kO′ch VA adj. 1. a highly specialized and niched virtual
assistant who is in tune with their coaching clients and customizes solutions based upon their individual needs and goals 2. differs from a general virtual assistant as they only partner with members of the coaching industry [syn: 
Keeping Track of Your Virtual Assistant Team
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Many successful virtual assistants will need to assemble a team at some time in their career. A team increases your business possibilities and opportunities. But, handling all those people will take more than just a little brain power.
Putting the Pieces Together
Make a list. Whose skills will you use for what jobs? There are several ways you can do this. Let’s say that you want to hire someone to do article writing. You can use that same person for all your article needs across all projects, if they have the right qualifications. Or, you can use a different VA for each specialty that you handle, i.e. someone who is experienced with financial matters works with those clients and someone else who is experienced with website development can work with online businesses.
What you want to do is spread out the work so that deadlines are getting met. Even with one other person, burnout can come quick. Take inventory of how many people you will likely need to cover your overflow.
Getting your Mind Right
What’s this all about? Well, it involves how you will manage your team. Micromanaging is not what you want or need. That is just a fancy and roundabout way of doing all the work yourself. It is exhausting and not cost effective. You’ll have to let your team of professionals operate on their own with minimal guidance ONCE you are comfortable with their skills.
You already know that each person will have a different way of working. The important thing is that they can deliver for you. You can give each person a probationary period to evaluate their work. That’s another reason to implement your team approach while the overflow is light. You don’t want to test them under fire.
Tracking Projects
A project management system lets you keep track of not only the projects but the subcontractors as well. You can have them upload their work at various stages so you can see how they are doing and report to your client. Any documents that are needed by you and them can be uploaded to the project.
This system works well for asking questions, posting new information and hosting discussions with your team. There are options for you. ClientSpot is a system that allows you to create client lists, post projects and add users. Each contractor can have their own username and password for the system and limited access to only their projects.
A similar system is ManyMoom. Here, each client can have access to certain projects and it seemlessly integrates with Google products as well as many social networking platforms.
Tracking your team is a matter of project management. To ease your mind, know who is doing what, when and how.
