In a previous post I talked about the reasons why a VA would want to use a subcontractor to help them with their business. If you’ve already decided that you’re going to prepare for using a subcontractor, that’s great!
But now what? Do you start looking for someone right away? Once you find them, how are you going to use them? How are you going to get them to learn what you do for your beloved clients?
Procedures are the key! Without procedures you will be flailing around trying to remember what you do for which client, you’ll end up with 10 different documents that repeat things, you’ll have passwords all over the place, and it will be a humungous, hideous mess, not to mention a surefire way to confuse anyone trying to learn what you do. So before you even begin to start your search for that special subcontractor, you must first tackle your procedures.
- Do you even have procedures? If not, now is the best time to start.
- If you do already have procedures, when was the last time they were updated?
- Do you have a procedure written out for every task that you perform?
One way to tackle your procedures is to start with just one client. Create an outline-style document that lays out all the tasks that you perform for this particular client, and group them in sections of Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Periodically. Don’t bother with any great amount of detail here, just flesh out your list. Next, create a detailed step-by-step how-to document for each of the tasks that you’ve listed in your outline – don’t be shy with the details! What may be obvious to you will certainly not be obvious to an outsider, so do your best to literally put each and every step into these documents.
Repeat this exercise for all of your clients, and in the end you’ll have an outline of all the tasks for each client, when they happen, and how to execute them.
Voila! You now have a full set of written procedures!
Be sure to come back and check out next week’s post where I’ll talk about how you can make it even easier for a subcontractor to learn your procedures…