-up" tasks throughout the weeK

Pop-up tasks during the week: (This could include things such as calling for dinner reservations or, sending a contract as a follow-up from a meeting, or formatting/publishing a blog post):

These are typically communicated via email or messenger (text, Slack, Voxer, etc.). When a task such as this is assigned, the assistant should be able to respond within the hour, let the client know they received the request, and reply with an expected "completed by" date/time.

4. Give Your Assistant Access!

Your assistant needs to know each project that is currently on your plate. Access to project or client management systems and email inboxes helps immensely. Even if they will not be answering your emails or running your management software, seeing what is going on in your business helps them learn about you and your business so they can better help you.

The most efficient and productive VAs are self-starters. We will find out how a program/system works by getting in there and doing it. We have personal time management systems that we've perfected with experience. Allowing us to get in and see how our clients are doing things is how we learn to follow that procedure. Looking in from the outside also allows us to assess if there are any ways to increase productivity within the system and find tasks we can take off your hands!

If there is an issue in your personal life that is affecting your professional life, we also need to know. We genuinely do care about our clients and may be able to step in and alleviate pressure on the work side to allow you more time to address the personal issue.

In the beginning, it's tough to do this. I understand! Please don't take this personally -- EVERY client I've ever worked with personally and those on my existing teams deals with these same issues, I promise!! Smaller tasks are usually given in the beginning -- hence the 30-day ramp-up/onboarding process difficulties I discussed from the beginning.

5. Use A Team Task Management ApplicatioN

Find a team task management application that works for you and your team! We use Trello to plan and organize projects, assign tasks to my team members, and keep track of just about everything related to my business. It keeps my whole team up to date and streamlines our communication. You can also use Asana or Basecamp!

I hope those tips are helpful as you are thinking about onboarding a new virtual assistant!