Let’s do this simple exercise

1. Do you need more time and freedom to focus on doing the things that you love?
2. Do you need more availability to work on the strategy for your business, and develop deeper relationships with your clients or customers?
3. Are you losing hours of sleep due to late nights spent working?
4. Or even have the flexibility to spend time with your family?
5. Do you tend to feel overwhelmed throughout the working day due to the number of assignments you have?

If you have answered yes to these questions, then you need a Virtual Assistant. If you count on a VA who administrates those monotonous tasks, duties that used to absorb time from you, and all delegable duties, you’ll have extra hours every week. You can either choose to take on more clients, focus more on growing your business or regain that precious work/life balance.

• Scheduling appointments.
• Making phone calls.
• Traveling arrangements.
• Email Management.
• Social media coordination and digital marketing
• Arranging your calendar (i.e., bookings, events, emails)
• Preparing presentations, reports, and other documents
• Organizing events
• Financial services like accounting, bookkeeping, etc.

• Office Administration

• Customer and sales support
• Research
• Data organization
• Translations.

Mya Assistant hired top quality professionals, talented and passionate customer services who adhere to our values and is self-committed, motivated and well instructed on how to do their job.

Here is a short list of the skills that a self-employed professional who provides his services as a freelancer/virtual assistant should have:

• Project Management.
• Time Management.
• Commitment
• Excellent Attention to Detail.
• Organized
• Good Decision Making.
• A Love for Learning.
• Social Media Management.
• Communication skills
• Trusted/reliable

But there is one element that cannot be missing in the recipe, our Virtual Assistant must be passionate about what he does. He must clearly understand the key role he plays in the successful achievement of his client’s business objectives and transmits confidence and credibility, through the sound of his voice, expressions, or in writing, an online meeting, etc. What would seem to be something very easy to achieve, however, these skills are really part of the soft skill, not easy to develop. They are mainly part of the intrinsic personality of the human being.

It is true that for some leaders or entrepreneurs taking the decision to have a Virtual Assistant might be easier than learning how to effectively work with his VA.

•Help them understand your world. Each leader and company has their own way to do its business, specific strategies, and unspoken rules. The Virtual Assistant needs to understand clearly how you like things done, your culture, and the knowledge of the current scenario/situation of the industry you are working in.

The most effective way to do this is by explaining in an open meeting a down-earth conversation, providing a guide through the different customer contacts and relations, sharing access to your calendar and email account so the VA could read emails and understand the interactions, allowing the VA to join some meetings providing, previously, a brief explanation about the attendees, their roles and the topic and reason of the meeting, and at the end make some touch bases questions to help VA absorb the knowledge.

•Share all of your specific preferences. It is so important that you and your VA act like one single person. To be able to get that level you need to open yourself, share your ideas and preferences, personality, likes, and dislikes, and get to know your VA as well as possible, so you understand each other so well that you both know what the other might think before asking him/her directly.

Effective communication (take a look at this great article: How to develop effective communication at work?): is based on knowing each other’s mindset, objectives, interests, motivations, etc; when you get this level of confidence you would have reached the 80% of success in all your work plans.

•Delegate ongoing tasks. Delegating is really an art that is very important to develop great leadership (take a look at this awesome article: Is Delegation Important for Effective Leadership?) On-going tasks only require you train your assistant once then they’re permanently able to take on that task.

•Communicate with context. The context is defined as “the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed”. So when you provide context to your VA when assigning a project or a task, and make sure to be explicit about what you expect from him/her you will be anticipating any incorrect understanding and will drive your assistant to proactively take the correct decision when needed to fulfill what you are needing.

•Provide frequent constructive feedback. Maintaining fluent communication is the best way to avoid the lack of providing feedback, when you get used to constantly calling/chatting with your Assistant the window of opportunity to redirect, reinforce or correct any misunderstanding or mistake that might occur will be always available. Instant feedbacks are the most effective when it comes to long and short-term effects.