Global Medical Virtual Assistants
Podcast Summary
Are the things you do in your practice what you should be doing as the owner? Why is hiring virtual help the key to breaking through the glass ceiling and keeping your business growth stuck? How can you distinguish a skill versus a will problem in a new hire?
In this podcast episode, Andrew Burdette speaks about the value of hiring virtual professionals with Beth Lachance.
Virtual assistants, or virtual professionals?
The title “virtual assistant” [can have] a negative connotation in it across several industries because it minimizes what we think … the possibilities, and the skill level of what we think they can have. So, one of the exciting things … that we have been pushing is that we’re virtual professionals, we’re not virtual assistants. (Beth Lachance)
All of the virtual assistants – or professionals – that Beth and her company manage are highly educated and trained professionals, with an average four-year-long college degree, and heavy work experience in the medical industry.
When you think of assistants as professionals, it elevates what you may consider delegating to them, since the framework of viewing these hires as professionals can make you trust in their expertise.
It transforms [your mindset] and takes you out of just the thought process of when you think of virtual assistant versus virtual professional, it just instantly changes your mind [because] it’s a mindset shift … And that’s how you’ve got to look at utilizing additional staffing like this in your practice. (Beth Lachance)
Integrating and delegating to your virtual professionals
Beth’s company offers strategy sessions to their counselor clients, which includes a needs assessment so that the counselor can hire their best-fit virtual professional to meet their practice and admin needs.
We really want people to really analyze what can be done by what I call, “paint-by-number”, that simple … If you have remote staffing and you want to delegate tasks to them, you’ve gotta make sure that we have a very clear workflow that’s simple and easy to replicate and for [which] we can set KPIs. (Beth Lachance)
Hiring a virtual professional is not a one-stop solution to your needs, because they need to learn from you about how you want things done, and how you want things to run.
Therefore, you must be clear on your expectations, vision, and mission, and what you need their help with.
Have weekly meetings with your virtual professional hires so that you can maintain contact with them and so that they know that they can communicate openly with you as well.
