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Even if you haven’t actually tried to start one yourself, you’ve probably thought about making your own VA or VO at some point. And if you’re someone who’s gone through the process of creating and getting a VA approved, you know how much work and time it takes. Arguably the most important part of this process is the review stage, where IFVARB board members review your VA’s website and offer feedback until the website is acceptable for approval. This stage can take from only a week or two to multiple months. I’ve seen this process from both sides as a former VA founder and a current board member. People often stress about the review stage, since we as board members must be very straightforward in our suggestions and notes on websites, as well as the overall time it takes. So what if I told you there were simple, easy things you could do as a VA leader going through the approval process to get your VA approved faster? Some of these things might not seem like rocket science, but the things I’ve listed below come up as issues all the time. I can personally guarantee you that by working on these things I’ve listed below, your approval process will be over quicker than if you didn’t consider them.
Finish Your Website Before Starting Approval- not only is this impressive, it means less future work for you and the review team, and faster approval. To review, this means no missing basic pages like routes, ranks, or staff pages among other required things. This doesn’t mean that the pages just need to exist. They need to be completely finished, as well as everything in them. The most common thing I see is unfinished route databases on routes pages. It's not the end of the world, but it is annoying to see unfinished pages like that where CEOs have left them till later to complete.
Spelling and Grammar- This might seem obvious to some of you reading this, but on almost every site I review, there are grammatical and spelling errors scattered throughout the website. This is where a grammar and spelling checker like Grammarly can help. It’ll fix all the errors in your existing website text. If you’re a non-native English speaker, please use this. If you’re a native English speaker, please still use this, it can only help. I cannot emphasize enough how much more professionally a website with proper English comes across compared to one without. Please run your website through a checker before starting the process.
Go the Extra Mile- When you think you’re done with the website before a review, stop, go back, and put in extra effort to exceed your own expectations. Set basic goals to complete at first when constructing the website, but don’t just be satisfied with your first effort. Go back and improve it even before getting a first review from us. We can tell when extra effort has been put into a website. We can also tell when little effort has been put in. I always try to acknowledge in my reviews when I can tell great care has been paid to detail, and it comes off as professional. I know that it can be hard to go back a second time and find significant things to change in the website, so I suggest just asking friends or people you know to take a look at your website before you submit it. It absolutely never hurts to get another pair of eyes on your work as extra perspectives are always nothing but productive in the long run.
Communication- Another common issue I notice with VAs in the approval process is that when they receive new reviews, they don’t address every point in each review. Everything we write on a review is for a reason. If I note something down that I want to see improved, I either expect to see it approved when new reviews are requested, or I want to see communication asking for clarification about the suggestion, or even just communication saying that the change isn’t needed with an explanation why. Yes, it’s ok to disagree with a reviewer on some things if you feel the website would look better another way (there are things that aren’t acceptable though, like not having required content). The main theme here is communication. If you as the VA leader don’t think a certain aesthetic change that’s been suggested is needed, communicate that in the approval PM! When we do second and later reviews, we check to see if all previous feedback has been addressed. Don’t make the common mistake of not communicating at all, especially if you disagree with the changes being suggested. This just comes off as you ignoring our feedback completely, and that is the worst outcome. If the feedback isn’t addressed at the next possible opportunity, it just gets pushed back and delays the entire process.
Patience- For each new batch of reviews, at least 3 new reviews will have had to be written by board members. We have busy lives too, and sometimes this process can take more than a few days between the board members finishing reviews and the leader submitting them to the VA CEO. Trust the process. We have not forgotten about you. Please don’t send extra messages asking if we’re working on reviews or impatiently nagging to see what’s up. It’s not going to speed the process up.
Again, I can assure you that if you can do these three specific things, your review process will be much faster. This isn’t prioritizing speed over quality. In this case, you taking the time to review these points will ensure a higher quality VA and approval experience, and then also one that is likely faster too. Thanks.
- Sam (Yacht)
Note- These tips are my personal suggestions and are not officially endorsed by the IFVARB