How to find your perfect Virtual Assistant
Let’s face it, handing over the reigns to your business is scary, but don’t worry–we’re here to help! The best way to overcome your hesitation, and maximise your chances of finding the right VA is to be prepared.
#1. Admit That You Need Help!
This first step is realising that there is no shame in outsourcing. Stop telling yourself you “should” be able to manage everything, when this just simply isn’t the case.
What you’re actually doing is stifling your ability to grow your business or improve your work/life balance. If you’re a solo practitioner, in most cases one or two extra appointments a week easily covers the cost of outsourcing your admin. So why not let a killer VA take over your day-to-day, so you can focus on what you do best—providing excellent patient care.
#2. Research, Research, and More Research
Take the time to write down exactly what you need from a VA and what tasks you want to delegate. Here are some essential questions to guide your search, along with how we at Offsiters would answer them (look at us – saving you time already!).
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Offsiters: You get the best of both worlds here! You will work with a dedicated VA, supported by an experienced team who handle training, troubleshooting and other ad-hoc assistance.
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Offsiters: Yes, your dedicated VA and a team of local phone support VAs will manage your calls daily (as much as we wish we were answering from the Bahamas).
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Offsiters: Our VAs are experienced with essential health admin software such as Power Diary, Halaxy, Pracsuite, Cliniko, Coreplus, among a boat-load of other programs found here.
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Offsiters: At Offsiters, we value simplicity and efficiency over all else, so we have one price for all our on-going admin services and just a two-hour minimum per week. The rest is completely up to you.
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Offsiters: When it comes to on-going admin support with us, we understand that every business is different, so instead of using a “one size fits all” approach, we tailor our service to suit you and your budget. Having said that, we do offer setup packages for those wanting just setup help. More info on that here.
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Offsiters: In the spirit of transparency, we invoice weekly, so you always know where you stand with your expenses. The amounts are simply deducted on the due date by our Australian-based automatic payment system Pinch Payments, so you don’t have to worry about paying invoices either. It’s just a more efficient way to do things, and that’s what we’re all about.
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Offsiters: All time spent on your admin is tracked against the specific task in our task management software, so we can provide transparent reporting, if necessary. Our VA’s use a start/stop timer when working on client tasks, so there is no additional rounding up of time on anything either.
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Offsiters: Our ongoing support includes three communication checks per day. The first is around 9am, the second around 12pm, and the last around 2-3pm. We’ve found this to be the most efficient approach to provide our clients with consistent coverage throughout the day.
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Offsiters: Generally speaking, emails and SMS will be responded to during whichever communication check comes next. If the enquiry is more complex and/or requires consultation with the practitioner, then it may take up to 24hrs. Often, we’ll send an acknowledgement if we know if might take a little longer than usual.
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Offsiters: Great question! Because your VA will be managing multiple clients, it's essential that we make sure they know exactly what they need to do each and every day. We do this by using a task management system called ClickUp, where all of your VA's daily/weekly/monthly tasks are scheduled and linked to processes. They simply login each day and work their way through the list checking off tasks and tracking time as they go. They can also add any ad-hoc tasks that pop up here too.
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Offsiters: We understand the importance of maintaining data security for the safety of not only you, but your patients as well. All of our clients’ login details are stored securely in a password vault app (Keeper Security), because we know that saving passwords directly on devices or in an internet browser – even when Google Chrome asks us really nicely if we’d like to – is a big no no.
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Offsiters: After your initial enquiry, our standard onboarding process involves an intake call, followed by a 1 hour Zoom session. During each of these conversations, you will be guided through a customised online form we specifically created to ask all the necessary questions, so you don’t need to try to remember everything. We’ll also send you a big recap email afterwards with templates to review and a to-do list to work through, so you don’t even need to take notes during the session for a change!
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Offsiters: During your Zoom session you’ll be introduced to our onboarding specialist (a senior VA who specialises in all things setup) and your VA, who will be your day-to-day contact once on-going support commences.
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Offsiters: The first two weeks are dedicated to all things setup. We’ll review your practice management system, your processes and the overall health of your practice (i.e. outstanding invoices, inactive clients and GP referrals/session tracking, if necessary) then provide you with recommendations. We’ll then setup your on-going (daily/weekly/monthly) tasks in our task management system, so when week three rolls around, your VA is ready to hit the ground running.
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Offsiters: Understanding the importance of confidentiality is paramount when working with allied health professionals. All of our new VA’s sign confidentiality agreements when they start working with us and we also provide a confidentiality agreement to all new clients, so everyone understands the expectations
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Offsiters: If your VA takes leave, you can choose to either pause services or have a capable replacement step in. If you need some time off, you can either choose to pause, or we’ll just do the minimum while you’re away, so there’s no backlog to get through when you return. The choice is yours.
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Offsiters: At Offsiters, there are no lock-in contracts, just a 2 hour minimum. From there, you can scale services as needed. We do just ask for 14 days notice to discontinue services with us.
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Offsiters: If your VA leaves Offsiters, we will quickly match you with a new one to ensure continuity of service and manage the handover process as well.
#3. Make Your Decision
Once you find a VA who can handle your schedule, emails, phone calls, invoice follow-ups, and more, it’s time to make the call. Welcome your new right-hand (wo)man and start enjoying the relief of having those tasks off your plate.
#4. Onboarding
This is the fun part if you’ve picked a VA with a thorough onboarding process. Although they’ll be doing most of the work during this period, the most important thing you can do is make sure you allow yourself enough time in those first few weeks to be responsive. The setup phase is so much more difficult (and takes a lot longer) if your VA can’t get answers when they need them. We strongly believe the best relationships begin with clear communication, so regular catchups in the beginning are crucial in establishing a really great working relationship straight out of the gate.
#5. Get It Going
Congrats! With your new VA in place, you can now make that extra coffee, finish early on a Friday, and spend more time with your kid/partner/pet catch up on all your “Continue Watching” list on Netflix.
Happy VA hunting x