So you might be enjoying some recent successes in your dropshipping venture and maybe looking to venture into the world of Virtual Assistants!
Virtual assistants can help you to make the most of your time, so you can concentrate on important areas of your business, while your virtual team organizes the day to day processes.
But how do you begin to find your new crew of helpers and what do you need to know?
Let’s start with the quick answer before we delve a little deeper into this topic.
Where can I hire a virtual assistant for a dropshipping store? There are many places you can find help for your dropshipping store. Scan through local business pages, social media recommendations, LinkedIn, and other online ads. Try the ‘gig’ community by placing an order on Fiverr or Upwork to outsource everyday, professional or creative tasks.
Ok so now we’ve got the important takeaway answer, let’s begin by looking at what exactly a virtual assistant is, so you can more easily understand when and where to find one.
What is a virtual assistant or VA?
In a nutshell, a virtual assistant – or sometimes called a virtual office assistant is generally self-employed and provides the following assistance to clients remotely from a home office:
- Professional
- Administrative
- Technical
- Creative (social)
A Virtual assistant usually works predominantly for small businesses.
A virtual assistant is someone who does a range of tasks you have requested. Most virtual assistants work with their clients as a long-term collaboration instead of one-off projects such as website design, for instance.
They are able to take on the more repetitive, time-consuming chores, such as editing product variants, adding new lines, and also replying to customer emails.
Ok so now we know what a VA does, so why will it help dropshippers to use one and what are the benefits? Let’s find out below.
Why dropshippers should hire a virtual assistant
When beginning your dropshipping business, we all know how time-consuming it can become.
Keen to get back to customers’ emails, working to make sure the turnaround time from order to delivery is a swift as possible, not to mention adding new products.
If you are currently spending more than 4 hours a day managing your store, it might be the right time to look for help.
So what can a virtual assistant do for you? There’s a number of jobs both big and small, your virtual assistant can help you manage.
- Free up time to be more strategic
- Work on product research
- Supplier relationship
- Brand creation
- Outsource jobs to professionals
- Another opinion
- Build a scalable and healthy business
Ok so now we can understand how hiring a virtual assistant can help you grow and scale your business, leaving you more time to work on the strategy of your business.
However, you might be wondering what kind of activities are suitable to entrust to your virtual assistant. Let’s take a look below.
What you should outsource to a virtual assistant
There are a number of tasks you could receive virtual assistance with. It is, of course, all down to your personal preference, your own skillset, and how much of the creative or professional side you would like to keep as your domain, but let’s see some of the projects and pursuits suitable.
- Image design
- Video editing
- Content creation
- Customer service
- Spreadsheet work
- Analytic work
- Data processing
Although you could of course outsource the building of supplier relationships to a virtual assistant, there is a school of thought which says that it’s better to keep those relationships closer to your chest.
It might be a good compromise to have your VA communicate directly with your suppliers on matters such as stock and orders, but to make sure that there is no question concerning you as the business owner and to actively keep in the ‘loop’.
So where do you find these virtual angels? Let’s take a look and discover some of the best places to source your Virtual Assistants.
Where to hire virtual assistants for dropshipping
There are a number of places you can find a helpful virtual assistant. From looking at local business listings, social media, or Linkedin recommendations through to the ‘gig’ services such as Upwork and Fiverr.
It’s a simple process using the gig offerings. Simply search for the job you would like your virtual helper to assist with, and create a task. At the point of delivery, you can judge the overall experience based on performance.
Ok, so we hope that your virtual assistant will understand your requirements and be able to deliver a great service, but what kind of skills should she/he have?
Let’s explore a little further.
The important skills for virtual assistants
Although it’s crucial that your virtual assistant has the skills to follow through on your specific requirements, what are other important skills they need?
- Language skills it may be important your VA has the ability to converse in different languages, but especially they will need good basic language skills in order to converse with you and your potential clients.
- Flexibility: If you suddenly run into a huge demand for your products, or emails that need responding may arrive and need dealing with urgently, it’s important that your virtual assistant can be flexible around your dropshipping business needs.
- Availability: It’s obviously crucial that your hired help is able to commit to any timescales you want to put in place as is available to work long term if required.
- Ability to learn: A keen enquiring mind and ability to quickly understand new processes and information is paramount when hiring a virtual assistant.
So once you’ve got your ideal virtual assistant on board, it’s time to get down to work and actively manage them. How do you do this? Let’s find out.
How to manage virtual assistants
- Give clear instructions and rules: It’s really important to make sure you are very clear about any rules you have and also make sure you explain your requirements simply and without conflicting instructions
- Utilize task management tools There are a number of ways you can add work to your virtual assistant’s day, by using shared documents and other task management tools, such as Trello.
- Keep aligned with online sharing documents: Make sure you are both on the same page’ and ensure updates to documents are shared timely
- Set up routine meetings: By regularly setting up meetings either via Skype, Zoom, or other methods, you will make sure your virtual assistant is up to speed and understands any new additions or processes.
- Review work: if you make sure you don’t simply let your virtual assistant carry on without regularly looking over the type of content or work they see producing, you will make sure of their best performance
Conclusion
So there it is! Everything you needed to know about getting that extra help to reach for the skies with your dropshipping business!
Hire a virtual assistant and make sure you spend time strategically building your venture and leave the day to day process or even the creative part to your new team!