7 Things to Look for When Hiring a Virtual Assistant for Your Business
What makes the right virtual assistant for your business? Here’s what to keep in mind when hiring for business administration support.
Hylce Kruger
If you’re a busy professional looking to hire an executive assistant, then matching with the right candidate for your business can be easier said than done.
Whilst admin support in a small business or startup will vary from that in an enterprise company or growing SME, there are wider virtual assistant benefits to consider beyond gaining back time and improving business efficiency.
Top rated virtual assistants not only bring key VA skills and global remote business support, but act as a trusted growth partner to founders, CEOs and their teams.
Here are seven things to look for when hiring a remote virtual assistant to guarantee success:
1) Authentic Communication
You need to hire a personal assistant who can give you honest insights and open feedback while being professional at all times. An assistant is quick to tell you the truth if something goes wrong or isn’t working—and they will take corrective action to fix mistakes immediately.
2) Versatile Support
Administrative tasks aren’t always all smooth sailing. The best virtual assistants assist with sales & operations when employees are sick or need last-minute support, even if it means extra hours and increased workload at short notice.
3) Systems Expert
Handing off tasks to assistants should come with clear expectations and deadlines. If you have good systems in place and a qualified assistant, there’s no need for chaser emails and extra Slack messages to get things done on time.
Gaby
4) Trusted Business Leader
A qualified executive assistant isn’t just an order-taker but a trusted guide. Entrepreneurs need more than remote talent; they need to hand over things like customer service, project management and sales to a professional who can effectively manage their business for them.
5) Human vs AI Virtual Assistants
AI virtual assistant tools may have their place, but ChatGPT and artificial intelligence platforms won’t replace the creativity, connection and empathy of a living, breathing assistant.
Business is built upon emotional relationships and trust; humans bring intuition, reliability & loyalty.
6) PA/EA Career
Does your assistant feel inspired by the thought of helping scale up a new startup? Have they already worked inside a successful large business? Are they seeking a career in making entrepreneurs’ lives easier?
Look for someone who sees value in daily administration tasks and not just a paycheck.
7) Integrated Assistance
A lot of virtual assistant agencies will fill a role in your team, but few will become part of it.
You don’t want just inbox management assistants; you need full-service support across business areas like HR & recruitment, travel planning, social media management, lead generation, data entry and more without having to provide extensive training.
Matty
Of course, it’s unlikely you’ll be able to tell if you have the right assistant for your business on a 30 minute intro call.
Dig deep when assessing your current or future assistant, and don’t just rely on virtual assistant reviews and qualifications—ask for a free trial or have coffee chats with your personal assistant before hiring them.
If you’re looking to make hiring an experienced virtual assistant hassle-free, then book a call with our experts at Tyck here (it’s free) and we’ll see if our assistants are a fit for your business goals.
As a busy business owner, you are constantly looking for ways to optimize your time and increase productivity. One tool that has been gaining popularity for its ability to help with business admin tasks is ChatGPT. In this blog post, I’ll share my personal experience of using ChatGPT to help me write LinkedIn posts, as well as provide my top 7 tips for leveraging ChatGPT and my top 5 tips to become a prompt expert. I’ll also highlight some of the drawbacks of using ChatGPT and conclude with how human remote business support can help with repetitive tasks that require more personalisation.
A Brief Personal Story
Last week, I used ChatGPT to write me a LinkedIn post. I provided a few sentences about the topic and the audience, and ChatGPT did the rest. To my surprise, the post reached over 10,000 people and has been my highest-performing post-to-date. This is just one example of how us as business owners can use ChatGPT to help us save time and increase engagement.
My Top 7 Tips for Leveraging Chat GPT
Generate Meeting Minutes: Use ChatGPT to generate meeting minutes from a recorded conversation. Simply upload the audio file and let ChatGPT transcribe and summarize the key points of the meeting.
Generate a List of Action Items: Use ChatGPT to generate a list of action items from a brainstorming session. ChatGPT can analyze the ideas discussed and create a to-do list for team members.
Summarize Long Documents or Reports: Use ChatGPT to summarize long documents or reports. Simply upload the file, and ChatGPT will provide a concise summary of the key points.
Proofread and Edit Documents: Use ChatGPT to proofread and edit documents. ChatGPT can identify grammar and spelling errors, as well as suggest improvements to sentence structure and tone.
Generate Email Templates: Use ChatGPT to generate email templates for common situations, such as follow-up emails or thank-you notes.
Generate Social Media Posts: Use ChatGPT to generate social media posts. ChatGPT can analyze your brand’s voice and past performance to generate engaging posts.
Research Competitors or Industry Trends: Use ChatGPT to research competitors or industry trends. ChatGPT can gather information from various sources and present the data in an organized format.
As with anything, the output is only as good as the input ChatGPT receives. It can take a bit of time to get the desired quality or response you’re after. Since I have started experimenting with ChatGPT, I have come up with few tips to get the most out of the tool.
My Top 5 Tips to Become a Prompt Expert
Start with Clear and Specific Prompts: ChatGPT works best when it has a clear and specific prompt to work with.
Provide Context: When asking a question, it’s important to provide context so that ChatGPT can better understand the situation and provide a more accurate response.
Use Natural Language: ChatGPT is designed to understand natural language, so try to phrase your prompts in a conversational tone.
Use Multiple Prompts: Sometimes, ChatGPT might not provide the exact answer you’re looking for with a single prompt. In these cases, it can be helpful to provide multiple prompts to help ChatGPT better understand your question or request.
Review and Refine Responses: ChatGPT’s responses are generated using machine learning algorithms, which means that they may not always be perfect. As such, it’s important to review the responses provided by ChatGPT and refine them as needed.
Bonus Tip: Draft a Short Intro to Your Company: Draft a short intro to your company, your tone, target audience that you can save and provide ChatGPT every time so it always has the same context.
The Drawbacks of Using Chat GPT
Despite its many benefits, using ChatGPT for business administration also has some drawbacks that should be taken into consideration. Here are a few potential limitations to keep in mind:
Accuracy: ChatGPT’s responses are generated using machine learning algorithms, which means that they may not always be accurate or reliable. Depending on the complexity of the task or question at hand, ChatGPT may not be able to provide a satisfactory response.
Lack of customization: ChatGPT is a general-purpose language model, which means that it may not be able to provide highly customized or tailored responses to specific business needs. This can limit its usefulness for certain tasks or industries.
Security: ChatGPT requires access to data in order to provide responses, which can raise security concerns for businesses that handle sensitive or confidential information. It’s important to ensure that data is properly encrypted and stored securely when using ChatGPT.
Despite these limitations, ChatGPT can still be an incredibly useful tool for businesses looking to streamline their administrative processes and save time. By taking advantage of its many capabilities and following some of the tips outlined in this post, you can leverage ChatGPT to make your business more efficient and productive.
However, it’s also important to remember that ChatGPT is just a tool and can’t replace the human touch. While it can be incredibly useful for repetitive tasks, there are some areas of business administration that require more personalisation and a human touch and a Virtual PA might be a better fit in this instance. As such, it’s important to find a balance between using ChatGPT and human remote business support to ensure that your business is running smoothly and efficiently.
In conclusion, ChatGPT is an exciting new technology that can help businesses save time and increase efficiency in their administrative processes. By following some of the tips outlined in this post, you can become a ChatGPT expert and leverage its many capabilities to improve your business. However, it’s important to keep in mind the limitations of the technology and find a balance between using ChatGPT and human support to ensure that your business is thriving.