How to Win Over Your Fears of Outsourcing Prospecting to a VA
Prospecting plays a vital role in generating leads towards your business. But it also is taxing. It takes away hours of your precious time for inter-personal engagements. Yes, prospecting is a numbers game and you would need to spend a lot of phone time in calling leads. The fact is, there are some who hate the objections and rejections they get, time and time again.
So now you’re thinking, “It would be great if someone else will do this for me.”
By now, as a business owner, you should have heard about a number of colleagues and notable individuals talk about outsourcing their businesses. Some have proven testaments that their enterprise grew because of outsourcing while some wouldn’t dare because of their fears in delegating tasks virtually to someone they barely even know and lives across the other side of the globe.
But if you’re really serious in taking off that load, here’s a tip: Determine what your fears are in outsourcing prospecting to a Virtual Assistant and get help in conquering them.
Here are 5 Common Fears about handing over this task and how you can win over them:
- First Time Employer
You’re used to doing everything on your own. That’s good and also bad because that’s the first setback you need to overcome.
How to Win Over this fear:
Let go and change your mindset into being an employer. But don’t jump in just yet and go on a hiring spree. Study your finances first. Check how much you earn in a year, how much will be your projected growth and how much salary you can allocate to the Virtual Assistant. Also, it would be better to make a simple comparison of the hours you put in your calls and the number of leads it generates versus the time you’d be able to save for other more important business to-dos.
Be frugal. Since it’s going to be your first time, build your business along with the help of your VA first. Once your business steps up, say, 2-3 months after, you can now give maybe some small incentives on the side in appreciation, if you want to. Take note: hiring a virtual assistant is way cheaper than hiring an office-based employee.
- Will the VA sound like me?
Believe it or not, if it’s possible to hire someone better than we are, we’d get that person right away. Unless, of course, if you’ve mastered all the call flows and handled all types of objections effortlessly. This worry might be like a nightmare that could make you scream! I’m just exaggerating, but I know you get my point.
How to Win Over this fear:
Set Qualifications and Interview Candidates. You should know what you want to happen and get the right person for the job. By interviewing the candidates, you’d be able to get a glimpse of their personalities and goals and see if it’s aligned to yours.
Role Play. I hear objections now. If you don’t believe in scripts and would rather want someone who can converse naturally, that’s okay. Role plays are just a device for you to assess their communication skills and call handling skills. You can also give them situations that you normally encounter in prospecting and evaluate their analytical skills based on the candidates’ answer.
DISC Profile exam. The DiSC profile is an unbiased, non-judgmental tool used business owners and hiring managers to give a more concrete basis on people’s behavioral differences. They let their candidates take this exam to know them better when handling stress, what motivates them, how they respond to conflict, among others.
- VA Not Calling
You got to be able to trust your VA. Know that you’ve hired the best and rely on them to do their work. However, hiring a VA is also a results-oriented business strategy and it’s an investment so you ought to safeguard.
How to Win Over this fear:
Set Goals. It’s important that you and your VA are on the same page. If there are quotas or appointments per day, week, or month that they have to accomplish, then be transparent about it.
Be approachable. You and your VA should be professionally comfortable working with each other so it would be easier to relay tasks or even teach your proven and tested scripts. Leave your communication lines open and check from time to time if the VA has any challenges with the leads or how the day is going so far.
Send End of Day Reports. Let the VA prepare and send you a report about the number of leads dialed, number of actual contacts, number of appointments set, and the nurtures or future follow-ups. This should be emailed to you right before the end of the VA’s shift.
- How will the VA call out?
This one’s pretty simple to conquer. Just do your research first.
How to Win Over this fear:
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). It allows you to call using a broadband internet connection in place of the usual or analog type of phone line. Some examples include: Google Voice, Skype, Whatsapp, RingCentral, Viber, Facebook Video and Voice Chat, Viber, and TextNow to name a few. Do your research first. There are other VOIP applications that might come with a fee.
- Not enough leads to call
This is included because there are those who feel that there isn’t much to call so the VA might have a lot of downtimes.
How to Win Over this fear:
Gather and finalize the list of leads that you want to be called. Schedule them and recycle if needed based on the actual contacts, follow-ups, and the no contacts.
Hire a multi-skilled Virtual Assistant. Multi-skilled VAs can help you out with other tasks like email and calendar management, social media management, or even help you out in creating your marketing collateral.
On Per-project-basis. Your VA can work on a per-project-basis if you really have a limited number of leads and you don’t have other tasks to assign.
Only by overcoming your fears will you be able to start the process of delegation. Hiring a VA will be your ticket to achieving work-life balance.
