Have you ever gotten overwhelmed by all the factors that come into play when you need to hire help in your small business?

Where do you find a contractor or virtual assistant?
How do you know if somebody's the right fit for you?
How do you get them to stay?
How do you train them?
What do they need to succeed?

I’ve got some great ideas and resources around these things!

Transcript below!

00:00 Hey, welcome back to the Calibrated Concepts YouTube channel. Today I want to talk about how to hire help in your small business.
00:09 I have a lot I want to say on this topic but I'll try and keep it all brief for y'all.
00:14 The first thing I want to say is in my five and a half years running Calibrated Concepts, I've had three virtual assistants.
00:21 Two of them are still working for me now and have been on my team for about two and a half years.
00:28 Prior to that I had one VA and he was on my team for about two years as well. So and for prior to that I ran everything myself.
00:38 So I've had really really low turnover. And the only reason Hassan, my first assistant, left was because he started a brick and mortar business of his own.
00:47 So I wanted to talk for like, how do you hire help, how do you get them to stay, how do you know if somebody's the right fit for you and then give you some resources around those things.
00:58 I do want to say that even though I have fairly limited experience hiring in my own business because, well, I've made some good choices around that and been really specific in how I hire and who I hire.
01:12 I also wanted to say that I have experience replacing myself as teams because the first while of this business, Calibrate Concepts, I was a virtual assistant and I was on a lot of people's teams.
01:25 And when I was like, a little overwhelmed with that and decided to pivot to doing project-based work through Squarespace and then Systems, I and left, I had to replace myself on people's teams.
01:38 And so I've hired replicas of me. Essentially, for other people's teams as well, we use the same system and I know for a fact that a lot of those VAs still work for those teams that I replace myself on.
01:50 So, let's get into it. How the hell do you hire a virtual assistant? And we're going to talk mostly about virtual assistants, but a lot of this advice will go towards other contractors and things like that.
02:01 I use this system to hire podcast editors, Pinterest managers and other project-based help I've hired throughout the years in my business as well.
02:14 So, the first thing is, if you can get a referral for a virtual assistant through another virtual assistant, a small business owner that you trust, or through I guess a group of people that you trust, so if you're in a Facebook group or something like that but maybe you don't know them one-on-one
02:32 but you still really trust and value what they have to say, referrals can go a long way towards vetting a service provider.
02:41 To have that I would say some of the Facebook groups are really, really good for putting in your job role.
02:48 I also have really leaned into using Upwork over the years. I've actually found both Heidi and Hassan, so two of my three assistants through Upwork.
02:57 The other was Amy who was through just knowing her. In the community of virtual assistants here in Northern Ireland instead of higher here as well.
03:08 So, if you can get a referral, that's number one. Otherwise, there's some places to look that are really helpful. And like I said, it's Upwork, Fiverr Facebook groups, those kinds of things are really, really good.
03:19 And there's a lot of Facebook groups for entrepreneurs or even virtual assistants themselves. I think the other thing is to keep your mind really open about where that virtual assistant is.
03:32 As long as there's some hours of overlap where you can do one-to-one meetings here and there. So Heidi is seven, eight hours time different from Belfast most of the time.
03:42 But we have a couple hours in our luck day that overlap and then that means that we can have team meetings at four, four thirty in the afternoon and able to all make sure that we're on the same page.
03:51 And we do that about once a month. We actually have one tomorrow. So that is sort of what I want to say around all of that.
04:01 So I've got some resources. I want to show you in a minute. But I wanted to say, so once you know where to hire, I think you really need to be specific about what you want done.
04:12 And it's not that the role can't grow or that you might be changing things up here and there. But to start, you need to know what tasks you want to hand off and you need to not only know that.
04:22 But you need to know how you want them done and if possible have some sort of SOP or standard operating procedure for those tasks.
04:32 So whether that means you've created loom videos which is what I did for my clients or you've got the process all written down which I've had done for clients in the past.
