The virtual assistant you hire will not be sitting next to you in your office. All your communication will be online or on the phone and you may never meet your virtual assistant face-to-face even if you work with them for years. Following are a few tips for working with a virtual assistant:

Set expectations for when you want to be online and available to reduce the frustration from not being able to reach your virtual assistant when you need them the most. Discuss your potential task with your virtual assistant and be as specific as possible. The tasks need to be well defined. Ask for daily, weekly or monthly updates on the progress being made on the tasks and the number of hours each task has taken. Determine which form of communication you prefer: phone, instant messages or email.

Hopefully, you found a virtual assistant that specializes in the type of tasks you will be assigning. Most virtual assistants can accommodate a wide variety of tasks but will be proficient in certain areas. When you first start working with your virtual assistant, don’t be afraid to try different tasks. You may find that your virtual assistant can accomplish more than you had hoped for.

When writing the instructions for the tasks you want accomplished, be as specific as possible. Until you have worked with your virtual assistant for awhile and they can anticipate your needs, make sure your instructions contain step-by-step explanations. Do not assume that your virtual assistant will be able to interpret your needs.

A good virtual assistant will be able to use your preferred communications medium, whether it’s voice calls, instant messages, video conference or email. Initially using email to communicate your tasks is a good way of having a written record and also allows the virtual assistant to reference your instructions.

Have them explain the exact scope of the task, the estimate on how long the task should take and answer any questions that might come up. By asking for verification, it lessens the chance your virtual assistant will waste the time you’ve paid for doing the wrong thing.

By checking in early on their work, you can make sure they are performing as you expected. This is also a good time to either give updated instructions or cancel the task if it turns out to be a bad idea.

The first month that you work with a virtual assistant, it might actually take you more time to accomplish tasks. Some people will even give up trying to work with a virtual assistant. Experienced small business owners realize that by outsourcing low-level work frees them up to accomplish higher level tasks which in turn means more profit for them.

The benefits of outsourcing come once you’ve found a good virtual assistant that is well suited to the type of tasks you assign, and when you’ve learned how to efficiently communicate and work with them.