It shouldn’t be up to you to train your VA. The VA you choose to work with should already be experienced in the work you want them to do. That’s one of the big benefits of partnering with a Virtual Assistant.
If you find someone great who hasn’t any experience in the services you need, if it’s specific to your business – a very specialized tool or service, you should expect to pay your VA for training.
If it’s a skill that’s generic that could benefit the VA’s business by being able to offer a new service to other clients, s/he will probably agree to train at no cost.
This is important to consider. As you start working more with your Virtual Assistant and learning to trust them, you might want them more involved in your business. Talk to your VA about this when you start working together. You might find they’re happy to learn a new skill and won’t feel comfortable charging for training time. But if your VA is very busy and will have to take time away from other client work to take training, they might insist on charging for that time.
If this is a factor that will be important to you, ask the question early!
In my opinion communication is the key. If you and your VA are open and honest with each other on expectations and skill sets it then comes down to what you are both comfortable with as far as learning new things.
Invaluable qualities in a VA are dependability, honesty, integrity and communication. If you find a VA with those types of qualities that does have technical skill but maybe not knowledge in a specific area it might be worth the training on both parts to build an awesome partnership.
If you have a variety of needs, another great option is to develop a virtual team. One virtual assistant can even serve as the lead or virtual office manager, coordinating and managing projects among all of your service providers.
For instance, you might have a team made of up of a virtual administrative assistant, a bookkeeper, a marketing assistant, and a webmaster.
Since many VAs have skill sets that overlap, you might even benefit from cross-training with this type of set up. Furthermore, all of your virtual eggs wouldn’t be in one basket. Should someone need or want time off, with a little planning your support system keeps running smoothly.
I feel it is great idea to foot the bill to send you VA for further training if it will benefit your business. I’d probably wait a few months until you are comfortable with the VA and know they are a good fit for a long term relationship with you. With the ever changing technology online, there is always room for further training as a VA.
A good example would be sending your VA to a Blogging Expo/Conference if your VA was doing the service of blogging for you online. It could only benefit your business in the end.
To me, you would approach training with a VA the same you would approach it with anyone else you have working for you, whether they are a contractor or an employee.
Perhaps there is more risk of not getting a return out of a VA, but that risk is reduced by building a solid working relationship first and getting a feel for their commitment to providing you with service as well your commitment to them.
In the end, its all about ROI and if training a VA is the best way to get where you want to go, then why wouldn’t you do it?