A virtual assistant brings a wide range of capabilities to your business and will change your life for the better. But for this to work, you will need to implement some key tools to collaborate in business with a VA to make the relationship as smooth and successful as it can be.
When you use these tools, you improve your workflow and don’t have to stop every few minutes to allow your VA to access programs, apps and outdated documents. There’s no arguing over who has the latest version of a word/google file, and everyone knows where they stand on any given project. Everything fits together perfectly, and they get on with their tasks whilst you build your empire. Ready to find out how to achieve this state of entrepreneur nirvana?
Let’s look at the tools you need to collaborate in business with your virtual assistant.
VA Tools to Help You Collaborate in Business
There are many digital tools that will help you run a small business, but these tools are specifically those that help you collaborate more easily with your VA. If you don’t have these tools already, you can transform the way you work by implementing them today.
Project Management Tools
If you are used to working on your own, you might never have used a project management tool before. But when outsourcing to a virtual assistant, you need a way of easily assigning work and tracking the progress of the parts of the projects you no longer control directly.
Project management tools like Asana let you set out the steps needed to bring a project to life, assign them to your VA, set due dates and get notifications if anything becomes overdue, and communicate with your team without getting into confusing email chains.
They are simple tools to help you collaborate in business in a way that means everyone knows what they are doing and when at every moment. It ensures that all the elements move into place at the right time to make your VA partnership a success.
Password Management Tools
When you work with a virtual assistant, you will often have to share access to a lot of your tools, accounts and documents. Sharing passwords via email is not a great idea, given the chances of them falling into the wrong hands. So you need a better, secure solution. Our go-to solution is a password management tool.
Using an app like LastPass means that you can save all your passwords in one secure vault and then share access securely with your VA. If you want, you can share access to your accounts without the VA even seeing the actual password. It will just autofill when they visit the site through the link in the LastPass app.
Collaborative Design Tools
You might use a virtual assistant to help you design social media graphics, posters, flyers or any manner of other imagery. In these cases, they could use a design tool based on their computer and send you over files for you to proof and send back, but this once again gets you stuck in the toil of email chains that become confusing.
To collaborate in business better with your VA, use a design tool like Canva. They can work on the project and share it with you in your account. This means you can log into the site, check the design, and leave notes and they can pick them up and adjust accordingly. Everything happens through Canva, with no need to download files multiple times and potentially end up working on the wrong version.
Email Tools
It sounds obvious but giving your VA access to your business email makes a lot of sense. It is easy enough to add another email to your domain that your VA can use when communicating with people on your behalf.
It looks much more professional than having someone talking to clients and other stakeholders on your behalf using an @hotmail or @gmail address. Having them on your company email also brings them into the team and shows how much you value their input in your work.
Document Sharing Tools
Another way to cut down on unnecessary email chains and reduce the risk of working on old versions of documents is to share them in the cloud. Google Docs is the classic example of a collaborative tool that works seamlessly when used by people working together at different locations.
Another bonus of document sharing tools like Dropbox and WeTransfer is that you can share large files between you without breaking your email server.
Time Tracking Tools
When you collaborate in business with a VA, you sometimes pay them per hour for their work. Using a time-tracking tool like Clockify is the perfect way to understand how much work they have completed and how long each task takes.
This data can help you understand which tasks are most cost-effective to assign to a VA and how much time you save by outsourcing tasks that you struggle with or just don’t have time to complete.
This creates transparency in the relationship between entrepreneur and VA, showing the value you are receiving as part of your partnership.
SEO Tools
If your VA is taking on blog writing tasks for you, then it makes sense to allow them access to SEO tools to ensure that the articles rank as highly as possible on search engines.
Ubersuggest is a great tool for finding out which keywords are most searched for in your niche and the likelihood that you can rank for each one. In addition, if you have a WordPress site, running your blog through the Yoast SEO plugin helps you to understand how well optimised the writing is.
These tools can supercharge your website and bring in great volumes of readers who could be potential customers.
Ready to Collaborate in Business?
If you are ready to collaborate in business with a virtual assistant, then talk to us today. Supportal Services can provide you with skilled professional virtual assistants to take the weight off your shoulders and offer a new dimension to your business. Book a free discovery call right now to find out what we can do for you.
