As you start to strategize and put processes in place to achieve your own freedom, remember to focus on the core fundamentals of the Virtual Freedom mindset, namely
• Your virtual workers are people, not a program.
• Put quality in, get quality out.
• Hire for the role, not the task.
• Super-VAs don’t exist.
That last one is the maxim I urge you to appreciate more than anything else. Not a day goes by that I don’t receive an e-mail from a busy and stressed-out yet full-of-great-ideas business owner who believes that the answer to all of his or her marketing, customer service, and business administrative problems is a single VA.
As you begin hiring and working with VAs, be smart, follow your gut, and take baby steps. If you’ve already spent some time and money outsourcing tasks to virtual staff members, you’ll know that Rome wasn’t built in a day or by just one person.
With this in mind, I’m putting a challenge your way: a six-month timeline you can follow to get started. All you need to do is work toward each milestone, just like I did in 2010, and with a little hard work (and a bit of luck with your hiring!), you should be well on your way.
Month #1
Hire a general VA and spend some time training him or her on a number of different tasks from the first list of your 3 Lists to Freedom—the things you don’t like doing.
These no doubt directly relate to the day-to-day running of your business and take up a lot of your time, so start eliminating them immediately.
Month #2
Focus on your second list from the 3 Lists to Freedom: things you don’t know how to do. Are there tasks that your GVA can handle for you?
If so, pass them along. If not, ask your GVA to start researching freelance VAs that can handle these tasks for you, even on a per-project basis. Just get them off your plate!
Month #3
This month is all about the third list: things you shouldn’t be doing. Remember I said that this one requires a lot of thought. So spend some time doing just that—thinking.
Once you’ve assigned a few of these tasks to your GVA (or to freelancers, if the GVA can’t do them), it’s time to begin planning your next hire.
Month #4
By now you’re probably starting to breathe a little easier. You are hopefully recovering from superhero syndrome, and you’re starting to see the benefits of having your GVA (and other virtual workers you may have hired on a per-project or part-time basis) handling a number of tasks for you.
It’s time to make your next hire. In today’s world I suggest this be an SEO/Internet marketing VA—someone who can help your GVA to market your business more thoroughly and effectively online.
Month #5
Your SEO/Internet marketing VA should be working in tandem with your GVA now, and although you’ve probably not yet seen a huge increase in website traffic (it takes a few months of solid SEO work for that to start taking shape), if you’ve hired well, you’re definitely seeing some serious action on your social media channels and your blogging and other content marketing is starting to really take off.
Keep working hard on the content side of things this month, as your VAs will need new, original content to help market and promote your business.
Perhaps you can start thinking about taking a couple of weeks off at this point. Seriously. Show your GVA that you trust them, and turn over the day-to-day work related to managing your SEO/Internet marketing VA, and let’s see how they do together without you.
Month #6
If you took that break (I hope you did), you’ve discovered how things went between your VAs without your involvement. How did it work out?
If you didn’t take the time off, that’s okay—I understand. I’ve been there. However, put it on the schedule soon! You’re now officially half a year into your virtual freedom mission. How is it going? Please feel free to e-mail me directly at [email protected] to let me know.
At this point I want you to go back to your 3 Lists to Freedom (see how important those little lists have become?), and cross off all the things that you’re no longer handling yourself. Whatever is left is your “eliminate list” for the next six months.
You’ve come a long way, and I’m proud of you. As you continue to grow your team, develop your strategies, and put your processes in place, remember to think long term and think about roles, not tasks.
Most importantly, think virtual.
Chances are good that your competitors already have, but the good news is you have, too, and you might just be ahead of the curve in developing your own virtual team of superstars!