Are you starting to feel overwhelmed as your short-term rental (STR) business grows? Or maybe you’re just tired of doing EVERYTHING and wish you had a little more time to yourself? Either way, you may want to consider taking on a virtual assistant, or VA, to help. So, where do you go to find a qualified one? And what can you do to make sure your VA has all the information they need to do a good job?
Rebecca Slivka is the STR Legend behind Pillow and Coffee, a fully-furnished vacation rental company out of Los Angeles, and Hicksville Trailer Palace, a unique vintage trailer motel in Joshua Tree, California. Rebeeca has five years of experience as a STR host, and in that time, she has created a team of VAs that she describes as ‘a lean, mean fighting machine.’
On this episode of Get Paid for Your Pad, Rebecca joins me to share her detailed process for finding and training a virtual assistant to support your STR business. She introduces us to the benefits of outsourcing work to a VA, explaining how her remote team of 6 performs 95% of the tasks in her business! Listen in for Rebecca’s insight on creating training videos for your VAs and get her advice on building a strong team that will perform well and stay with your business for the long term.
Topics Covered
How much of the work VAs do in Rebecca’s business
- Lean team, 6 VAs do 95% of work
- Anything online or over phone
Why a STR host would want to outsource work to a VA
- Want to grow business or more time for self
- Transition from employee to business owner
Rebecca’s process for finding and training a VA
- List out everything you do for company
- Create very clear job description
- Determine if good fit in interview
- Train in ‘bite-sized pieces’
- Retrain and check in regularly
Rebecca’s advice for creating training videos for VAs
- Make video for anything you do more than once
- Don’t worry about making it perfect
- Consider having VA create or recreate videos
Rebecca’s secrets for building a strong team of VAs
- Take responsibility if they don’t perform well
- Create step-by-step training and check work
- Get feedback re: how they would do things
The benefits of hiring VAs for your STR business
- Time to work ON vs. IN business
- Better experience for you and guests
Connect with Rebecca
Resources
The E Myth: Why Most Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber
Email jasper@getpaidforyourpad.com or support@strlegends.com