3 challenges to consider before hiring a VA to conduct your LinkedIn outreach!

It can be tempting to hire a VA to run your B2B lead gen on LinkedIn but here are 3 challenges you need to be aware of!

If you have no sales team and feel uncomfortable with selling it can be tempting to hire a VA to conduct your outbound prospecting. 

However, a VA brings new challenges that need to be overcome in order to successfully offset the task of generating B2B leads in house. This post reveals the 3 problems that will typically arise from hiring a VA.

Challenge 1 - Communication

The first issue is communication. If you decide to source a VA overseas (I’m assuming your trialling this for cost benefits as well as time) one of your key challenges will be day to day communication. Expect basic tasks to take 2 to 4 times longer than normal as the language barrier will consume a lot of time at the start. You should also expect multiple screenshare calls to train VA’s until they become competent at tasks. I would not suggest simply handing them a series of recorded videos in the hope that they can follow instructions (we tried that at RooCru and it didn’t work out). 

I would strongly recommend running a few roleplay scenarios to determine whether they can read a certain situation and respond accordingly

Another problem with poor communication skills is the level of salesmanship being delivered to the prospect. I would strongly recommend running a few roleplay scenarios to determine whether they can read a certain situation and respond accordingly. I have found this to be one of the most frustrating challenges with VA’s in the Philippines. During the interview their ability to communicate and answer simple questions is fine. The problem is when it goes off-script, this is when you realise they might struggle to maintain the level of professionalism you would expect from someone local. In order to tackle this issue it’s best to prepare them with pre-written responses based on frequent questions (you’ll be surprised how many people ask the same question).

Challenge 2 - Ability

The second problem is their lead generation ability. Some VA’s or outsourcing companies will try and convince you that they’re equipped with the tools to generate leads on LinkedIn. The problem is, if you're not aware of the best practices, how do you know they are? We’ve worked with various VA companies in the past based in South Africa, the Philippines and India. During the interview the VA will tell you they have experience in whatever task you're looking for. 

However, their level of understanding is very basic, consisting of connecting and sending a generic welcome message which eventually results in spamming prospects with unsolicited messages. One way of determining their level of competency is to question them on certain software, have they used Sales Navigator, which sequence software did they use, can they give you examples of successful use cases with the technology? Perhaps you could even ask them to join you on a screenshare to complete a task?

Challenge 3 - Monitoring performance

The final issue is monitoring performance. You need to be prepared for the VA to make mistakes (particularly when they first start out). If you simply leave them to ‘get on with it’ then be prepared for a surprise when you discover the seemingly basic errors made, even if you did remind them numerous times during their onboarding. 

When we first hired a VA we hooked them up to a remote desktop and monitored their activity from a spare laptop

When we first hired a VA we hooked them up to a remote desktop and monitored their activity from a spare laptop. This was perhaps a bit over the top but it really helped to determine whether they understood their tasks. If you're unable to implement this I would strongly suggest reviewing their work after every session for the first couple of weeks. 

These are 3 of the most common challenges we face with pretty much every new VA we onboard. If you are able to dedicate the time required to train a resource they can become an essential addition to your team, you just need to be prepared for the challenges that come with it. 

At RooCru we can help you source a part time sales pro that is already trained in best practices for LinkedIn lead generation. This helps to remove the headaches commonly linked to hiring a VA and will enable you to skip the time consuming induction period. 

If that sounds interesting we welcome you to schedule a call with our team by clicking here. 

Thanks for taking the time to read the article! 

The RooCru team! 

Here is a video showing you how we generated 500 candidates for a part time sales pro!