Online business owners depend on their virtual assistants to help them succeed.  From taking on tasks that you don’t want to do, to providing skills you may not have, your virtual assistant can be an invaluable member of your team. Since you will be working together on a regular basis, it’s important to maintain a healthy, happy client/assistant relationship.

Here are some things to keep in mind when working with your VA.

- Start every project with a clear goal. What do you want to achieve by completing this project? How do you plan to achieve it?  Do you have specific tasks that need to be completed to achieve those goals?

- Clearly communicate job specifics. Ensure you give complete instructions on how you want the job done. The more clearly you make your instructions, the less chance there is for error.

- Keep in contact with your VA whether through email, IM, or over the telephone on a regular basis. It doesn’t have to be daily but regular communication is essential for successful relationships.

- Remember, you probably are not the only client your VA has and every client is important to them. They typically take work on a first come, first served basis. When assigning tasks, try to give your VA as much lead time as possible so they can work it into their schedule. In addition, if you want to ensure that your VA has plenty of time for your tasks, be willing to sign a retainer contract. This helps them plan ahead and allows them to reserve X number of hours each month for you.

- Typically VA’s receive a lot of email. When sending email, make sure you keep each email to a specific topic and make sure the subject is clearly stated. Assigning a new task by hitting reply to last month’s project will be confusing and may get lost in the shuffle.

- Take into consideration the time it takes for prep work prior to work actually being started. For example, article submissions. Most online directories do not like the formatting that Microsoft Word inserts. This formatting will cause your articles to have strange characters in them, potentially leading the directory editor to decline your articles. Your VA will have to convert your articles to a text document and fix any formatting problems before he/she can even begin the submission process.  If you send the article in a .txt format to start with, this will eliminate the prep work for the VA, saving you time and money.

It doesn’t take much to maintain a good business relationship with your assistant. The more courteous you are of each others time and needs, the stronger the relationship will be. And strong relationships mean bigger success and higher profits.

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