One of the most common tasks virtual assistants help business executives, academics and legal clients handle is research. The reason for this is simple, VAs carry out some of the most thorough and in depth research due to their varied educations, experiences and dedication to task. As a client, how can you ensure your VA provides research with excellence? Here are the tips our VAs shared.
Be Clear: Clarity is a helpful tool when it comes to research, and it goes beyond being specific about the research topic. Being clear on what you need involves stating the research topic clearly, providing some context and defining the scope. Provision of these boundaries ensures that your VA knows exactly where to look for the information you need. It also gives your VA the proper perspective. A single topic could lead to five different conversations, but providing context often means less errors in the long run.
Pick Your Tools: In the era of digitization, so many tools exist for the same thing making variety the order of the day. Selecting the right tool for the job is important. For instance, if you prefer your data from a particular source and in a particular format, specifying that from the beginning helps to streamline the job. It also makes the selection of a VA easier.
Provide Opportunity for Add-Ons: While most research tasks are very specific, the most fun ones are from clients looking to explore their VAs perspective or intellect. What do we mean? Some clients request that, as part of the research, their VA look up trends about their business and add a slight footnote summary of how these news or trends might affect the data they have found, how they (the client) present research findings or even possible questions to expect.
There it is folks...the secret sauce. Now it’s time to get productive and higher a Virtual Assistant to help you win at research.