Gastronomy is an industry that enjoys continuous growth despite regular economic upheavals. This is because this particular industry is trying to fill an essential need, which is why it remains a lucrative choice for many people looking to start their business.
Whether new or experienced in the business world, restaurants are always a good choice for a business venture. The difficulty lies in the many challenges you can face as a food business owner and manager, the most important being the actual administration required to keep everything running smoothly.
More than just serving meals, running a restaurant involves various tasks that require a lot of focus and effort. This includes inventory tracking, accounting, compliance verification, maintenance, hygiene and logistics. As a result, you need more staff to thoroughly process each one so you don’t lose track of what’s important. This in turn can have devastating consequences for your business.
Luckily, you can reduce your overall workload by working with virtual assistants. Additionally, thanks to digital technology, companies can easily outsource many parts of their operations to outside talent. As a result, virtual assistance has become a growing sector valued at $5.82 billion in 2020.
You can do the same. Here are the things to consider when hiring a virtual assistant for your restaurant:
- competency level
It goes without saying that a virtual assistant should have the necessary expertise to assist you in your tasks.
You don’t have to find one with extensive qualifications or certifications. Instead, focus on those with the specific skills you need for specific tasks.
For example, if you need help managing your finances, you should look for someone experienced in using spreadsheets, checking balances, and tracking cash flow. But again, it would be helpful to choose certified accountants for guaranteed results.
In addition, you can consult them on critical business decisions. For example, let’s say you are planning a restaurant loan. They plan to do this to avoid financial downtime as they acquire more kitchen appliances like grills and stoves. In this case, an accounting-savvy virtual assistant can help you research high-potential lenders and make appropriate arrangements.
2. Exceptional communication skills
As a restaurant owner, your daily focus is on providing exceptional customer service. It is essential to nurturing your customer base and keeping your business on the road to success.
Your virtual assistant can help if they have excellent communication skills. These are part of the necessary tools for them to be beneficial to your business.
Since most of your exchanges will take place online, the ideal virtual assistant should have experience juggling different communication channels effectively. They should be able to analyze and understand messages sent via chat, email or video conference in order to properly carry out the tasks you assign them. And, of course, they must respond to you and make their requests in an extremely professional manner.
3. Competence in essential computer software
The name alone suggests that virtual assistants are expected to have professional know-how in dealing with a wide variety of software. Therefore, you should look for people with significant to high computer skills.
Depending on the tasks you expect them to perform, your virtual assistant should be proficient in specific offline and online tools. This can include social media, spreadsheet applications, cloud storage, production materials creation programs, website management platforms, lead generation websites, email, and office productivity software. Therefore, make sure to include in your listing what programs you expect from your potential virtual assistant. This way you can save time by teaching them how to use the applications you need to perform tasks.
4. Roles and responsibilities
Before hiring a virtual assistant, you need to understand why you need their services. This is key to categorically state their role and duties. In return, you make it much easier for your company to find the ideal candidate.
As a general rule, you should delegate tasks that take up your time to your virtual assistant. This can range from anything to bank statements and shipment tracking. Highly skilled virtual assistants can also work as executive assistants, providing your organization with business insight, guidance and managerial assistance.
To find a virtual assistant who is excellent at performing the tasks you need for you, first consider which tasks you want to delegate. Then list them and determine how you will present them in your job posting. This filters out candidates who may need to be more familiar with the specific tasks they are asked to perform.
This should continue beyond the scouting phase. Even after you’ve onboarded a potential candidate, you should make your expectations clear by providing a thorough briefing on their key responsibilities. Then watch them perform them and rate their performance.
5. honesty
A great value your virtual assistant must have is honesty. Your job involves handling a lot of sensitive information, such as B. annual accounts, bank accounts, restaurant passwords, inventories and communication with partners. In order to entrust them with such data, you must ensure that they practice the utmost transparency and accountability.
You will be communicating remotely most of the time. So you can’t immediately raise issues or fix issues if they aren’t transparent to you. Highlight this as a property to work with.
6. reliability
You need a handy virtual assistant who can help you at any time to keep progress in your restaurant business. As your source of back office help, they must be reliable enough to continue their work on their side as planned. Otherwise, they can become liabilities that only add to your daily obstacles.
This goes along with the previous point; If you can’t rely on your virtual assistant to transparently complete your tasks, you can’t rely on them to help you with your business either. That is why you should also emphasize reliability as a characteristic of your ideal candidate.
7. Capable of multitasking
As mentioned, working with a candidate with the appropriate skills is required. That doesn’t necessarily mean they have to do a single task for most of their shifts.
If you plan to make a virtual assistant an important part of your restaurant operations, you can always assign them a set of tasks. This means that they should be willing to multitask during the hours they work with you. You should always be able to share progress, provide insight, make observations, and report problems. Consequently, they should have strong, effective organizational skills to handle various tasks properly.
8th. Knowledge of project management tools
Virtual assistants can come from inside or outside your time zone. But even if the former is the case, distance and routine still separate you. That means you need to use project management tools to keep all your tasks and schedules in sync. Fortunately, several project management tools are already available that you can adapt to your restaurant business.
These tools allow the virtual assistant and manager to monitor the progress of tasks in real time. They also provide functionality for sketching tasks or projects.
For example, if you need your virtual assistant to place orders for raw materials, you can set this as a task in the tool. Then you’ll know if they’re working on it once they get it going. From there, you can simply message them to receive updates on the number of orders they have placed, the items they have ordered, the estimated delivery time, and whether or not there are any problems.
In essence, project management tools are your way to meet and stick to schedules. They are therefore a valuable investment for your catering business.
9. budget
Of course, you have to compensate your virtual assistant for his work. In some agreements, they can bill by the hour, receive payments at the end of the month, or even be paid per project. Note that rates should be set based on the volume of work, number of hours worked, and individual performance.
To ensure you can reward your virtual assistant well, you need to set a budget for them. They function similarly to the staff at your local restaurant. So they earn a percentage of your total earnings for their contributions.
You should also set a budget for software or applications that you will need to share with them. Most of these are available for a one-time purchase, while popular models follow a subscription model. Make sure you have regular access to your apps. Otherwise, your virtual assistant has nothing to do.
10 attention to detail
Above all, the ideal virtual assistant meets your compliance due diligence requirements. They should be as involved as you are to complete all tasks smoothly. In doing so, they must pay close attention to the data, especially since most of the tasks delegated to them involve processing data. In addition, they should be focused enough to fully grasp the fine print and comprehensive enough to see large-scale plans.
Conclusion
The services of a virtual assistant can add so much to the continued growth of your restaurant. Therefore, it is important to find the right one that will help you run your operations as smoothly as possible. First, assess which tasks you need assistance with the most and match them up with a virtual assistant who can provide the right expertise.
Snowa Mathew
As an avid content writer, Sneha takes great pride in helping businesses around the world become more productive. She regularly holds in-person business coaching sessions in Los Angeles. In her free time, she enjoys walking her daughter and son with their two Labrador Retrievers.
