When Should You Fire Your Virtual AssistantWant the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Matt and Barbara talk to listeners about the often-avoided topic of when to fire your Virtual Assistant and help business owners understand the situations when it may be necessary. This episode focuses on the some of the tough situations business owners may find themselves in with their VAs and why letting them go can be the best outcome not only for them, but their business as a whole. Some of the areas covered include: Avoiding the Churn & Burn – hiring and firing VAs over and over againThe importance of having sound systems, processes and tasks listsAssume nothing, clearly communicate everythingThe need for meeting rhythms and clear accountability criteriaSetting clear parameters around what your ‘non- negotiables’ are Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. In this episode:01:16 – When should I fire my VA?02:26 – The Churn & Burn03:08 – Flawed task lists03:40 – Effective communication05:53 – Setting your VA up to win07:09 – Holding your VA accountable08:04 – Meeting rhythms09:41 – Making the decision to fire a VA10:40 – Getting clear on your standards13:06 – What are your ‘non-negotiables’?16:53 – Wrapping things up  Resources mentioned in this show:Asana  Matt:  Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the Virtual Success Show, where I’m joined by my co-host, Barbara Turley. Good afternoon Barb. Barbara:  Hey Matt, how are you? Matt:  I’m excellent. How are you? Barbara:  Good thanks, good thanks. Matt:  Good. I’m really really excited about today’s show, and the reason I’m excited about it is because I think it’s one of those topic areas where a lot of people avoid the conversation, and the conversation we want to be having with you all today is understanding when to fire your VA. When is it time to let them go? And I’m excited about this only because it’s one of those areas that often is not discussed until it’s too late. When should I fire my VA? Barbara:  Absolutely yep, and I see that happen a lot within our business, you know, for clients it’s a difficult area … And also there’s sort of two things I want to touch on with this topic. There’s when to fire your VA. Sometimes people fire them too early as in you sort of get into this churn and burn cycle of they’re not good enough, get a new one, they’re not good enough, get a new one. And then other people we find, try really hard and probably allow things to go on way too long until the point in which they’re getting railroaded by someone. So, sometimes, I mean obviously by the nature of my business, I’m very pro-VAs on these podcasts, but I’m also very aware that sometimes you have done all the right things, you’ve followed all the things that we talk about, and you actually just have a person who’s not either good enough for the role, or who is actually doing the wrong thing by you as an employer. And that’s a tricky thing to face. Matt:  Which one are we going to start with Barb? Let’s start with the churn and burn. The Churn and Burn Barbara:  Yeah, because this is a common problem. So, when … Often we see people hiring someone and they just decide very quickly after two weeks, oh they’re not good enough, it’s just not going to work out? And really I think there are boxes to tick before you make the decision to fire someone. There’s actually a lot of boxes to tick. Sometimes … I mean there’s so many shows we’ve done on this, sometimes it’s people who you’re … You’ve no processes in your business or you’ve no systems and you’ve tried to kind of just offload a task list on someone and they don’t even know how to find your files or navigate your business. So that’s the kind of … The most basics of major problem. Flawed task lists Other times we do see people, and you’ll see this as well Matt, people who have got processes, or task lists, but they’re too vague.