Congratulations! You’ve decided to hire a virtual assistant. You’ve chosen one. You’ve signed the contract. You’re ready to go, right?
Not quite. Working with your VA will be much easier and more effective – for both of you! – if you go about it the right way. Over the next few posts I’m going to share recommendations based on my experience running Streamlined Organising. Today I’m starting at the very beginning – how your VA accesses your systems.
At Streamlined, we have a whole lot of processes for when we set up with a new client. The very first one is onboarding the VA for your business. That means organising access to email and to systems, including setting up passwords.
Give your VA an email address which you control
The first recommendation I have is that you set up an email for the VA which you control. Something like admin@yourcompany.com.au or support@yourcompany.com.au – whatever you want, but it must be an email address which you control.
Use this email address to set up access to your other systems. This clearly sets the expectation that your VA is representing you and your business. It’s just a great way to start.
It’s also a good security approach. If there are any issues with the VA, it’s really easy for you to disable that email address. Or you can simply change the password. In either case, you still have access to all the previous communication and activity on any of those systems. For example, if there’s a calendar attached to the email address and you’ve set up repeat meetings or activities in there, they’ll all still be available. So a replacement VA can get up and running quickly.
Decide what other access your VA will need to work with you
Your VA will need access to some of your documents and systems. That could be
- a CRM like Hubspot or Salesforce
- an email marketing platform
- social media accounts
- project management software
- even your accounting software.
You should control the passwords your VA uses to access those systems. Either set the passwords yourself and keep a list of them, or you can use a password manager like LastPass. In the second case, your VA may not ever know what the passwords for individual systems are – and if they leave for any reason, all you need to do is change the master password in LastPass and everything is secure again.
Many systems also have multiple levels of access. Give your VA the amount of access they need and no more. So for example:
- They may need access to your calendar but not your emails. Or you may just want them to know when you are available, but not the details of appointments.
- If your VA is posting to your WordPress website, they don’t need admin access. Set them up as an editor instead.
- User management – the ability to add and delete users – is often separated out from other capability. As a general rule, your VA doesn’t need the authority to add or remove other users.
Knowing where to find and file documents
You’re probably already storing documents in the cloud, on Google Drive, or OneDrive or Dropbox. If not, you’ll need to move to one of these systems when you start working with a VA.
It’s easy to give your VA access to any cloud system (using that email address which you control), but think about how your filing works and what they need access to.
Everyone has their own preferred way of organising documents. Explain your system to your new VA so that they know where to find or file things. That might be by project, or by client, or by area of the business. I generally recommend keeping financial stuff separate, with more limited access. You may want to hold off on giving access to financial data, until you are accustomed to working with your VA and have built trust.
You may have more than one set of filing. Emails in Outlook or Gmail, electronic documents on a shared drive, even paper files. If so, use the same system to organize all your files. Anything else is a recipe for confusion.
Remember…you don’t need to “clean the house before the cleaner comes”. It is the VA’s job to organise your filing systems for you. They don’t have to be perfect before your new VA starts work with you. But it does help if you have an idea of the structure you want to use. Your VA can then sort and organise documents and folders to match that structure. This saves you time and it’s a great way for them to get familiar with your business too.
Setting up access to systems is the very first step in working with your VA effectively. It’s important to strike the right balance between access and security. If you’ve got any questions or need more advice, why not book in a time to chat. No pressure. No obligation. Just advice.
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