04:42 You just need to have an idea of like this is what needs done, this is how it's going to in general be done, and this is how often it needs done.
04:50 We and my team manage all of that in Asana, so the loom recordings for tasks go in there, the due dates go in there, communication back and forth about the task if there's something that needs to, that I need to do.
05:03 We provide for the task to be done or if tech is being tech, you know, sometimes the tech gods aren't on our side, so those kinds of things.
05:12 And I also, that's another good point, is that I always, always, always allow for a certain element of flexibility in my team as far as due dates, so I schedule things before they need done most times.
05:23 Meaning that if tech doesn't work or somebody gets sick or somebody's kid gets sick there's a little bit of flexibility for them to, okay, we'll cycle back to that tomorrow or the next day.
05:35 So, that's a lot of information. Other things, kind of, that are general about how I hire, I for virtual assistants that I found on Upwork, I pay them more than their asking rate for the most part.
05:50 If I find a virtual assistant that isn't based in sort of a standard westernized country, a lot of times their rates are what I think are lower than I would be comfortable paying, and so I, I pay them, what I feel is an appropriate rate and I think that's part of the reason people stay on my
06:09 team for so long. Some of my virtual assistants don't do loads and loads of hours a month. I'm really good at automating.
06:16 That's part of the game for me. That's part of what I do. It's part of what I teach. So, my virtual assistants would probably do Heidi, most months would probably average 10 hours a month.
06:27 And, so it's not tons of work, but she knows that those 10 hours a month she's getting paid substantially more than some of her other 10 hours a month.
06:35 And so it goes really well. It's a really good win-win for both of us. The other thing is I've given them raises without them having to ask as they've been on my team for two and a half years.
06:46 So as a reward for job well done, but also with the rising cost of living I haven't made them ask for that.
06:55 I've just been like, this is what I think we're paying from now on. If you need to negotiate that and it needs to be higher, let me know.
07:02 Christmas bonuses or holiday. Day bonuses, I've just give them. It makes me feel good. And especially if we've had a really good year, there's usually some money set aside for that.
07:13 So treating them as part of the team, I value again, we have a team meeting once a month, so they don't just do tasks for me, but I really, I think one of my most favorite things about having a team is not what they actually do.
07:24 The admin, the tasks that they manage in my business, but it's also just having other people's brains. So once a month I get to have a meeting with them and we talk through all the things coming up in the business, what needs to be done and really for them sometimes it's really just me talking through
07:42 . It's like being able to talk it all through. It really helps my brain so they're just listening to me sometimes like but it helps a lot for me and they're getting paid for the time so it's really really useful.
07:56 Alright so that's the gist of how I have hired, how I've managed my team, but I also want to show you some of the resources that I've used.
08:04 I've used and created in hiring for my team and also hiring for other people's teams so I'm going to show you that So we're back over here.
08:16 I created this resource for myself and I had so many people ask for bits and pieces of this that I put it all on a Google folder a long, long time ago and recently I decided to like freshen it up, put it in this Google folder organize it by number so that you can look at it or like this if you
08:35 want and be really clear as to how it's gonna, what you need to do. I also I'm selling this in my online shop.
08:45 It's at a beta price because eventually I want to put this in a nicer format with more information but right now this is beta so it's just in a Google folder and in here there is a loom video just like this one but a lot longer about all the ways to use this system.
09:04 Places to find, contractors, a cello board that I created a long time ago, my blog post about how to hire help.
09:11 So this is a really good getting started place and this video is about 25 plus minutes long I think. Then in here we have a contractor onboarding checklist so kind of it's a lot of the stuff we've talked about in here already so when I onboard my team I do things like make sure they have their
09:30 passwords to everything. I send them a welcome gift. I make sure they send me a headshot, a bio that I can use across things on the website in our team onboard or our client onboarding process.
