A Wedding Planner’s Guide to Hiring a Virtual Assistant
You might be thinking about hiring a wedding planner virtual assistant if you’re doing it all for your business. Are you the one responsible for sending all of the emails, developing the standard operating procedures (SOPs), managing the finances, and creating the marketing plan on top of your job as the wedding planner? If you’re at the point where you’re at your maximum capacity, unable to focus on your creativity, and you are having to turn away revenue to stay afloat, I see you. I’ve been there.
If you’re at this stage of your business that I like to call the messy middle, now is the perfect time to hire a wedding planner virtual assistant to handle some of the tasks that you don’t enjoy and that take up time you could be using on something more enjoyable. Here’s a wedding planner’s guide to hiring a virtual assistant.
Considerations When Hiring a Virtual Assistant
Keep in mind that when you hire a virtual assistant for your wedding planning business, the virtual assistant isn’t an employee, so you don’t have to provide benefits like insurance, retirement plans, vacation time, etc.
Virtual assistants are independent contractors that have the training and experience to jump into your business immediately versus going through a lengthy onboarding and training process.
Knowing When to Hire a Virtual Assistant
My number one tip for hiring a wedding planner virtual assistant is to hire before you’re ready. This can be scary financially with the seasonal lows and highs of the industry. I always recommend getting your workflows and systems in place before you hire, but, ultimately, virtual assistants can even help set those up.
It never feels like the perfect time, but hiring makes it easy when the season gets busy.
How to Find a Good Virtual Assistant
Begin your virtual assistant search by asking vendor friends if they have any recommendations.
If not, try a platform like Outsourcing with Love or Facebook groups and service boards. Micala Quinn’s hire form is also a great place to find qualified candidates.
You can check out your potential virtual assistant’s social media to be sure they’re credible and experienced. Double check their Instagram and website for their services to ensure they meet your needs.
Then, be sure to interview your potential virtual assistant and ask them questions about their personality, working style, and work history. You can further vet virtual assistants by asking for referrals and talking to other clients and past clients.
Once you make the decision to hire, trial periods are great for testing the right fit from both a personality perspective and a working style perspective. A good virtual assistant is detail-oriented, organized, and highly motivated. Not every close and intimate working relationship will work out, but taking the time to vet your candidates will lead to higher success rates.
Best Practices for Working with a Virtual Assistant
When working with a virtual assistant, it’s important to be clear about your needs from the beginning, and it’s helpful to prioritize the task list.
It’s important that you provide them with enough information for the tasks at hand. For example, if your VA is helping put together newsletters, they’ll need the copy, send date, and audience.
Lastly, don’t forget to communicate and be considerate of their time since they’re likely working with other clients, too.
If you’re feeling bogged down by administrative work and experiencing a lack of time to dream big in your CEO role, then you know it’s time to outsource and hire a virtual assistant. Use this guide to hire a virtual assistant for your wedding planning business today!
If you’re interested in hearing more, I brought on Julie Painter, a wedding planner turned virtual assistant, to the Weddings For Real podcast. Julie founded Dallas Girl Friday after getting burnt out as a wedding planner, and now she’s niched down to only serving wedding industry professionals. In episode 105, Julie shared her top tips for wedding planners looking to outsource. Tune in to the episode to hear more about hiring and working with a virtual assistant as a wedding planner.
If you are a wedding planner in this messy middle phase I described, consider joining The Planner’s Vault, which is a membership and community for wedding planners. In the Vault, I have resources for outsourcing, building a team, and developing a CEO mindset.
