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Looking to Hire a VA - Who Do you Suggest?

by J23
26 replies
I am looking to start outsourcing a lot of tasks and I would like a good VA that is able to handle it all.

The main things I need done are linkbuilding and some article writing/content creation.

I know there are a ton of services in the Warriors for Hire section, but I'm looking more for a virtual assistant that I can work with on a daily basis instead of just a quick job that's provided in the Warriors for Hire area.

I would prefer someone from the Philippines or one of those countries where they speak and write very good English.

Would places like freelancer.com, odesk, elance, etc. be the best place to find a VA, or is there a better site out there that specializes in virtual assistants to work 1 on 1 with you?

My experience with some of those freelance sites hasn't always been great because a lot of people bid on your project that have no idea what they are doing and I want to avoid this if possible.

I want to be able to give someone a URL and anchor text and send them out building links for me without having to hold their hand through the whole thing.

What do you more experienced outsourcers suggest?

Thanks.
#hire #suggest
  • Profile picture of the author Joe Mobley
    Look in this thread for my response.

    Is $10 Per Hour Too Much for A Virtual Assistant?

    There are some good ideas throughout the thread. Have a look.

    Let use know how it goes.


    Joe
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    • Profile picture of the author J23
      Originally Posted by DigitalJoe View Post

      Look in this thread for my response.

      Is $10 Per Hour Too Much for A Virtual Assistant?

      There are some good ideas throughout the thread. Have a look.

      Let use know how it goes.


      Joe
      Hey Joe,

      Yeah that thread did help a lot. I'll check out those sites.

      Seems like you found yourself a really good deal with that VA for less than $2 per hour that can do all those tasks for you. That's basically exactly what I am looking for.

      If you end up working with him and he's good and looking for more work, would you mind dropping me his contact information?

      Thanks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Resale Rights Ninja
    I am curious how much you want to pay your VA. I find that most people don't want to pay anything and yet they expect the world. They end up picking the cheapest person they can find and then complain that they don't speak english. In the past I have worked for peanuts and it wasn't worth it at all. Since then I have picked up some awesome gigs that paid really really well. Even though I have made some great cash I still don't mind working for $10 per hour IF I have the spare time. But when things get busy I will of course only take on the higher paying jobs. If I only was paid $15 per hour I could find someone to do it for less and then pocket the difference, but rarely does anyone want to pay more than a couple bucks an hour let alone $15. I don't even bother with elance or any of those outsourcing sites anymore because I can't compete. There are writers in india that will write 500 word articles for fifty cents. As for the quality of those articles that is another thing.
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    • Profile picture of the author J23
      Originally Posted by Resale Rights Ninja View Post

      I am curious how much you want to pay your VA. I find that most people don't want to pay anything and yet they expect the world. They end up picking the cheapest person they can find and then complain that they don't speak english. In the past I have worked for peanuts and it wasn't worth it at all. Since then I have picked up some awesome gigs that paid really really well. Even though I have made some great cash I still don't mind working for $10 per hour IF I have the spare time. But when things get busy I will of course only take on the higher paying jobs. If I only was paid $15 per hour I could find someone to do it for less and then pocket the difference, but rarely does anyone want to pay more than a couple bucks an hour let alone $15. I don't even bother with elance or any of those outsourcing sites anymore because I can't compete. There are writers in india that will write 500 word articles for fifty cents. As for the quality of those articles that is another thing.
      Well based on what a few others have told me and what I've seen in other threads, I know people can find pretty good VAs for under $5 an hour. Just look at the one Digital Joe found.

      While I was browsing Bestjobs.ph and Onlinejobs.ph, I saw several people on there that are from the Philippines that will work for $2-3 per hour and they spoke fluent English.

      Over in their country, that is probably a pretty good salary for them so I don't think I would be sacrificing quality just for cheap work. If I tried to hire someone from the US or UK to work for $2-3 per hour, then no I wouldn't expect good results at all.


      Originally Posted by DigitalJoe View Post

      J23,

      The person I was referring to had a resume' on Bestjobs.ph. Bestjobs.ph does not allow US businesses. But Bestjobs.ph IS a great resource for researching what is available.

      I use oDesk.com.

      Colio has some good input. I do not interview "All" of the people but if you take the time to go through a good number of the respondents, you'll be amazed at what you find. (Holy run-on sentence Batman!)

      You can mark someone as a favorite and save them for later if you want.

      Hope this helps.

      Joe
      Why wouldn't they allow anyone from the US to hire them? I went to Bestjobs.ph and registered for an account and when they asked where I was from one of the choices was the United States. Howcome they even have that as an option if we can't hire people if we're from the US?

