Virtual Assistants, do you use one?

Yes, I tried one in India, but ended up with one in US as for me we're more on the same wave length and I need less explanation so saves time

Got them through elance, just post the job and do some interviews. If they don't work out change to someone else, it's all about testing until the right one is in

Here's a podcast talking specifically about hiring a VA for your online business:
http://blog.outsourcefactor.com/podc...ual-assistant/

Short version: Hire a full time person in the Philippines rather than using elance, etc. Train the person you hire to be useful to your in your specific business.

Yes, I'm definitely looking into hiring someone out of the Philippines. Where should you find such virtual assistant if you don't want to hire off of Odesk or Elance?

The only thing I use VAs for is to write articles. Its crazy to use one for your email support, or to manage your sales.

I was told about onlinejobs[dot]ph, I will be using them shortly. Im still screening haha.

Yeah VA is necessary to manage the work...

My VAs help in:
Writing and posting articles
Writing sales letters
Website maintenance
Graphics and other technical issues.

Tips for finding one- referral is the best route. There is always someone who knows someone who knows someone who can do what you want.

I have a virtual assistant that I use sometimes. She is a very hard worker, but she's not good at writing articles, blogs etc since English isn't her first language. Are there tasks out there that you have your VA's do that doesn't require writing? Since she works so cheap I have no problem giving her task(s) that require a lot of time - so what types of things can I give to her? Any ideas?

Since I'm newer at this, I'm still not even sure how to do backlinking and RSS feeds myself so I'm not sure how I would show her how to do it. If you have a VA do this, how do you instruct them to do it?

1 - I find all of my VA's/writers/programmers through odesk or referrals.

2 - My current VA (not all my writers/other people) manages all of my websites basically. I systemized the various repetitive tasks I need to do and made little videos out of each one: Like how to add a post, how to cloak affiliate links, how to add a campaign to AMR, SENuke etc... and uploaded them to my main company website - she just logs on and checks out the videos when I want her to learn something new. Basically anything that you find yourself "grinding" on a regular basis can probably be made into a procedure and can be done by someone else to save you time.

3 - Have your training materials and outlines of what you want done READY! Don't hire someone and then think you're going to figure out what they need to do... this was probably my biggest mistake at first. Know what you want done, how you want it done and have a ballpark idea of what you're willing to pay for the service.

Then, try out as many different people as you can with little jobs first! Some VA's will be punctual, learn quickly and be far more 'intuitive' than others and those are the people you're looking to find. When you find one, treat them right and pay them well!

4 - By trying many out with little jobs and testing abilities I haven't really run into any major problems with any of my VA's. I have found some to be very aggressive and asking for more money and to hire full-time right away without even a test contract... those sort of people I immediately end communication with.

It may seem like a lot of work at first but by having training materials all ready to go and taking the time to test out a bunch of different people - you'll end up with someone who you're happy with and maybe more importantly is happy to be working for you.

Like almost everything in marketing - If you take the time up front the payoff will last for a long time!

THANK YOU for your response. I too have found folks on Odesk.

It seems most people on this forum answer as if everyone knows exactly how to do these things which I understand because many folks seem to have lots of experience. I get that, and perhaps I am in the wrong place.

I want to find out HOW exactly to do some of these things so I can show others how to do many of these tasks such backlinking, rss feeds, how to add a campaign to AMR, SENuke.

For example, I spent all morning trying to figure out how to add RSS feeds. It seems every website does it different. Some want you to sign up, others want you to blog etc. I've seen people give list after list in this forum then lots of other folks thank them. I don't know how to use these lists, but it seems everyone else does. Does anyone have very basic instructions? I am new and I don't know this stuff.

There is SO much talent on various online marketplaces, to be honest, but there are a lot of people talk more than they can do. The usefulness of a VA obviously depends on the kind of person you end up finding, so if you do plan on hiring someone, I would strongly recommend getting someone who has good ratings on the marketplace you hire them from. Moreover, conduct challenging interviews to see if they are actually capable of doing what they say. If you find someone great, things will be much easier for you

Hi,

I used elance to get my VA

The first one I got was a bit of a nightmare, but second time round got a good one.

The best tip I could give you is when you find a good one treat them like gold and dont let them go

#1 Thank you for the responses - they were right on the money. I've used assistants to help with websites and some are good, some stink.

#2 I guess my question is then: are there easy tasks out there that while you might not be worth it if you had to do it yourself for 10, 20 or 50 hours, but if you had someone helping for $2 hour it would be worth it? If so, what would those tasks be?

Are there specific instructions on how to do it so I know, so I can teach them via little videos (great idea by the way!)? The VA I've used has helped me to do easy stuff but doesn't know a lot about online marketing (come to think about it, I don't know as much as I should) but she is a super hard worker, it always on time and willing to learn if I can show her how to do it. Any thoughts on what I could have her do?

if its not sensitive material like bank details etc I will outsource it, esspecially if it something I hate doing or something that takes a long time.

I just nail a process myself then outsource as much as possible, more than anything it just massively increases productivity

Yes we do, we found ours through Elance and he is from the Philippines and we find him to be excellent and very reasonable

Steven

Odesk is where it's at in my opinion. I train them to do what I want specifically and I generally look for someone experienced a little bit in SEO. I use them for doing manual link building. You can always have them use your computer via "logmein" or something similar. Odesk does have a nice random screen shot feature so you can see what they are doing and ensure they aren't cheating you on hours. So far I have had nothing but positive experiences with them.

No, I don't use one. I tried - once - with bad results. And it was nothing difficult - just submitting articles.

I pay for our professional proofreader, and that's all. Everything else, we do ourselves.

I've used a number of people from Odesk. Never anyone from Elance. The only other source I've used for virtual assistant type tasks was Mturk (which I don't recommend).

I could tell you, but then... :p

Be very specific about what you want done, and work with people whose grasp of English is sufficient to keep you from pulling your hair out when trying to communicate with them.

Certainly. As I mentioned, I don't recommend Mturk, even for miniscule tasks. Bad experiences there. Also, if you hire people on a freelancing site to do writing work for you, approximately 50% of the workers will send you content copied word for word from existing websites.