It’s such a great feeling to take the leap into starting your virtual assistant business and hit those first milestones of signing your first clients and starting on projects.

Before you know it, the work is flowing in each month! And then… you end up with a little too much work and all of the sudden, you have multiple clients to manage. And new enquiries to keep up with. Plus emails to send. And a million little tasks that are starting to make you feel all over the place and crazy.

While being busy is a good problem to have, it can feel very overwhelming if your virtual assistant business isn’t organised to scale with you as you grow. But the good news is, your stress will simmer down once you show a little love to your back-end systems and focus on getting your virtual assistant business organised.

Because after you spend some time creating processes, setting up your systems, and stop doing everything from scratch, you’ll have oodles more time for client work and to continue marketing and growing your own virtual assistant business.

Audit your time

I put this one very first on the list because until you know what’s eating away at your time, you won’t have a good idea of how to change things up.

(And isn’t it ironic that as a virtual assistant this is likely the exact advice you give your clients?!)

The questions you want to ask yourself are: What are you spending the most time? Are there projects that are going out of scope? Are you accidentally wasting hours on Instagram every day?

After you’ve started tracking your time, take a look at what’s actually moving you forward and how your tasks are aligning with your goals.

For example:

• Are you working the max amount of hours on client work you can but aren’t making what you want? If so, it might be time to up your prices, especially, if your skillset has gone up since you started your business. (And if you want help drafting the “my prices are increasing email,” check out this blog post)
• Are you spending forever creating content for Instagram, but aren’t getting any clients from it? If so, it’s time to either switch up your strategy or prioritize a different marketing platform
• Are you getting sucked in to checking your email first thing in the morning and then end up having your whole plan for the day derailed? If so, maybe try checking your email only in the evening, after your client work is done for the day

The point isn’t to be hard on yourself about where you might be wasting time, it’s to get curious about where your time is actually going. That way you can decide if that’s where you want your time and effort to keep going.

Create SOPs for everything you do in your virtual assistant business

One of the easiest ways to waste your time is by having no SOPs in place. (And btw, SOP = standard operating procedure, which basically means a plan that has set steps you follow.) When you don’t have any SOPs any place, you’re starting from scratch every single time. Which is totally unnecessary when you’ve already gone through that process before.

So take the time to sit down and write some SOPs, like…

• Your pre-client SOP: what’s the step-by-step process for when a potential client enquires?
• Your onboarding SOP: after a client signs, what happens next? When do they schedule their first call with you? How do you get their login information or other things you need from them? Do you send a welcome gift? If so, when? (If you want to know more about creating a stellar onboarding client process, check out this blog post for 5 crucial tips!)
• Your monthly service SOP: when do you check in with clients? How do figure out which tasks they need you to complete? Do you have allotted days for different clients? At what point of them working with you, will you send them a request for feedback? What’s the step-by-step process for completing your virtual assistant work for your clients?
• Off-boarding SOP: although hopefully, your clients will stay with you for years and years, it’s important to figure out the process for off-boarding clients as well. Are there any final deliverables you send them? Do you want to send a gift? Do you email a request for feedback? Are you going to follow up down the road to see if they need support in the future? If so, when?

Figuring out what your standard process looks like for all of these aspects of client work will save you a massive headache when you sit down to onboard or offboard a client and realize you have a step-by-step plan that you can follow rather than trying to create something from scratch.

Set up a CRM system with workflows

If you want to stay sane while running your virtual assistant business, you have to stop doing everything manually. And that means investing in a CRM (customer relationship management) system.

I recommend Dubsado for about a trillion reasons.

But whether or not you choose to go with Dubsado, setting up a CRM system will change your life. That’s because a CRM system helps you stay organised and on top of everything by having your scheduling, invoicing, communication with clients, client forms (like contracts and questionnaires), and so much more, all in one place.

And if you already have a CRM system, setting up automated workflows will change your life. Instead of having to chase down payments, manually send welcome emails to new clients, or remind clients a questionnaire is due from them, your CRM can do it for you.

It can be overwhelming at first, but once setup, your workflows and CRM system help ensure you never drop the ball with your client experience without you having to keep track of every single thing yourself.

It’s a godsend, and what I used when I started my virtual assistant business! (That’s what Behope Studio used to be!)

Want some support with setting up Dubsado and Dubsado workflows?

• Read this blog post: Ultimate Guide to Dubsado: The Best CRM for Creatives
• Read this blog post about the first 8 things to do when getting started on Dubsado
• Set up an automated enquiry workflow in Dubsado following this free tutorial
• Pop in The Behope Studio Shop and buy the Dubsado mini course or the Workflow Blueprint
• Use my code “behopestudio” to get 20% off Dubsado
  

Utilise Templates

Going back to what we were chatting about with SOPs, the best way to avoid wasting a bunch of time is to avoid doing things from scratch as much as humanly possible.

Here’s how you can use templates in your virtual assistant business:

Email templates: you know those emails you send over and over again? Like, schedule a discovery call, or reminding clients that they have an upcoming payment due, or letting a client know it’s time to schedule their monthly review call? You can save yourself loads of time by writing those emails once and then using them over and over again. Or you can buy my canned email templates package that has 65 emails specifically written for virtual assistants and skip having to write them yourself at all!

(Want to learn how to used canned email templates in Dubsado? Check out this blog post.)

Social media templates: instead of having to design your Instagram or Pinterest graphics from scratch, use templates! You can find so many beautifully designed templates online or if you hire a designer, you can ask them to make some for you.

You can also use templates for things like newsletters, pitching to be a guest speaker or a guest on someone’s podcast, and so much more.

Set boundaries and follow them

Now, I know you’re eager to do it all for your clients but let’s chat boundaries. It feels all well and good to go above and beyond when you start out. However, as you grow you may start to feel that squeeze of resentment when you’re working late and your client emails you to ask if you can do ‘just one more thing.’

Setting clear boundaries from the beginning with your clients on guidelines of your working hours, how many revisions you do, and how much time you need to turnaround tasks can all help set clear client expectations from the beginning. 

And don’t let yourself go past them either. That’s the best way to burn out.

(P.S. If you need help drafting an email to let a client know that they’re scope-creeping, here’s some free advice.)

Prefer to have someone help you map out your client processes and get the back-end of your virtual assistant business organized and automated?

Say no more. Apply for Dubsado in a Day and I’ll do it all for you. Go on, let out that sigh of relief.

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