      That kinda sucks if that's the case because I did come across a few pretty good looking resumes when I was browsing the site.

      I'll check out oDesk then and see what I can find.

      Thanks for the info.
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  • Profile picture of the author colio
    J23 - we find all of our virtual assistants & other admin staff (telemarketers etc) through oDesk. Not all of them are great - we usually go with the ones with good feedback & a number of hours. But it's worth interviewing them all, trialing them out on a test basis over a few weeks & also spending some time to educate them on what you want.

    Then when you find a few good ones, hold onto them.. treat them well.. give them bonuses or even up their rate. Good people are hard to find but when you find them, look after them & they will prove to be such a crucial part of your business.

    It's really like how any business should run.. a successful business is only as good as it's people..

    Good luck..
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    • Profile picture of the author Joe Mobley
      J23,

      The person I was referring to had a resume' on Bestjobs.ph. Bestjobs.ph does not allow US businesses. But Bestjobs.ph IS a great resource for researching what is available.

      Update:
      Bestjobs.ph does not allow US businesses.
      BestJobs.ph now allows US businesses to have an account with them. I just signed up.
      I found out here on the Warrior Forum. It's June 18th, 2010

      End of update.

      I use oDesk.com.

      Colio has some good input. I do not interview "All" of the people but if you take the time to go through a good number of the respondents, you'll be amazed at what you find. (Holy run-on sentence Batman!)

      You can mark someone as a favorite and save them for later if you want.

      Hope this helps.

      Joe
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  • Profile picture of the author Joseph Park
    I've tried Freelancer.com | Online Jobs | Freelance Employment | Outsourcing Services | Programmers | Web Design | Freelancers in the past and you could find so many cheap VAs here. But watch out for low quality workers. You need to spend some time finding the good ones. Hope that helps.
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    • Profile picture of the author Joe Mobley
      You need to spend some time finding the good ones.

      Say AMEN brother Joseph!

      In case you are not sure of what will get you the best results at the best price....

      You need to spend some time finding the good ones.


      Joe
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  • Profile picture of the author MassiveMarketer
    There are a lot of qualified VAs out there and you just have to pick the right one. I hear odesk, Elance and Guru are one of the best sites to look at. If you prefer someone from the Philippines, you might check onlinejobs.ph.
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    • Profile picture of the author colio
      We pay between $3 right up to $20/hr for our people - it completely depends on their skills, how good they are at doing what they claim they can do, & what they are actually doing for you.

      Whilst everyone likes to get things as cheap as possible, I, personally, do not believe in paying people peanuts & treating them badly even if they are willing to accept low rates.

      Having said this, we also did research on average salaries in the Philippines. According to ZDnet Asia, the average salary of an IT worker in the Philippines is about US12k p.a (about 500k peso's). These are qualified IT workers with some sort of certification with a vendor like Cisco or Microsoft. So you can equate that back to what you would pay by hour & depending on what you want the worker to do.

      We typically start our basic admin staff on about $3.00 an hour & for that they are doing basic web research, forum posting etc. Then if they are good & with a little education, we slowly increase their rate, right up to about $10 per hour if they are particularly good. We pay our software developers, flash/HTML programmers more especially the really good ones.

      Hope that helps...
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  • Profile picture of the author shaggard
    You know plenty of Warriors will work with you on a long term basis. You may want to ask around for content writer to see if they are willing to work with you and for how much.

    I know I do long term work with people all the time. Some people I have wrote for over a year. Of course, they are not here on the forum. But you still might want to ask around.

    Since you are looking for Philippines, I am guessing you do not wish to pay much for the service. Still, I have seen some very cheap article writers for hire. Send them a pm and find out.
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  • Profile picture of the author Vic Chan
    Wow... I seriously learn a lot..

    Quite a shame I can't sent any PM.. would love to ask more questions though.

    Why would BestJobs.ph doesn't accept US business anyway?? Do they accept other countries or only Philippines?
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    • Profile picture of the author Joe Mobley
      Vic Chan,

      Why would BestJobs.ph doesn't accept US business anyway?? Do they accept other countries or only Philippines?
      These are great questions, Vic.
      These are questions that really deserve an answer.
      Sure wish I had one.

      BestJobs.ph accepted US business up until about a year ago. There is more discussion over at John Jonas' blog JonasBlog.com.

      By the way, 2 very good site for Outsourcing are,
      JonasBlog.com
      TyroneShum.com

      Hope this helps.

