Finding the right virtual personal assistant is very difficult. There are many skills and qualities you have to look for. Not to mention, you need to look out for some red flags too!
How to find a virtual personal assistant for you? What are the common problems to avoid? What are the steps to hire a VPA?
We will break down all the industry secrets about how a virtual personal assistant can completely transform your business.
So, let’s check what is a virtual personal assistant and how to find the right one for you. Keep reading for industry secrets and tips no one else will share.
What is a Virtual Personal Assistant?
A virtual personal assistant is a remote independent contractor with hourly rates. They work virtually to manage their client’s personal and professional duties.
VPAs work for businesses of all sizes, as well as solo entrepreneurs. They perform their duties using a vast array of technological software and tools.
A virtual personal assistant does everything from scheduling appointments to answering emails.
The best thing about VPAs is they also help brands build their brand identity.
Remote assistants create and manage innovative personal messaging and curate a unique brand identity.
Tasks Handled by a Virtual Personal Assistant
Your virtual personal assistant will handle a large number of tasks for you. These range from administrative and technical to personal and branding-related tasks.
We have broken down some of the tasks handled by a virtual personal assistant.
a. General Tasks Handled by a VPA
Certain tasks generally increase the productivity of a company. Virtual personal assistants can masterfully execute these tasks.
- Personal Tasks: Unlike traditional virtual assistants, a personal online assistant aids in many personal tasks for entrepreneurs like the following:
- Email Management
- Scheduling
- Reminders
- Calendar Management
- Correspondence to Clients
- Data Entry and Online Research: Personal assistants who work online also aid with data entry. They will collect, organize, sort, archive, and manage all your data.
Personal online assistants also verify data and update records, while maintaining 100% client confidentiality. - Small Business Odds and Ends: Odds and ends are the factors that contribute to a small business’s success or failure. Virtual personal assistants help to manage the odds and ends like the following:
- Conducting market research along with researching competitor strategies
- Bookkeeping and financial assistance
- General marketing and sales support
- Marketing campaign designing
- Overall management
- Lead generation
- Taking Calls and Managing Personal Errands: Virtual personal assistants manage all personal affairs of their clients. This includes:
- Making and receiving calls
- Calling for deliveries
- Scheduling home maintenance
Even if they work remotely, they will have groceries delivered to your doorstep. They will put in or cancel orders, and arrange any service that you need.
b. Personal Branding Tasks Handled by a VPA
Having a unique brand identity is the key to making your business succeed in 2025.
However, you cannot build, manage, and promote a cohesive brand all on your own. This is where having a skilled and reliable virtual personal assistant comes in.
Let’s take a look at how your VPA can elevate your branding:
- Social Media Management: Virtual personal assistants manage all social media accounts of their clients. VPAs help clients set up different professional accounts across multiple social media platforms.
They make sure the content is up-to-date, and the accounts are active. - Content Creation and Curation: You don’t have to worry about not getting clicks or views anymore. Your virtual personal assistant will take care of it.
Additionally, they will also curate the best content for your feed. Not to mention, all your posts will have a cohesive theme that goes with your brand identity. - Email Outreach and Communication: Your personal remote assistant will take care of your email outreach and communication. Remote personal virtual assistants send timely replies and follow-ups with customers while sending engaging emails to your email list.
- Managing Personal Websites or Blogs: Some remote personal assistants specialize in managing personal websites and social media management. They write, edit, and proofread blogs.
Additionally, such personal assistants also help with website management. They check for broken links, and back-up data, and also update plugins. - Networking and Engagement: Your virtual personal assistant will stay integrated into the digital community once they work for you. This means they will constantly be looking for new leads and contacts.
They will join online forums, discussions, meetings, and seminars to market you. Not to mention, they will follow up on existing clients and customers, and keep getting feedback and referrals. - Tracking and Analyzing Branding Metrics: Since virtual personal assistants work remotely, they are experts in using business intelligence tools.
Your VPA knows how to check task completion rates, conversion rates, returns on investment, and response time. These metrics will improve your output, as they provide objective and clear data for you to track.
For more information about how a virtual assistant can help excel your branding, you can read our article on the 10 Easy Steps on How to Build Your Personal Brand with Social Media.
Key Skills and Qualities to Look for in a Virtual Personal Assistant
If you are wondering, what skills should you be looking for in a virtual personal assistant, this article is for you.
We have broken down the key skills and qualities to look for in a virtual personal assistant for your convenience.
Strong Organizational and Communication Skills: Your personal assistants will be the ones who will be communicating with clients and customers.
Hence, they need to be able to express themselves eloquently and clearly. So, you need someone who has strong organizational and communication skills.
Trustworthiness for Managing Sensitive Personal Information: You will be trusting your virtual personal assistant with lots of sensitive and personal information.
Therefore, you must work with someone who is verified and has passed background checks. You need to be sure that this person can be trusted with your personal and professional information.
- Adaptability to Align with Unique Workflows or Niche Industries: Each business has different workflows and processes for different projects. Not to mention, many niche industries are also profitable.
You want someone who can adapt to unique workflows and niche industries. This will make them easy to work with, scalable, and flexible for your business. - High Level of Computer Literacy: Since virtual personal assistants work remotely, they require high technical proficiency. You need someone with lots of technical skills, and someone good with different tools and software.
Running a company means that you need to use lots of analytical tools daily. Experience with calendar, email management, and time-tracking software is also a bonus. - Exceptional Creativity: Creating a personal brand requires lots of creativity. Therefore, you should always look to have a highly creative and innovative virtual personal assistant.
