Archive for Virtual Assistant
Creating your free report- quick and easy
Posted by: | CommentsMany people get hung up on how to create a free report in order to get people to provide their name and e-mail address.
Here is a really quick way to get it done whats better is that it is free and easy.
I’ve got a couple of sites that I am going to be putting together and I’m going to task my outsourcers with putting this together for me.
http://www.robertplank.com/55-second-product/
Catch you soon
P.S. Plank is an excellent marketer you can learn a lot from him
What questions do you have about e-lance?
Posted by: | CommentsI’ve created some excellent content that’s a must to see if you are thinking about finding people to do work for you on elance.
xx Writing a job description on elance
How a savyy internet marketer writes his job adverts so that the job gets done like clockwork with virtually zero interaction with the VA.
It’s genius and will save you hour upon hour.
xx Would you give your 150 page book for the world to view for free?
Duh no well this guy did
Watch this to see how your information could get ripped off if you’re not careful.
xx How to find top notch providers on elance stack the odds in your favour and calculate
how much they are likely to work for.
This content is in the Outsourcing Blue Print members club. You can access it all for $1.
http://www.OutsourceSuccess.com/blueprint/index.html
Gavin Allinson
P.S.
Ask me any questions you have about e-lance or any of the other providers and I will answer them and send you the video I create as a thank you.
Outsourcing Blueprint – coming soon
Posted by: | CommentsI’m putting the finishing touches to a product/ service I’m going to be launching on the market place very soon.
The main focus is to start organising yourself and working out what a Virtual Assistant can do for you.
Here’s the link to the sales page there is access to my personal outsourcing blueprint on that page
If you’ve got any comments about it please leave them here at the bottom of this post.
P.S. I’m also looking for some joint venture partners who might be interested in mailing to their list
How to avoid mis-communication
Posted by: | Comments- Take more time specifying what you want, go into more detail than you think is necessary
- Prioritise the order that you want your jobs completed in.
- Give an indication as to the relevant urgency ( don’t mark everything as urgent, otherwise you will be the client that none wants to work with)
- Don’t take it out on your VA because you have told someone that a document would be ready and you have forgotten and your up against it. Usually your VA can help you out in this type of situation but don’t make a habit out of it.
- Reply to communications ASAP. This is especially important when working in different time zones. If you don’t answer quickly your VA might have left for the day and if they have a follow up question no progress will be made until you get the message when you wake up the next day, by which time their day is nearly over.
Every action with an outsourcer costs you money?
Posted by: | CommentsTime is money. Correct?
Well time is our most valuable currency and if you are serious about living the four hours work week then it’s vital that you trim down the interactions that you have with the outsourcers you work with.
There is a fine line between asking pertinent strategic questions and being needy and seeking approval too often.
If you’re interested I’ll show you an elance job description from James Brausch, he spends no time at all interacting with his Outsourcers. You might not like it but he’s not wasting his time.
What jobs should I get my VA to do for me first?
Posted by: | CommentsAn excellent place to start is to ask you the questions…
What tasks do I dislike doing?
What tasks do I often put to one side and say I’ll do that later?
What am I not doing that I know I should be doing?
Make a list of these jobs and hand them over to your Virtual Assistant as soon as possible.
Post the list of your jobs in the comments section below, it’ll help you and probably others too.
Gavin
P.S. I’ve added 11 tasks to get the list started
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Sending out invoices
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Balancing bank statements
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Preparing my accounts
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Doing my accounts
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Proof reading my writing
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Moving sections on a webpage
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Uploading my blog posts
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Adding messages to my auto responder series
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Reviewing the results from Google analytics
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Monitoring and improving my ad words campaigns
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Monitoring blogs that I want to keep up to date with
How to structure a job post on e-lance?
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’re going to look for labour on e-lance then it’s important that you write your post in a way that filters out respondents that you do not want to work with. You want to keep some of the respondents behind the velvet rope.
As I’ve described in a previous post you can often find yourself so inundated that you literally need a Virtual Assistant to find yourself a Virtual Assistant. (link to previous post).
OK how do you filter out some of the noise…?
It depends on what your task is and the type of relationship you want. If you want a low touch outsourcing relationship (link to previous post) then you can ask for something specific in your post. e.g. Please do not enter into any conversation via the Private Message Board, these instructions are very simple. If you find the need to ask questions at this stage then you are not the right person for this job, please do not submit a bid.
If you would like to be considered for this bid then insert the following line into your bid.
‘I have read and understood the terms of this bid’.
One good way is to ask for a sample of work to be co. It’s only really viable to do this if you have either a big project that you are posting or you have a good track record on elance.
When I say a good track record, I mean a good ratio of Projects Posted to Projects Awarded. If you’ve posted 8 projects and only awarded 1 what person is going to bother submitting a ‘free sample’ to you? There not because the chances are that you are not going to award the project.
You have to get the balance right if you ask for too much then respondents will be put off and all you’ll be left with are the desperate.
If enough people are interested I’ll make a video demonstrating some examples of people who know what they are doing when it comes to using e-lance. Just put a comment in the comments box below, if 10 of you want it I’ll create the video.
Why some Virtual Assistants get bent out of shape by cheap overseas labour?
Posted by: | CommentsThere are 2 main breeds of Virtual Assistants, those that are based in western countries like the US, Canada, UK and Australia and then those based in developing countries like India, Philippines, China and Mauritius.
The VA’s from the Western Countries often market themselves as being an extension of the clients business, being able to think for the client and be proactive taking care of things before they become an issue. They can be a bit like the right hand person or, executive assistant a MD may have when running a multi national corporation.
A number of the Western VA’s think that the Indians et al have jumped on the bandwagon and hijacked their industry. Welcome to globalisation. The more people that use cheap overseas VA’s will help raise awareness of the industry and grow the numbers of people wanting their more expensive option.
Obviously someone as competent and experienced as that is going to cost more money than a Virtual Assistant from India; they may be 5 -15 times more expensive, charging anything in the range of $35 to $100 an hour
If you or your business is already cash rich then it might be worth hiring someone from the US or UK who can work like this for you.
Most business owners though cannot afford this luxury and if the truth be known would be quite happy to be earning that sort of money themself.
If the tasks that make up your business are well documented and systematised then hiring an assistant at over $50 an hour is an unnecessary luxury when there is a plentiful supply of VA’s who will work for around $10 an hour.
If you’re able to systematise the tasks there is no reason why a $10 an hour VA can’t do as good a job as a $100 an hour VA.
I’m interested to hear your views would you hire a virtual Assistant at $30 plus an hour?
Budgeting your time
Posted by: | Comments
This is especially important if you are providing research assignments. You might ask the VA to identify celebrities based in London and e-mail their agents. If you think about you could easily spend a whole day doing that and get a big list, however if you have 10 hours a week allocated you might only want to spend 1-2 hours doing this because you have other tasks that are more important. If that is the case you need to communicate this to your VA.
Have a list of projects that are some day or on the back burner so that if for some reason you are particularly busy, you are ill or you go away on holiday you can keep your VA gainfully employed.
Every action with an outsourcer costs you money?
Posted by: | Comments
Time is money. Correct?
Well time is our most valuable currency and if you are serious about living the four hour work week then it’s vital that you trim down the interactions that you have with the outsourcers you work with.
There is a fine line between asking pertinent strategic questions and being needy and seeking approval too often.