I've tried one virtual assistant service, but I've been underwhelmed with the help I've been getting (been through 2 candidates so far). I'm really trying to not expect too much, but it would be nice to not field a million questions on what seems like a straightforward task.
I'm open to the idea that I'm doing a bad job of formulating tasks, and that this is a skill I need to get better at, but has anyone found success with hiring an assistant? Local/virtual? What worked? How long does it take to have someone get your style? Do you know if its not a fit right away?
Any wisdom appreciated.
Retooling for an assistant is the most important thing you will ever do for your company, it is what will ultimately allow you to perhaps grow or exit someday.
For new assistants - start them writing down your processes as an operations manual. Every day, they should be making updates and journal entries in the operations manual. The primary purpose of this is to see they can write in a way you can understand, if they can't do this - then fast fire.
If you find somebody who can write/edit/update -- Make sure they know "this role temporary, until it is permanent" and their role is to make themselves indispensable by anticipating your needs.
review your inbox, edit your documents, organize your calendar, and do research, follow up with clients, billing/collections, whatever tasks they can identify and offload from you.
A good assistant once fully trained will be 80% right, 20% wrong, .. you need to accept they aren't you - but eventually you'll both find how to make sure they do the 80% .. and defer/check with you for the other 80%.
A good assistant will write things down for your next assistant. We call this the "BUS" (or Tram) factor.
I know this seems cold & harsh, but having/updating an operations manual should be the first week of any new person as they are training.
Once you've got the workflow in place, finding an assistant is really just a process of elimination. You can easily find someone with C1 English skills for less than $10/hour on Upwork.
You'll need to filter through a bunch of bad ones to get to a good one, but again, this is an upfront time investment. Establish expectations early and fire quickly at the first sign of issues. Trying to "make it work" is worse than accidentally losing a good candidate.
I would also encourage you to post it as a full-time position, as you don't want to be competing with other clients (you still will, but if you're their primary professional focus that pays the rent, you won't lose out in most deadline situations).
I would start with this point. Take some time, be it weeks or a month, and every time you come across one of your one-off tasks that you would love to delegate out, note it down.
Later on, try to document or at least bullet point those tasks into something more well described, workflow, deliverables, average time to complete, etc.
Once you have a stable of such tasks you can then condense them back down to a job description that will help your search a lot. I did this prior to hiring an assistant and it worked great. I had a list of tasks to post, and to discuss through the interview. I knew which programs I would be asking the interviewee to have experience in, and I had an idea for further tasks to be added to the workload if things worked out, which they did!
I’d also suggest reading Michael Hyatt’s Your World Class Assistant.
His Free to Focus book is also quite helpful to map out what you need to delegate away after you get an assistant
(Or maybe I'm too paranoid)