So you’ve hired your first VA, and you’re starting to hand over tasks. Now how do you keep tabs on what they’re doing (and no, I don’t mean in their personal life!)? Well, in the “old” days, you had to rely on the VA keeping track of their time on their computer, maybe in a spreadsheet or some other manual record and then sending it to you with their invoice. Today, there are so many online systems, for not only time tracking but for project management as well, it’s super easy to know what your VA and everyone else on your team is doing.
This is a somewhat revolutionary aspect of working virtually. Rather than guess what’s going on, you can now see all activities, correspondence, files, and more in most of these snazzy systems. Mind you, they aren’t all free. The cost will depend on how much you want your system to do for you. Some people use systems only for tasking and time tracking. Others use them for more. The trick is not to go in cold and haphazardly start using a project management tool with no organizational thought behind it. As with anything in business, think strategy!
Here are some of the most popular project management tools:
Central Desktop – http://www.centraldesktop.com
Basecamp – http://basecamphq.com/
TeamworkPM – http://www.teamworkpm.net/
Zoho – http://www.zoho.com/
MyClientSpot – http://www.myclientspot.com
Most of these work-a-day tools have free trials and, of course, tutorials. Most of them are pretty straightforward to use but as always, you may find something that throws you a curve ball (and you want to hit the programmer up the side of the head!) but, for the most part, they’re pretty intuitive.
The idea is that you can bring your business into the 21st Century by having an online system that becomes your new back-end of operations. One of the neatest perks is that since everything is stored online, if you or any of your team members has an individual computer meltdown, it’s no problem, because vital information won’t be lost (as long as files have been uploaded to the system, that is…).
It won’t be long before you’re hooked on using a project management system. And as you grow and your team grows, there will also be the need for someone to manage the team and those systems, so getting a project manager like an OBM (Online Business Manager – sorry, shameless self-promotion for www.obm-4-hire.com) will be well worth your while because as you know, if you don’t get out of the details, you’ll never get anywhere you want to go.
Remember, these tools are here to simplify – not complicate – your business. I highly recommend them to keep you organized and on track for success!
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