What's your experience with a VA?

[ClockBright]

Hi,

Would like to hear your personal experience of working with a VA: managing, tracking time, billing etc.
How crucial a VA is for your business?

Thank you,
Mark.

 

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[Even Steven]

Hey, Mark. Welcome to The Fastlane Forum. What's your line of business?

 

[Tick]

VA what? VA loan? I'd like to help but I'm not sure what you're referring to.

 

[Charnell]

VA what? VA loan? I'd like to help but I'm not sure what you're referring to.

Virtual Assistant. In one sentence: hiring a person online to do tasks you have grown out of, like data scraping, simple marketing, simple research, data compiling, or managing other freelancers.

 

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[ClockBright]

Thank you for the clarification, Charnell.

Yes, I'm talking about virtual assistants but it doesn't have to be for tasks you have grown out of. People also hire virtual assistants for tasks they don't have the knowledge / time / tools to do. Basically I'm talking about all outsourced online tasks.

So, have you worked with one? Are you still having virtual assistant helping you in your business? maybe it is a "regular employee" working in a remote location?

 

[Charnell]

Thank you for the clarification, Charnell.

Yes, I'm talking about virtual assistants but it doesn't have to be for tasks you have grown out of. People also hire virtual assistants for tasks they don't have the knowledge / time / tools to do. Basically I'm talking about all outsourced online tasks.

So, have you worked with one? Are you still having virtual assistant helping you in your business? maybe it is a "regular employee" working in a remote location?

Sorry Clock, I have not worked with one yet. Before I hire one I need to create a masterlist of tasks to perform, how to perform them, and when to perform them. If they're anything like the other freelancer's I've worked with (at least those from out of the United States/Europe), you need to be very specific in tasks.

If you go in with "Hey I need to to write a minimum of 100 word article on Fabreez, up to a maximum of 200 words" you will get a 100 word article.

 

[Lex DeVille]

Sorry Clock, I have not worked with one yet. Before I hire one I need to create a masterlist of tasks to perform, how to perform them, and when to perform them. If they're anything like the other freelancer's I've worked with (at least those from out of the United States/Europe), you need to be very specific in tasks.

If you go in with "Hey I need to to write a minimum of 100 word article on Fabreez, up to a maximum of 200 words" you will get a 100 word article.

I agree with this. Haven't worked with a VA but experience with other freelancers says be very specific about what you want them to do. Sometimes you have to explain like you would to a child, but video instructions and screenshots work well too.

 

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[jlwilliams]

I'm curious to hear more too. Everybody who read 4HWW has to have thought about it to some degree.

 

[Lex DeVille]

There are tons of people on here using VAs and other freelancers.

In my experience, if you're looking for a VA to take over simple, repetitive tasks, then you'll be fine with an inexpensive person from overseas.

If your tasks involve communicating with your customers then you'll need to make sure they speak English fluently.

Don't just assume they do because of their Odesk or other site testing.

For limited, complicated tasks I would go with someone from the U.S. (which is what I'm doing right now for development).

 

[miked_d]

I've used a person from Odesk in the past for editing product pictures. I was really slow so it made sense to pay an overseas worker. I tried two or three and finally found one that worked well. It was very nice to send an email with raw product pictures in the evening and receive the finished product by the morning.

 

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[Joshua Kundert]

Hello Everyone, If your looking for information on working with virtual assistance I am a great resource! Not only have I hired virtual assistants, I have also been one for everything from customer service to technical support. As well people have also hired me to find the right virtual assistant for them. When it comes to virtual assistants I know software to use for time management, desktop sharing ext. If your looking to hire a virtual assistant I would be more than willing to help you. Just reach out to me, my email is Joshuakundert@gmail.com

 

[Esquire]

My experience is ... if they can F*ck it up ... they will ... unless you make it impossible for them not to ... and that's on you.

You need reliable systems going in ... and a easy to understand operating manual. Checklists are a good idea too.

You MUST hold YOURSELF accountable for what THEY do. Otherwise ... you're rolling the dice.

 

[DennisD]

I've worked with a fulltime VA for ~3-4 months. What do you want to know?

 

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[Tick]

My company uses one to great effect. She's fantastic for getting data entry type things that need a lot of concentration. She doesn't have the day to day distractions of people coming in and out of the office, phone calls, etc. It's been great so far

 

[Joe Davies]

We have 4, full time from the phillipines. They have been essential to our business growth over the past year or so. I'll admit we didn't know how to manage them effectively when we first hired so it's been a learning curve.

Make sure you have enough work before you hire one, make the tasks accountable , absolute and in a process. We use trello to Manage tasks.

Have them send you daily reports and log into hubstaff for peace of mind.

 

[Semmy]

I am working with VAs from the Philipines - very nice people and very low pricing due to their pricing index (meaning I pay them good for THEIR terms on costs for living, but still saves money for me instead of hiring someone from a 1st tier country).

What I learned so far is this: www.workthesystem.com is crucial to implement - meaning you need to break down the complete work flow you need to get done into a document, so ANYONE could follow your work descriptions. If you set up your work routines like that you can hire and replace people on the go. If you RELY on a virtual assistant that can only do your work after you worked with them for a week to explain what to do and how they need to do a task you are wasting your time and make yourself dependent on that person.

When I have a VA doing a task for me I also require them to document their work flow in the same way - in order to accomplish "task 12" I did these steps - step1, step2, step3, .. - then I got this result and completed "task 12".

With those broken down work units you can plugin in people on the go or hire people for long term depending what you need them to do. You can put "project task packages" together that define "doing project A12" - includes completing "task12", "task13" and "task20".

I am using a online project management service for this that can be found at www.yourworkisdone.com

 

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