09:43 Those kinds of things. So this is just a really helpful client process. Then, so in the process we have your application that you can use.
09:54 This is a template that can be edited, so added in a job title, job description some questions, and then, like, having, so that's a really good place.
10:08 So when I was hiring a version of myself, I knew we needed to have a pretty big pool of applicants, I think.
10:13 So we put this application with a job description up in several Facebook groups, up on Upwork, a few other places, and ended up finding an amazing person that's still with a team that I replaced myself, like, two years, two years ago.
10:28 So we've got a job application, we've got job spec template, this is the one I used when I hired Heidi a couple years ago, so obviously you'd want to replace anything, but really helpful to know these things to kind of just have guidelines, really, right?
10:47 And then, interviews, so this is how I, I have a version of this, it's my own, but I put, when I interview somebody, I have their name.
10:56 Their profile like, link to, if it's an Upwork, or I found them somewhere else, their email address a bunch of questions, and I put a summary of their answers in here so I can compare and contrast later notes, and then if I, and then this is important, we'll talk about this in a second
11:11 , but a link to their test, so that's helpful. And then this is what I mean by the test, so for when I replace myself as an OBM or virtual assistant, this was one of the tests we had done, so essentially, it's just, these tests should be done in less than an hour, it should be fairly easy, your
11:33 choice if you wanna do it paid or as a free part of the application process, but just some tasks that are quick and easy, but that will help you get an idea of if this person is detail-oriented enough for your team if they have the right aesthetic, like if they can understand aesthetics
11:50 or whatever it is that they need to do for your team, so this is one we did for the type of the work.
11:55 That I had done on this person's team. Another one that I, this is the one I gave Heidi again years ago, but so it was very easy to me say this is only gonna be done in an hour, please submit it by this date, find five stockholders that are on brand, please the links of them below, you can
12:14 see my website and insta- Instagram to get that vibe, please put this format this as a, for a blog post so that there's headings, bullet points, all those things, again that's a task I knew we'd have this, my assistant doing through the Squarespace websites we design a lot when we were migrating
12:29 them from say WordPress or other places creating an Instagram reel, scrolling websites, so again this is part of our creating portfolios and social proof around the business, short bio testing really just there, again this role wasn't made for necessarily native English speakers so
12:49 testing English comprehension, formatting, all those things again a research project, okay, find a camera, for streaming and tell me why you chose that one, and then just would you be comfortable, this is not really a task, just a question all really really easy, so then I have a get to
13:09 know you contractor form, this is again to send welcome gifts, Christmas gifts, holiday gifts, anniversaries with the business, those kinds of things, just what do you like is anything you love to use regularly, like it's just help me give, to make them part of the team if I were to do this
13:23 again, if I were to hire again, I'd tweak this a bit, but it's a really good kick off point. And emails for next steps, so this is for the hiring process, right, so telling people if they made it to the next role, to take in the test, if they're gonna be interviewed, if they're not gonna make it forward
13:38 in the process, and if they're hired, and then, this is a, some resources for legal agreements, I'm not a lawyer, I'm not going to advise you on this, but you should probably have NDAs and a contractor agreement.
13:50 In place so that you are protected as far as payment terms and all of those types of things, and also that your clients are protected, and not having their information be available to other people.
14:05 So that is pretty much it, I just want to say like, hiring isn't like a super straightforward thing, sometimes you really have to go with your gut.
14:17 When I was hiring Heidi, I had Hassan actually helping me to hire his replacement, and I think that's a really good way to go with it too if you're looking for somebody to refill a specific role.
14:29 So, Hassan was really awesome and helping me to skim through the candidates we'd gone through and say, you know, I think that this is really the best and I already think I knew that I wanted to hire Heidi, but it was just having that confirmation, it's again, when you're running your business on
14:43 your own, sometimes it helps. But that was really, really solidified bringing Heidi onto the team. So that's, that's it. If you have any questions, let me know, but I hope this really, really helps.