You will have to hire more than you need
Unless you get really, really lucky, you will need to hire and replace multiple times before you find virtual assistants that meet your expectations. Look at the screenshot below from a Redditor who has 10 years of experience working with virtual assistants via Upwork.
They’re not exaggerating when they say, “Sometimes you have to go through 10+ before you find one that fits.”
Imagine if you need to hire 10x the need; how many profiles will you need to screen? Maybe hundreds. You’ll shortlist one in ten or even one in fifteen. You will find some good ones for sure, but it will take time.
Hiring itself will be the most time-consuming task. It’s one of the reasons our clients hire us.
So, if hiring takes this much time, how do we find VAs? Well, we’re a managed service provider, so we have a team of recruiters. Like our other teams, we maintain an over-capacitated recruitment team for hiring purposes.
You will have to have strong training systems
I’ve spoken to business people who have worked with just one VA, and even they need to document and record their processes to train their VA.
Now, if you plan on scaling with VAs, just an SOP won’t work.
Training at scale isn’t just about what your VAs should do – it’s also about how fast they ramp up, how well they retain information, and how consistently they perform without constant hand-holding.
That’s why you need a proper system that lets you train in batches, monitor progress, and plug the gaps before they become problems.
Here’s what that system typically includes:
- Onboarding & Offboarding Kits
What they need to know before Day 1, how they access tools, and what happens when someone exits (this prevents chaos).
- Clear Workflows
Visual and written steps for every process. These reduce mistakes and let you swap team members with minimal disruption.
- Structured Training Tracks
A day-by-day or week-by-week schedule. Day 1: Shadow and observe. Day 2: Test tasks with supervision. Day 3: Own a small piece. You get the idea.
- Performance KPIs
Define what “good” looks like. Examples: tasks completed/day, error rate, speed, etc.
- Feedback & Review Loops
Weekly check-ins, scorecards, or peer reviews. Without these, most underperformance goes unnoticed until something breaks.
And here’s the kicker: you’ll need to improve and repeat this system constantly. What works with a team of two will most likely not work with a team of twenty.
You will need to manage them (or appoint a manager)
Everybody dreams of hiring people and then having nothing to do with them. Let me break it to you – it’s wishful thinking. It will take time before you can fully rely on your VAs. So don’t rush with it.
When I say you’ll need to manage them, I don’t mean sending them a message every few minutes and asking them to justify each minute they spend working for you. It’s more about being aware of what they’re doing and if they’re finishing their tasks on time.
If you hire non-local VAs, there will be cultural differences. You’ll need to communicate with them enough, so they understand your working style and expectations.
A major factor that determines the success or failure of your hiring is the quality of work the VAs deliver. And for you to know that you’ll need to spare time to review their work.
With a team of VAs, expect this to become a part-time or full-time job. You may even need to hire someone specifically to manage the VA team.
You will have bad experiences from time to time
In the screenshot below, a Redditor shares why they had a bad experience with VAs. Although it’s an old thread, the reasons they mentioned are still relevant. We testify to it.
Over the last few years, we have worked with over a thousand VAs. No matter how good your hiring and training process is, the no-shows and slowness at work are still some of the most common troubles VAs give you.
While there may be various reasons people disappear – a bad client, distrust, a better opportunity – one thing is for sure: it will happen.
If you notice in this screenshot, the Redditor says that they now pay more and hire trained people. In our experience, even that doesn’t guarantee solving the disappearance and slow work pace.
Of course, there are experienced, reliable, and highly capable VAs out there. The difference is that oftentimes, they’ll cost you close to an in-house employee.
You won’t figure it out immediately
Working with VAs will not come naturally to you, especially if you haven’t managed anyone before and if it’s the first time you’re hiring someone offshore.
We’ve spoken to numerous clients who already work with offshore freelancers and VAs, and they still come to us as they seek help with scaling. These clients generally have a small internal team they use to manage the freelancers and VAs. Even then, when it comes to scaling, it takes them a while. Let’s look at why:
- The internal team has its own tasks to manage as well; they’re not solely responsible for hiring VAs.
- VAs move on from time to time, and each time, it takes more time to replace a good one.
- Not everyone has the bandwidth and knowledge to create a solid training system.
- Not everyone likes to hire and train people (yes, that’s a valid reason, too).
- Not everyone has enough patience to train and provide feedback. And then to train again and again.
So, there will be a learning curve. If you expect this to work out immediately, you might end up feeling frustrated and give up the idea of working with VAs altogether.
There will be communication issues
In general, people are not great communicators. This LinkedIn post by a creator says it so well.
When working with offshore VAs, expect communication issues, at least initially. Even though you have a communication SOP and protocols in place, not all VAs will quickly adapt to it. Some things will need to be reminded a few times before they get used to it.
Even I talked (sort of ranted) about it on LinkedIn in one of my recent posts.
When I first start working with anyone, this is the one thing I clarify – how much I value communication. And it’s not just about great language skills. One can be a great speaker of a language and still be unable to convey their messages or thoughts clearly.
You will even come across VAs who don’t communicate at all despite being encouraged to and setting clear expectations about it. And when you decide to discontinue working with them because it doesn’t work, they’ll be disappointed.
There’s no perfect playbook to overcome these issues except to make your expectations and working styles clear from the get-go. That way, you’ll know who listens and adheres to your methods and who doesn’t, which makes identifying the right fit much easier.
Skilled VAs will not be cheap
Many folks, when they first work with VAs, assume that it will be a good, cheap, and fast service. Or at least that’s their expectation.
Reality is pretty different. You get only two of those three things at a time.
This is how the combination works in general:
- Good and fast (expensive)
- Cheap and fast (possibly low quality)
- Good and cheap (possibly slow)
- Good and fast and cheap (not possible)
Skilled VAs are not bargain-bin hires. You’re not just paying for output – you’re paying for judgment, speed, quality, and low churn.
Ironically, a $20/hour VA might cost you less in the long run than a $5/hour one who needs constant hand-holding and retraining. So no, skilled VAs won’t be cheap – but they will be more cost-efficient in the long run.
You will need to pay well to retain good VAs
If you manage to build a VA team you can rely on, retaining them is the next challenge. Good VAs, like good in-house employees, will be sought after by other businesses. And hence, it’s essential to pay them well enough for retention purposes.
Now, this doesn’t mean that you need to increase their monthly pay every 3 months. You can pay better with bonuses and incentives. Tie them to milestones so these perks are not taken for granted. Once in a while, you can also reward bonuses if your business does extraordinarily well – to those who deserve it, of course.
You will need to measure their performance
Performance metrics aren’t just for in-house teams. With VAs, you need even more visibility because time zone gaps and async work hide problems until they pile up.
Start with measuring these: turnaround times, number of revisions per task, proactiveness, and communication delays.
While the metrics might differ depending on the nature of your business and the ops volume, these are good to begin with. The metrics will also change as a VA matures in their role or gets promoted to a higher position.
Initially, you can even use simple tools like Google Sheets and dashboards to keep a pulse. Don’t wait until a deliverable explodes to realize someone’s been underperforming for weeks or months.
As you scale up your ops, you might need to use project management tools such as Monday.com or ClickUp to manage day-to-day tasks and track performance. These tools allow you to get a detailed view of individual and group performances.
