You’ve finally chosen the VA that is going to sub for you, hooray!  Congratulations!

Hopefully you’ve still got plenty of time before you actually have to go away and depend on their services because I would definitely recommend doing a fake trial run to test them out beforehand.

First of all, don’t let them know that the task(s) that you’re about to give them are a test, that would change everything.  Testing someone out is not a bad thing, it’s simply the final measure to see whether this person will perform as you expect, and it gives you a bit of a buffer zone so that you can see what their work will be like before they can do any “damage” so to speak.

What I did for my test was I gave them a couple of actual tasks for one of my clients.  However, although these tasks were simple their execution was very specific, they had to be done within a very specific time frame, and they were all things that were very easy for me to fix if something went wrong.  So, it gave me a chance to see if my sub was paying attention to details, if they could follow the procedures (they had both written procedures and video procedures to go by), and if they completed their tasks in a timely manner.

If you can come up with a task that still looks real but doesn’t affect any of your clients’ info in the real world then that’s great, but consider my example in case that’s not an option.

However you do it, make the time to do a fake trial run – you’ll either gain the confidence that this person is a good fit for you and your business, or you’ll have the chance to cut your losses and get out before any real damage is done!

Be sure to read Part 8 in this series: Dealing With The Results of the Trial Run.