Look for someone who is innovative and can design well-thought-out marketing campaigns. He should be deeply imaginative and can come up with catchy campaign titles, slogans, and content. - Strong Bookkeeping Skills: Your virtual personal assistant should be able to track expenses and prepare and send invoices to clients.
Additionally, they should also know how to prepare balance sheets and generate financial reports. Some VPAs are experts in financial management, who offer more high-end services.
Where to Find a Virtual Personal Assistant
Now that we’ve talked in depth about what a virtual personal assistant is and what they do, let’s see exactly where to find a personal assistant who works remotely?
There are several ways to hire them.
- Dedicated Virtual Assistant Agencies
- Freelance Platforms
- Professional Networks and Social Media
- Personal Recommendations
Read More: How to Hire a Virtual Assistant?
Steps to Hire a Virtual Personal Assistant
Let’s say that you are convinced with all of our previous points. Now you want to hire a virtual personal assistant. But how you will?
Here we have written down the hiring steps in chronological order. Let’s take a look at the steps to hire a virtual personal assistant:
- Document Your Needs and Goals: The first step is writing down your business goals, and what you want to achieve out of your business. This will help you plan out exactly what kind of virtual personal assistant you will need.
- Create a Job Description: The most important part of hiring is creating the job description or listing. Your job description should be tailored to your actual requirements.
A sample job description for Virtual Personal Assistant is given below:
We are looking for a reliable and dedicated virtual personal assistant to provide support with day-to-day operations and provide high-quality management support. This role requires managing websites and professional social media profiles, managing schedules, overseeing social media accounts, content creation, engagement, and analytics. The virtual personal assistant will work closely with the client to execute social media strategies and create a successful personal brand.
Key responsibilities include:
1. Social Media Management of all social media accounts of the client
2. Content Creation, with well-researched content
3. Analytics and metric monitoring
4. Email communication
You can add other key responsibilities as per your requirements.
- Choose the Right Hiring Platform: Now that you know who you are looking for, it’s time to talk about where to look. If you need help with general tasks, freelance platforms or personal recommendations are a good way to go.
- Review Applications and Portfolios: This part is similar to a normal job application process. Assess their portfolios for relevant expertise according to what you need, like content creation, or social media management.
- Conduct Interviews: When conducting interviews, you should ask questions that reflect on their branding experience or task-specific skills.
Some sample questions are given below:
- What are your core skills and services?
- Can you explain your background in social media management and website management?
- How do you work with multiple assignments at once?
- Share a success story of a previous client whose personal branding you managed. What role did you play in this success?
- How proficient are you with project management software and tools?
You can add other key responsibilities as per your requirements.
- Assign a Test Task: Before hiring them for a trial period, assign a specific test task to them. This will help you evaluate their ability to perform tasks like creating social media content or designing a marketing campaign.
- Start with a Trial Period: Start by monitoring their performance before committing long-term. You can do this by asking them to complete their duties over a paid trial period, before hiring them.
Read More: Why Hire a Virtual Assistant?
Common Problems to Avoid While Hiring a Virtual Personal Assistant
There are pros and cons to everything, especially in business. We’re not going to sugarcoat the fact that hiring a virtual personal assistant comes with its own set of problems.
Here are some common problems that you should avoid while working with your personal assistant!
- Lack of Clear Communication or Delayed Responses: Since your VPA works remotely, they may work at a different time zone. This can sometimes lead to a lack of clear communication or delayed responses on their part.
- Hiring without Verifiable References or Inconsistent Work History: There are plenty of individuals in the marketplace who don’t have a proper work history. Not to mention, not all virtual personal assistants are going to be equally reliable.
- Unrealistic Pricing or Services that Sound too Good to be True: Here’s a pro tip: if something looks too good to be true, it probably is. Don’t go for the cheapest virtual personal assistant just because the pricing is that affordable. It may be that they are inexperienced, or not up to par.
- Misalignment with Your Goals or Niche Requirements: Oftentimes, businesses will hire the wrong person for the job. Don’t hire a virtual personal assistant because they have an objectively good resume: hire them because they are good at YOUR niche!
How to Build a Strong Working Relationship with Your Virtual Personal Assistant
We hope the last section didn’t discourage you too much. There may be certain problems when working with VPAs.
However, there are many ways to build a strong working relationship with your VPA as well! If you follow our following tips, you’ll never run into problems.
- Schedule Regular Check-Ins and Feedback Sessions: Regular check-ins will foster strong working bonds. This way your VPA will also be more comfortable sharing their concerns with you.
- Foster Open Communication to Address Concerns Promptly: You should be accessible to your virtual personal assistant. Provide open communication channels to them. This will help them address your concerns promptly.
- Provide Resources or Training for Alignment with Your Workflow and Branding Vision: It’s natural for your remote assistant to struggle at the beginning. If you run into these problems, just provide resources for them.
Read More: How to Use a Virtual Assistant
Conclusion
Businesses in the modern day cannot function without hiring a reliable virtual personal assistant. They will make your business productive, cost-effective, and stand out from its competition.
You can hire VPAs from many sources, but if you are looking for the best place to start, you can check out Green Feather Technologies.
FAQs
1. What skills should I look for in a branding virtual assistant?
They should have good social media management skills. They also should have proven work experience with branding and marketing.
2. How do I ensure effective communication with my assistant?
You should use project management software, and communication tools and platforms.
3. How do I identify trustworthy recommendations for hiring a VA?
Follow up with their references and make sure those are trustworthy.
4. Can a virtual assistant help grow my social media presence?
Yes, a virtual personal assistant can help you grow your social media presence.
