Tasks for a VA to do?

[DennisD]

I've been thinking a lot about hiring a virtual assistant.
This month is the month, I'm pretty sure, to bring one on board to handle some things I can't quite handle myself.

It's been fun to brainstorm different ways a VA could help, and ways that many different VAs/Employees could synergize to boost productivity.

So far:

• Transcription, MetaData, Description, Uploading, Settings for YT Videos
• Asset Collection/Organization Via Dropbox (ripping specified images, video, audio, etc)
• Formatting/posting Wordpress Articles
• Interacting with fans/answering social questions according to an internal FAQ they can copy+paste from
• Research (Gathering contact information of prominent bloggers, finding sites I can build backlinks to)

What other tasks can a VA make use of?
What other "Research" would you have a VA do for your business?

 

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[5holiday]

I'm thinking about the exact same thing.

Here are some ideas:

1. Road test written procedures for routine tasks to see if you can get someone without experience to produce a great result (and thus achieve good products for cheap labour)

2. Article writing following a format

3. List building for sales and blog promotion /PR outreach

4. Client research through researching target market comments on forums


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[Lex DeVille]

I've been thinking a lot about hiring a virtual assistant.
This month is the month, I'm pretty sure, to bring one on board to handle some things I can't quite handle myself.

It's been fun to brainstorm different ways a VA could help, and ways that many different VAs/Employees could synergize to boost productivity.

So far:

• Transcription, MetaData, Description, Uploading, Settings for YT Videos
• Asset Collection/Organization Via Dropbox (ripping specified images, video, audio, etc)
• Formatting/posting Wordpress Articles
• Interacting with fans/answering social questions according to an internal FAQ they can copy+paste from
• Research (Gathering contact information of prominent bloggers, finding sites I can build backlinks to)

What other tasks can a VA make use of?
What other "Research" would you have a VA do for your business?

Did you end up hiring a VA?

If so, from where, and what has your experience been like so far?

Thanks!

 

[Esquire]

I retained an Indian VA service shortly after reading the 4 Hour Work Week.

It did not work out well

When you factor in how much time I spent holding their hand and correcting their mistakes ... I might as well have done everything myself.

Pulled the plug on that experiment after a month or two.

I plan to hire VA again (sometime in the future) ... but next time I am going to tackle it very differently.

What I took away from that experience was how absolutely essential it is to have a crystal clear operating manual in place for them to follow.

e-Myth revisited style.

The good news is ... when it can time to hire an Indian programmer ... I had a much better idea of how I needed to communicate with him ... with an emphasis on visual instructions.

As a result ... I never experienced all of the problems people who outsource habitually moan and complain about.

So the VA experiment wasn't a total loss.

Look forward to hearing how it works out for you.

 

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[healthstatus]

What other tasks can a VA make use of?

clean out the inbox, categorize it

create daily status reports by hitting, analytics accounts, seo accounts, and compiling a summary for you

filter through those google notifications for things that really apply to you

vacation planning - concierge for your life

if it isn't important, you should be offloading it. Really, a good VA is $500.00/month for 160+ hours of work.

If you are from the US for a VA I would recommend the Philippines, they speak more American English, and have a more western lifestyle so less communication issues.

I use camtasia to screen capture and voice over the tasks that I want mine to do, especially the repeatable tasks.

 

[Lex DeVille]

I think I was reading one of your posts earlier about using onlinejobs.ph

I'm doing a little more research today, but intend to give it a shot before the end of next month.

Thanks for mentioning that about the $500 price point because that's the price I was looking at this morning on the site.

Will definitely try Camtasia to do the screen capture.

 

[Dinho7]

I would recommend Jing (desktop app) + Screencast (online hosting) for screen capture. I do this for all my outsourced tasks, such as web development, design, research and other VA stuff. It takes less time than to put it in writing, and most importantly it is way easier for your workers to understand when you talk AND show them a video on how to do stuff. I have wasted enough time on writing countless paragraphs only to obtain a sub-par result from my workers. Now their "performance" is a lot better.

Jing is good for 5 min recordings, while Screencast lets you host up to 2 GB for free. 10 bucks a month over that.

 

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[Esquire]

I think I was reading one of your posts earlier about using onlinejobs.ph

I'm doing a little more research today, but intend to give it a shot before the end of next month.

Thanks for mentioning that about the $500 price point because that's the price I was looking at this morning on the site.

Will definitely try Camtasia to do the screen capture.

Camtasia is a bit pricey ($299). You might want to take a look a Snag-it instead ($49).

Much better than Jing (feature-wise) ... and far more reasonable than Camtasia.

All three programs are made by the same developer (Techsmith)

Snag-it is one of my all-time favorite programs.

Love it.

 

[DennisD]

Did you end up hiring a VA?

If so, from where, and what has your experience been like so far?

Thanks!

Look forward to hearing how it works out for you.

Shortly after I posted this I spoke with a forum member who lives in the phillipines who set me up with one of their family members to get general VA work. The experience was new, but ultimately useful. She was able to do tasks that I didn't have time to handle for clients and for my own brand.

Right now, I am REALLY working on systematizing my youtube channel which will make her invaluable and irreplaceable. See this post for more info: https://www.thefastlaneforum.com/co...ube-kickstarter-show.55920/page-2#post-411044

if it isn't important, you should be offloading it.

I am learning this slowly. I wrote down ALL the tasks that I do myself, EVERY SINGLE TASK... and I looked at each one and thought "Is this trainable?"
If it is, I will take the time NOW (even though it's a pain in the butt) to create training and systems surrounding it to free up my time long-term.

I have realized that everybody's need and usage for a VA (or employees in general) will be VERY different. My main tasks I am setting up revolve around gathering resources and footage for me to be able to use in my editing, and to optimize youtube assets.

 

[Joshua Kundert]

I have experience both as a VA and Hiring VA's as well. So if anyone wants to ask me any questions let me know, I have hired VA's all over the world, I have a couple of sites I use when looking for va's

 

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