In this video, I will show you how I give tasks to my virtual assistants. This is a question I get all the time. Let me show you both the Virtual Assistant Task Spreadsheet, which is one of the ways I use to communicate, and the videos that I show to my virtual assistants, which is the other way.

So, let’s start with the Virtual Assistant Task Spreadsheet because this is very important. You will see that I have a few different columns here:  Task, Task Description, Due Date, etc. You will see I have one column hidden right now. I will explain later why that is hidden. For now, I will show you Due Date, Priority, Progress, and Notes. ‘

For the most part, the Task, Task Description and Priority are the most important columns. I have a three-point priority system. If it is a Priority 1, it needs to be done right away. So, this one, for instance, is a priority one. This means I want it done before any of the other tasks. Priority 2 is slightly lower, so try to get all the Priority 1’s done first and then go to the Priority 2 tasks. Then, if you have time left, go to the Priority 3’s. This does not mean that the Priority 3 tasks are not important. It just means that they are not time sensitive or maybe they are not quite as important.

As you can see here, I have a bunch of different tasks but let’s use this one as an example:  Add Amazon Color Based Ads. I am doing ads for Amazon and here you will see it says, “Watch ‘Make the Color Specific Ads for Amazon.’” Within my Dropbox, I have a “VA” folder. I will show you what it looks like. I have a bunch of different folders here in my Dropbox: one for B Dancewear, one for Podcast, etc. So, I go to VA, and then New Tasks. There could be a number of different items in the New Task folder such as thumbnail templates. In the New Task folder, there is the New Videos folder. So, my virtual assistants will go into the New Videos folder and they will look for the specific video Make the Color Specific Ads for Amazon. In this video, I am going to show you how to make ads for Amazon. This is what it looks like right there. So the VAs would watch the videos and it gives a step-by-step instruction, which is important.

When my VAs are done with the task, I have them strike out the task rather than delete it. That way I know they finished it. Then, in our weekly meetings, I can go in and review what is going on.

So, some tasks I add like that. Other duties are tasks that are repeated. Right now, I have multiple VAs so I have different sections for each VA. Let’s look at this example. Every day I want my VAs to send a daily email. As you can see, Wednesday is missing. Once they have sent the daily email, which is actually at the end of the day, they cross it out. So for this VA, Adrian, one of the tasks is to Send Abandoned Cart Emails. When he is done with that, he crosses it out. Next, is Respond to EnduraPeak Emails. When he is done with that, he crosses it out. Then Doing Website Invoices. When he is done with that, he crosses it out. Last, Check Inventory. When he is done with that task, he crosses it out as well. So, that is an example of how Daily Tasks work.

I hide this column because it is a little bit confusing if you are first starting out. But Column C is where I used to assign who has what task. So, Adrian is going to be in charge of this task, Siarenne is in charge of this task. This is probably not the best system for multiple VAs. I really think there are better systems available if you have multiple VAs. I am just using this because with one VA, I highly recommend just using a spreadsheet. There are so many advantages.

There are a couple of other things to keep in mind – Goals and Future Tasks. I have the goals section down here below. This is where I just state some of the goals I have for my VAs. These are the ones that I have seen that caused the most problems when people do not follow them. One of the big things is if one of my VAs is not going to be working, I tell them give me 24-hour notice. If they don’t, then I get a little upset about that.

I have Future Tasks here where I just put some ideas of things for the future. I have all kinds of other things here. I have an Hour Log. I will show you what that looks like. I basically just ask my VAs how many hours they have spent working on all these different tasks. She actually has not been doing it properly. You are supposed to break the hours up showing how many hours each task has taken. So, I will show you what it looked like originally. Originally, it was supposed to be like this. This is just so I get an idea of how long it takes my VAs to do the various tasks.

I also have a weekly meeting so I have set up a Weekly Meeting tab here. Every week I will meet with my VAs and we go over different things. I might remind them that Priority 1 tasks are the most important and need to be done in a timely manner. I might discuss the number of hours that they actually have been working and whether it has been close to the 40 hours per week that we agreed they were going to work. Also, if they are running out of tasks, that is very important to me. I like to ask if they are running out of tasks so that I can make sure they are assigned more tasks before they actually run out. Then, I will evaluate them on all of these points making sure that they are giving me 24 hours notice when they are not going to be showing up. I discuss always getting the website invoices/Amazon order forms finished by 8 am and getting any VIP task done within 24 hours.  We just look at all of these different things each week on Wednesday. We have a one-on-one Skype call or sometimes we will do it as a group Skype call. Basically, we just make sure everything has been getting done on time.

So, that is how I give my VAs tasks. Once again, I have the tasks up here and then all they have to do is watch the video and they can see exactly step-by-step how to do it.

That is all I have for this. I hope you enjoyed this video. If you did, please make sure you click the button down below, “like” this video and, of course, sign up for my email list. I give out a free Ecommerce Success Pack which contains a checklist and a ton of goodies. I have a lot of data about hiring virtual assistants, how to manage them. There is also a free little pack about how to hire and manage virtual assistants.

Thank you for watching.