When it comes to launching a new teleclass series, a new e-book, live event, or membership site, things need to happen quickly, and any virtual assistant worth their salt understands that. They know you don’t have time to waste, because the longer things take to complete, the more time you lose getting potential business in the door. Yet, if you don’t take enough time to properly map out what you’re going to do and involve your VA in that process, you are basically shooting yourself in the foot!
For instance, it might only take your VA a couple of days to get your teleclass landing page ready, complete with the registration thank you page and accompanying autoresponders, but if you haven’t allowed at least four weeks of marketing before the event starts, then the push to get the word out not only presses your VA for time, but you’re not going to get the participants you want, due to poor planning.
So, for a more successful scenario, I recommend creating a project matrix or map of your project that includes every single task involved, who is responsible for that task, and when the relevant deadline is. Listen, I know most online business owners don’t want to know everything little thing their VA does, they just want to say “Engage,” like Star Trek’s Captain Picard. But I promise you, this not only makes everything clear for both you and your VA, but it will cut down on extraneous communications and make the process a lot more streamlined. And your VA can easily take this task on an send the matrix to you for approval and then engage!
Oh, and this procedure does more than just map out project steps!
It also helps you understand the typical time and turnaround times your VA needs for repetitive tasks, which in turn, helps you when creating foundational systems for your business, like an operations manual.
Plus, when you start hiring more VAs to become part of your operations team, you’ll have a guideline for the time it takes to do certain tasks, which will be the benchmark you can use when monitoring team performance.
Not only that, you’ll also have some great information that will help in training new VAs to take on various duties.
Who knew all these benefits would be created from making the time to map out project specifics! Imagine how much more productive and effective both you and your VA and/or VA team will be when you put a project matrix into action? I think there is something to be said for being able to view everything in one place – like a spreadsheet, for example – that way, no one has to guess what the next step is or when tasks need to be completed. Everyone is on the same page. Yeah!
Next time you start to plan a project, try this and see how it goes. I’d love to hear about it!
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