Part 3: How to Manage Your New Assistant Training, Productivity, Tracking and Updates Now that you’ve planned for, searched out, interviewed, and hired a virtual assistant — and the work-for-hire agreement has been signed — what’s next? How should you manage and monitor your VA’s work? How do you keep your assistant busy, and how do you assess performance? Training Training is the place to start and where we begin this chapter. One training tactic I like to use is shooting a screencast video. I usually have two pieces of software at my disposal for this. Jing allows you to create a five-minute video for free. Once you have recorded it, you can simply press a button to host it, making it available to your assistant. Remember, this is a free service. Snagit has similar features but includes the option to host the videos immediately and allows for videos longer than five minutes. This account requires a one-time $50 fee. This software is best if you need to post significantly longer videos, and more of them. You can also record videos on your own, then upload them to YouTube as private videos that you share only with your assistant. It would be easy to store past videos here and reuse them in the future. I try to keep the videos simple and instructive, regardless of which platform I use to upload them. Keeping Them Busy and Productive There are times when my assistant completes a series of tasks more quickly than anticipated and has questions about what to work on next. If I’m busy, or it’s at a different time of the day, I’m not always able to respond for several hours, or maybe even a full day (if you consider time-zone differences). To avoid these situations, I provide my assistants with “filler” work in advance, so they always have something to work on. I often do this with graphic designers, web developers, and article writers.
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