When considering working with a virtual assistant, it’s important for you to think about how she’s going to fit into your company’s culture. If you’re a solopreneur, you may never have thought about your company’s culture but it’s there, and likely entirely based on your personality and values. If your company is small, but larger than a one-person show, the culture is still probably based heavily on your values. You want people with diverse experiences and points of view, but who fit with you, your company, and each other.
Anyone you bring into your business needs to be a match, including any VA you work with. As much as skills matter, consider that this kind of fit matters every bit as much, and maybe more. This is, after all, the person who is going to be your right hand. Who more needs to be on the same page, sharing similar or congruent values and drivers than she? No one, that’s who.
By way of an example, here at AssistU, one of our core cultural values revolves around grace. It’s incredibly important that every person who has a role that touches customers be infinitely gracious. Graciousness cannot be feigned. When it is, it’s immediately felt, and felt as seductive and manipulative. So our need is to find people who aren’t simply skilled at acting graciously, but who are, in fact, gracious down to the bone.
If graciousness was key to your culture, you’d need to find a VA to partner with who had that trait. Skip over it, maybe for someone who seems to have other skills you need, and you’ll end up miserable.
It’s not about finding someone with great skills and trying to then get her to morph into someone who fits in, but about finding someone who fits well, and who can also get everything you need handled. A great VA has the ready resources to get anything you need handled, so focus on fit to find the virtual administrative partner meant for you!
