Working with virtual assistants (VAs) is increasingly popular for their flexibility and cost savings. But how do you find the right person? What common pitfalls should you avoid? And is the value for money truly as good as it seems?
These are just a few of the questions I get asked by my clients every week.
In this article, I’ll answer these questions by sharing my story of building a team of six virtual assistants in the Philippines. Unfortunately, it wasn’t smooth sailing, and I made my fair share of mistakes along the way.
If you’re debating outsourcing tasks like deal analysis or scrolling through Rightmove, I hope learning from my story will help you avoid costly and time-consuming mistakes.
After 15 years in the corporate world, I launched my prop-tech startup, Aquila Connect, in 2022. This venture allowed me to fully immerse myself in the property industry.
However, I soon learned that starting and building a business was one thing, but growing and maintaining operations on a budget was another challenge entirely.
The two biggest hurdles I faced were a lack of expertise in certain areas and time. The struggle is to work on the business rather than in it. Outsourcing admin tasks when you’re on a shoestring budget and have no team is extremely difficult.
AI tools and third-party companies can help, but AI takes time to master, and third parties are expensive. Eventually, I stumbled upon Filipino virtual assistants. The time difference worked for me, English is their official language, and their easy-going mentality was a blessing.
Even though I built my dream team, the journey wasn’t without lessons.
For my first assistant, I sought someone proactive, intelligent, and versatile. I wasn’t too concerned about formal education or specific skills, as I was willing to share my knowledge and provide on-the-job training. Eventually, I recruited a very promising 25-year-old for a full-time role. He was enthusiastic, well-prepared for the interview, and eager to work hard and grow with the company.
However, within the first two weeks, his enthusiasm and performance began to decline. This was followed by a few unnotified absences, which ultimately led to his swift departure from my business.
Lesson learned: If I had asked more specific and targeted questions during the interview, I might have made a different choice. This was the first and last time I hired someone without actual specialisation.
My initial recruitment efforts were slow. Despite having interview experience from my corporate career, it took time to establish and streamline a process for hiring VAs.
In the beginning, I allowed candidates to book interviews at any time during my working day. This caused havoc in my calendar for the whole week and sometimes blocked me from going out when I needed to. Additionally, I didn’t always take enough notes or assign scores and comments immediately after interviews. You’d be surprised how quickly information mixes in your head when you’ve just had five interviews in one day.
Lesson learned: I needed a process. I stopped taking notes by hand and started typing them into a previously prepared template. For each job post, I created an individual template with specific, relevant questions. If I didn’t manage to take all the answers, I always left my comments right at the bottom. I also wrote how I felt about the candidate. Ultimately, how you get on with someone is just as important as their qualifications. Finally, I limited the time I made available for interviews to just three hours per day, in one block.
My initial approach was: I would have someone who would do all the tedious, time-consuming tasks, cover my social media, do some deal analysis—and in the meantime—make a few phone calls. I was supposed to train this person, lead, help, and build the relationship.
However, things didn’t quite work out as I had expected. Although my new assistant was quite good at creative tasks, like social media or website design, it took him longer to write engaging content. He didn’t enjoy making phone calls, and analysing numbers wasn’t his thing at all.
Lesson learned: I very quickly understood that not everyone has an entrepreneurial mindset, and my sheer passion, drive, and motivation will only take my team so far.
Although this situation was fairly easy to rectify, it was crucial for my business. I built my team on strengths. Now, I match skills and personalities to tasks. That’s how I finally completed my team: a mixture of part-time and full-time specialists in their fields. One person does creative tasks, another analytical. There is a customer-facing role for extroverted employees, and a CRM and data entry one for introverted personality types.
Building my own team was a time-consuming and challenging experience, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. For a fraction of the UK cost, I benefit from a team of motivated, intelligent, and committed people who helped me reclaim my time and focus on other projects.
Taking my experience, and the way I have built such a brilliant team, I have founded Prop VA to help other property professionals outsource those menial tasks and focus on the growth of their portfolios. By learning from my mistakes, you can instantly have a ‘power team’ that wins you back your freedom and removes the pain of doing every task yourself.
For more information, view my website below, or contact me directly.
info@propva.co.ukLinkedIn -
