Onboarding your VA with A Plan

Monday, we talked about why I am in the process of hiring a VA to help bring an end to my chaos and focus on some growing...and let me say that I appreciate you coming along on my journey to fix it. 

In the name of organization, let's make review the VA-Ready Stack, four things built once, maintain as you grow, and hand to any VA who walks through your door, whether that's tomorrow or two years from now.

Let's get into it.

1. Content Library

I have picked one home and put everything there. Google Drive. But I could have also used Dropbox, Notion, it doesn't matter as long as it's one place with a logical structure for the VA to navigate without calling me all the time.

Inside that home I want folders for: past posts organized by topic or platform, graphic templates, logo and brand colors, any video or audio files, and a running idea bank where new content concepts live until they're ready to use. And I made a folder clearly labeled "Don't Use" for all of the notes, meetings, and things I want to keep centralized, but not to be meant for content. 

Throughout, I kept asking myself one question: could someone find my best favorite local picture to post from six months ago in under two minutes without asking me? If the answer is no, then my library isn't a library yet.

2. Your Brand Voice Document

This is the one most people skip and then wonder why their VA's captions sound like a press release.

A brand voice document doesn't have to be long, it has to be honest. Write down how I actually talk to clients, I included three to five examples of my best posts or emails and explain what makes them work. List the words and phrases I use naturally, and the ones that make me cringe when I see them in my content.

Note what topics are off limits, note who your audience is and what they're struggling with.

The goal is that your VA could read this document and write a caption that sounds like you on a good day, not like a stranger trying to guess.

3. Systems and Weekly Rhythm

The VA needs to know what tools I use, what the weekly content schedule looks like, what repeating tasks happen on which days, and where to find the passwords and access they need to do the work.

I had to write it out like I was explaining it to someone smart but brand new. Because that's exactly who I am writing it for.

It doesn't need to be a corporate SOP manual, you know me, a simple Google Doc with the tools listed, the weekly rhythm mapped out, and key workflows described in plain language is enough to get someone productive fast. For now, I will skip the CRM, but there are plans to show them how to use it, along with the content calendar, show them how to read it and update it.

The more clearly this lives outside my head, the less time I spend in meetings explaining things that should already be written down.

4. Repeatable Onboarding Doc

Here's where I want to protect myself for the long haul: combine the above into one master onboarding document the VA gets on day one. Brand voice. Content library location and structure. Tools and logins. Weekly rhythm. Key contacts. Expectations. Communication preferences. My full plate.

Every time something changes in my business, I update the doc. Not in my head, but in the doc, so when the VA moves on, and eventually they will, I am not starting over. Instead, I hand the same document to the next person and lose a week, not a month. That's the whole game, build the system once and let the system do the repeating.

A business that depends entirely on one person to be the focal point of all the content, all the decisions, and all of the levers that move a business means you will be forever stuck at the size you are today. The VA-Ready Stack that I just went over, turns your operation into something that transfers, scales, and survives the inevitable transitions that come with growth.

Friday we're closing out the week with the bigger idea behind all of this, and why the business owners who build this way are playing a fundamentally different game than the ones who don't.

If this kind of thinking is landing for you, come take the free 5 Day Challenge and just watch what it does for your business. No pitch, just proof. https://www.livelocalwarmmarketing.com/courses