What does a virtual assistant do for a coach?

Coaches who come to me nearly all say the same thing: the coaching itself takes the least energy. It sits in the intake that gets moved for the third time, the client asking whether the recording is up yet, the invoice from the second programme still unpaid and the newsletter that has been half written in your drafts for six weeks. That is exactly the work you can hand over without your practice feeling any different.

Which tasks does a virtual assistant take over from a coach?

I usually cut the work in a coaching practice into four areas. That works better than picking off single tasks, because once a whole area sits with someone else, you stop thinking about it altogether.

The biggest effect nearly always sits in the first two rows. Once the scheduling and the follow up are off your desk, the rest of your week calms down by itself. How the scheduling works in practice is set out in outsourcing calendar management, and the mail around it is covered on the email management page. The service all of this sits under is planning and organisation.

What does a virtual assistant not do?

This is the question every coach asks, and rightly so. A virtual assistant does not coach. I give no substantive advice to your clients, I do not take over a session, I do not decide whether someone moves on to a next programme and I am never your face in a conversation. The line runs between the content and everything around it.

• No coaching, not even quickly. A question about an exercise or about what was said in a session goes to you, even when the answer looks obvious.
• No substantive advice. If a client writes that they are struggling, they get a human reply saying it has been seen and that you will answer personally. Nothing beyond that.
• No decisions about programmes. Extending, pausing, refunding, referring someone on or turning an application down stays with you.
• Everything around it, yes. Scheduling, confirming, sending materials, reminding, invoicing and following up, in your tone and inside the boundaries you set up front.

Those boundaries are the real work at the beginning. One page is enough: what may happen without asking, what always comes past you first, and the three or four standard replies you already use yourself. After that you only look at the exceptions.

Be open about it with your clients as well. The emails I send on behalf of a coach simply say that I read along and do the planning. Clients rarely mind, they mostly want a quick answer. What they do mind is finding out later that someone was reading along while they thought they were writing to you directly. That costs trust, and in this line of work trust is the whole business.

How many hours do you need as a coach and what does it cost?

Two things drive the number of hours: how many clients are running at the same time, and whether you work with launches. In practice a month in which you open a programme costs about double a normal month, so pick a package that leaves you a little room in a quiet month.

Most coaches start at ten hours and move up for a month when a launch is coming. If you want to work it out against your own week, have a look at how many hours you need. What you get back for those hours is set out in what does a virtual assistant cost.

How do you give access without exposing client information?

You work with confidential stories, and sometimes with health information. Being careful with that is not overdoing it, it comes with the job. The rule is simple: you give access, not passwords, and only to what is needed to do the work.

• A separate account per system. In your calendar, your mail, your learning platform and your invoicing tool you create a separate user. You can see who did what, and you withdraw the access in one click without changing a single password.
• Rights per system. In your learning platform that is often managing modules and participants, without seeing what clients hand in. In your bookkeeping it is usually creating and sending invoices, not your whole administration.
• What you do not share. Session notes, case files and intake forms with personal or medical background belong in a folder or tool that sits outside the shared access. An assistant has no business there.
• Two step verification on. On every account you share, including the systems you think are unimportant.

Write down what happens when the collaboration ends as well: which access is removed, what gets deleted and who keeps your files. And because personal data is being processed on your behalf, a data processing agreement belongs with it. The full checklist is in working securely with a virtual assistant. If you would rather talk it through before you share anything, use the contact page.