DRAFT PAPER

Virtual Personal Assistant

#byUkiDLucas #VPA #public #Medium #LinkedIn

This post comes as a result of experience in managing people in various foreign countries for over 17 years. The five years of which has been running a business that was entirely virtual. True, it is mostly in technology, but also a fair share of managing artists, user experience, data entry, social media and marketing professionals.

Managing any kind of business is stressful and usually, involves long hours. Being able to delegate is essential. Having smart and pro-active employees is the key. Having trusted people to take on a part of the work allows you to focus on the business as opposed to working in the business. Outsourcing the tasks of the busy manager is often mostly overlooked, sometimes frown upon. Yet, there is a ton of work that can be in fact outsourced, hence, the concept of executive VPA.

Definition of VPA

  • Virtual means that the person is not physically located in the same area and all services will be performed via the Internet.
  • Personal means that VPA is dedicated to the hiring person.
  • Assistant means that the VPA will try to make your life easier and not create more work or more stress.

To understand further please look up “virtual assistant” on YouTube, or better yet read or listen to Tim Ferriss “ The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9–5, Live Anywhere..”. I do not hope to work only 4 hours per week, but if I could work less than 60 hours it would be an improvement. I think many of you reading it do feel my pain.

Make your boss look good

A while ago I have learned that in order to be successful you have to “Make your boss look good”. This principle is may put you off at first, but if you think about it does not mean you have to agree with your boss, but rather to do everything to make him successful.

One of the key duties of the executive VPA is to work on a personal branding of their employer. There is no better marketing than when an unexpected person writes “You should consult with @UkiDLucas about this”. It is an ultimate vote of confidence. The VPA’s job is to make sure their employer achieves the utmost recognition for their skills or service they provide. The VPA should actively think how to improve their bosses image.

In order to perform the job well, the VPA should put an effort to have a very good professional and psychological profile of the person they are working for.

  • Frequently, the VPA might be asked to research things, and, by knowing the employer well, it is easier to filter the relevant data.
  • The VPA might be asked to answer emails and will be expected to know more than the programmatic auto-reply.
  • Eventually, the VPA may want to be pro-active and anticipate the needs of your employer.

Another principle I have learned in my life is that when the boss asks you to do something you better respond, “I thought you might ask about it, here you go!”

The skills

A good employee is expected from you to constantly learn, this is especially true for executive VPA, if you do not have a desire to learn every day then you may not be a good fit. From this learning, the person is expected to grow professionally and eventually take on more responsibility, maybe even supervise and mentor other people.

As an example of a success story, many years ago I hired a young (remote) developer, today, he is a very much valued architect for a large company, making a good salary, still working for me 5 years later. I was very happy to see him grow all these years.

Performance evaluation

The performance of VPA will be evaluated based on the following:

  • How much time is the VPA freeing that would have to be done by their employer.
  • How much value the VPA bring in. The value can be either the financial gain or in terms of positive brand building.

It is a mistake to think that the performance should me measured by the tasks performed, leave this metric for robots.

Communications

The full-time VPA is expected to communicate a lot. The communication should be meaningful in order to improve the quality of life of the employer and not to add more stress.

Being Proactive

At first, the VPA may have few real tasks in order to learn how to work with the employer. Eventually, it is expected that the VPA becomes an expert and be very proactive in their job.

Basic tools the VPA might be using daily

The list presented below is recommended for the executive assistant for a startup:

  • Grammarly Chrome browser plugin to verify English syntax and spelling
  • Skype chat to ask questions and provide feedback, URLs, etc.
  • Google Drive with shared folder
  • Google Documents to write daily reports, each document would be named with numbers “yyyy_mm_dd” so it auto-sorts in the file system.
  • Google Spreadsheets if data collection or tabular report is required
  • Google Drawing or create technical diagrams
  • Google Gmail in case the employer needs to forward some of the correspondence to process or answer.
  • Google Calendar to schedule events
  • Twitter account that reflects professionalism and represents VPA’s personal growth, eventually the VPA is expected to have thousands of followers
  • Facebook account — public posts should reflect VPA as a thoughtful and responsible person. Personal content is none of the employer’s business, but some level of care should be taken.
  • LinkedIn account should be very professional, eventually, the VPA is expected to have thousands of followers
  • Meetup account — to research and coordinate events, and speaking engagements
  • Eventbrite account — to research and coordinate events, and speaking engagements
  • LastPass to be able to share passwords with employer, all passwords should be created using “Generate Secure Password” and at least 12 characters long
  • Various other accounts for the discussion groups that correspond to tasks assigned
  • Account to the local job sites, school boards, etc., to be able to find talented people

Summary

The executive VPA, as well as other types of remote workers, can bring enormous value to you personally and to the growth of your business. Finding the right person is not difficult, but it should not be taken for granted. Managing of people is definitely an art.

If you have your own observations or suggestions please comment below, I would like this article to grow and be useful to people who have never outsourced themselves.

If you enjoyed the article, found it somewhat useful or have questions of how to proceed with your own startup please contact me on Twitter @UkiDLucas

The image on top is courtesy of OnlineJobs.ph, my favorite source of talent.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com on April 22, 2017.