      Joe
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      • Profile picture of the author rich_henderson
        I found all my full time VA/outsourcers on onlinejobs.ph, all of them speak and more importantly write fluently in English, in fact better than what I do

        They all started on $250 a month with a 40 hr work week

        I increase their salary $25-50 a month to keep them happy and loyal

        This totally revolutionized my online buisness and let me get on with the important stuff while they take of all my manual stuff like writing, building blogs, promoting etc

        John Jonas was absolutely right and I owe him a big vote of thanks
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        • Profile picture of the author Joe Mobley
          Good input Rich.

          Could you give us an idea of what you have them do for you? It sounds like you have more than one.

          Thanks,


          Joe

          Mmm... Maybe I should start a new thread.
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      • Profile picture of the author Vic Chan
        Originally Posted by DigitalJoe View Post

        Vic Chan,



        These are great questions, Vic.
        These are questions that really deserve an answer.
        Sure wish I had one.

        BestJobs.ph accepted US business up until about a year ago. There is more discussion over at John Jonas' blog JonasBlog.com.

        By the way, 2 very good site for Outsourcing are,
        JonasBlog.com
        TyroneShum.com

        Hope this helps.

        Joe
        I stumbled across ReplaceMyself.com a minute ago.. it seems this site is own by John Jonas. I assume it is the same person who runs the JonasBlog.com.

        To be honest with everyone.. I am just starting my internet marketing career.

        Have been doing this for only about 3 to 4 months... but already found a lot of tedious repetitive stuff I need to do that it is taking my time almost as if I'm on a 9 to 5 work everyday.

        All this time the only thing I outsource is my article writing which I use Warriors for Hire and WSO for this.

        But now I guess it is time to outsource all other different aspects in my business. I figured hiring each specialize person to do each task is a waste of good money.. what I need is a more all-rounder which Virtual Assistant perfectly fits in the role.

        Anyway.. thanks a lot for the answer. Appreciate it.
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  • Profile picture of the author JimmyS
    Anywhere will do....but if you are looking for a qualified worker, hire those with experience so that you won't spend much time training them.... Onlinejobs.ph is my vote if you want to look for a worker in the Philippines.... Just put in your post "with experience".....
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  • Profile picture of the author JonAlfredsson
    Hi, I got mine from http://www.onl;inejobs.ph or Hire Filipinos - Find Online Workers in the Philippines | EasyOutsource.
    You can offer $250 - $300 as starting salary that includes aticle/content writing, link building, social bookmarking, forum posting, etc..
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    • Profile picture of the author rich_henderson
      Hi DigitalJoe

      Yes I have four full time outsourcers now, 3 of them work full time on building up my blog network, each having their own areas (don't like giving the full system to anyone, no matter how trustworthy and loyal they are!) to work on.

      One works on research and finding the domains and then buidling them
      The second creates the content
      The third does the promotion

      Then once any site is established enough with enough unique content, number one converts the site to an autoblog, then it is done, and my only involvement is to spend the cash

      The fourth one works on all areas of my business, basically is a PA/VA
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  • Profile picture of the author Guni
    Hi,

    If any one needs any help in finding good VA's please let me know.I think I will be able to help you out

    Thanks
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    Guni
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  • Profile picture of the author Jack Duncan
    J23,
    I've heard some good reviews about this company, Personal Friday. Your Personal & Business Assistant

    Also, you'll want to try oDesk, as well as looking on Craigslist (different countries too) for possible help.

    One way we have done this is to hire a really good Personal Assistant, and then have them spend all the time trying locate the individual VA's...

    That way, you just work with 1 PA, and then you can have them spend their time finding, interviewing, and working with the actual VA's.
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    • Profile picture of the author jmlcastro
      I am a VA, I would suggest myself.

      do send me an email since i can't use the PM function just yet.

      will await your advice.

      thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author hireava
    yes their lots of people from Philippines that are good in writing and speak English.
    They are good at VA and accurate at work.. I love their passion in terms of working.


    .. you can also check my link below for VA professionals.
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    Visit the Site
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    • Profile picture of the author Joe Mobley
      James,

      I will check it out and be in contact. Thanks for the heads-up.


      Joe
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      • Profile picture of the author jmlcastro
        Originally Posted by DigitalJoe View Post

        James,

        I will check it out and be in contact. Thanks for the heads-up.


        Joe
        I hope I can be of service.

        just leave me a message on how to reach you.

        thanks
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  • Profile picture of the author Sanjay89
    What exactly are you looking for? If it is something to do with SEO please check my sig. I have a great team who can help you out. I will give you a nice discount also if you want .
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