At some point in every freelancer’s life comes the time when keeping track of everything and generally finding enough time to keep up with all sides of the business gets a bit much. This is the time when most of us at least consider whether using a Virtual Assistant or generally starting to outsource repetitive tasks could be worth it.

I recently got to this point and decided to go for the VA approach, since I’d like to get to know and trust one person who is able to help with all aspects of the business when needed. Unfortunately, I had no clue where to start.

Step 1: Know what you want

Being completely new to the world of virtual assistants, I had basically no clue what they would be willing to do, what they would charge, how they would charge, and many more things besides. All I knew was that I wasn’t finding enough time to get everything done, and needed help. As hard as it was, I should really have found time to sit down and think things through clearly. Learn from my mistakes.

• Make a list of all the tasks you feel could be outsourced.
• Think about how you like each task to be done and how easily you could train someone else to do them the same way.
• Look at your budget and find out exactly how much you’re able to afford per month or for a particular task.

Step 2: Find some interested candidates

For you this step might mean advertising on one of the numerous freelance job sites available. I specifically preferred to work with someone in my local area so this approach was less likely to work, and instead I turned to Google. Unfortunately Google was unkind, and I was only able to find one or two (way over my budget) options, so in despair I started asking for advice on various freelancing forums and even Facebook! I did get one quality response from a post on FreelanceUK but I ended up turning down the guy in question, so perhaps more forum posts elsewhere would’ve turned up further gems.

In the end, I put up an ad on Gumtree. I knew this was likely to get me a lot of “spam” replies, as well as replies from people who had no idea what a VA even was but were just desperate for some pocket money, but I’ve used Gumtree for househunts etc in the past and know that there are some actual real people and offers on there so it seemed worth a shot.

From what I could tell, half of the people replying didn’t even realise that “Freelance virtual assistant required” would even involve being self-employed and almost half of them declined to answer any of the questions I’d posed in the ad as a sort of “did you really pay attention” check. Not exactly the greatest start ever, but never mind.

Hoping that it would all be worth it, I trawled my way through numerous worthless posts and finally made a shortlist of people who appeared to have actually read the ad and seemed “nice”. Niceness may seem like a strange way of judging job applicants but let’s face it, a VA is someone you need to feel comfortable with.

Step 3: Compare the options

Oh dear, this bit is difficult. I found myself in the position of liking two candidates equally, and it was a horrible experience having to choose between the two. This hiring lark is definitely not for the faint-hearted!

Don’t be afraid to ask searching questions about their experience and their reasons for applying. I was particularly on the lookout for someone who wouldn’t mind mucking in with website updates as well as general admin, so this was important to discuss.

After settling on one applicant, it was time to let the others know and that was of course the worst part of all. A job in HR is definitely not for me, I’ve learned that much.

Next steps

The person I chose as my assistant is currently in the middle of moving home and setting up her company here, so it seemed a great time to get in as one of those all-important first clients (which we all know end up being the favourites and getting all sorts of discounts *cough*). Due to this, we won’t be starting work together immediately but rather taking our time and discussing exactly how everything will work best for us.

This is great because it doesn’t add much pressure to my already hectic days and maybe I’ll actually get some sleep this weekend for once.

I’m really excited to be taking this step and getting the admin side of my business a bit more sorted out. Considering one of my previous jobs was administration, I’ve made a right pig’s ear of it now I’m self-employed. Watch out for the next update where either my stress level is down and business is flourishing, or it’s all gone horribly wrong and I’ve gone back to sporadically updating my mess of a “clients” spreadsheet.