1) KNOW YOUR LIMITS.
As a VA company you need to know your limits. When clients ask for things which you simply can’t provide, you need to learn when to say that you’re not able to provide them with that particular service. I do this in my own business, I stick to what I am really good at, and for anything I can’t do, I will tell the client, and offer alternative suggestions on how we are able to handle it together. I may ask for help from another VA company, or suggest hiring an outside contractor, but either way, I stick to what I know best, which is generally what is best for the client.
2) HIRE FOR A TEAM ROLE.
It’s not possible to predict how a subcontractor is going to turn out, but introducing a new subcontractor to my team requires patience and an initial investment to make sure everything goes smoothly. An integration of a new team member can take anything from a month to around 3 months depending on the role and the workload. They need to learn where everything is, procedures for working in the team and with clients.
If they are customer-facing – and this is the key golden nugget of information: they need to work in-house first, without involving clients, so they can demonstrate their work ethics and you can be sure that the subcontractor is a good fit for the business, the team and the clients. No matter how someone looks on the face of it, you have to experience that yourself first of all. You don’t buy a car without taking a test drive first – this is the same principle.
3) HIRE FOR ONE-OFF ASSIGNMENTS.
When hiring subcontractors for adhoc assignments, where they won’t become an ongoing regular part of your business, but you will need to call on them occasionally to step in and help, you must always make sure you start them with a trial assignment before requesting the subcontractor to help you on any client work..
4) BE UPFRONT WITH THE CLIENT.
Whenever you have an assignment request from a client, and you don’t have a familiar subcontractor available, you need to make sure you communicate this to the client, and explain that if they would still like you to pursue the project you would be happy to find a VA with the skill required but this could take a little longer. Most clients will be fine with it, they would much rather you handle it than them having to deal with it themselves. You could also recommend a hiring service where all the hard work of locating and pre-screening the VA you need for the task is taken care of.
All I can say is that I have learnt from experience, you should always give the subcontractor something, or several things to do as part of your own business, OR give them something to do, but check the work (or have a manager check the work) always for the first few weeks before it reaches the client, so it won’t affect your clients, it’s the only way you can be sure yourself if they are the one you are looking for, it’s an investment on your part, but it’s much better you suffer a financial loss, than suffering the loss of a client.
Don’t be despondent about misjudging people, it can happen to the very best and most experienced HR managers and recruiters who hire people for a living, but do take responsibility for any mistakes made by putting that contractor in head-first on a client assignment.
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