Knowing your business needs and clearly defining them will be first step in process. A good virtual assistant (or VA) will be asking you these questions and having answers ready will get your project moving in right direction faster.

Truly assess your needs. You may find that your current needs and future needs are different. An honest evaluation of these needs will lead you in right direction as some virtual assistants can offer services that are specific to your current needs, but may not have skills for further demands. This is not a negative thing, however, you should keep this in mind when interviewing your perspective VA. If that VA can not provide, do they belong to a network of virtual assistants, or associations that they could pull help from?

Translating Budget Goals...

Most of time you will not be pleased with answers to questions like “How long is SEO going to take?” and then answer... “we charge $x.xx for that service.” WHY SO MUCH?! These answers can be wrong answer to you and your perceptions of VA could be distorted unless you know your budget. The business owner usually thinks in terms of total costs, VA usually thinks in terms of hourly rates. Set your budget, then take a look at hourly rate: $25 an hour translates into $1000 at 40 work hours. How many hours will your job take to do? Add in extras and you can determine how much you are ready to spend. Is service an ongoing service, or a “one-off”? What is industry standard for work you need done? The more prepared you are with your budget and how budget relates to an hourly rate, better your search for a VA will be.

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