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Virtual Assistants: Use Them? What for?

by MarketingBees
22 replies
Many of us use them, some are general VAs to help out with the daily emailing and bits and pieces and some are more tailored to certain areas such as SEO, social media management and content writing.

So what do you use your VAs for?
#assistants #virtual
  • Profile picture of the author datingworld
    I use them mainly for social media management as well as content writing.
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  • Profile picture of the author banwork
    Research absolutely. Web research is often very time consuming and easy to outsource if explained well and hired appropriately. For example, if you want to find potential leads, you maybe can find 10 to 50 per hour yourself but I bet you can hire someone to find the same amount for $3/hour. How much is your time worth?

    The problem for using VAs in most of these other categories is the lack of personal touch. Using VAs for email response and article writing especially can negatively impact your communications with people. I contacted an established Facebook marketer to see about speaking with him. I got a reply from his VA several days later that might as well have been an autoresponder. This left a huge negative impression with me.

    If you want to use VAs, start with research and areas where no human contact happens. Then, move to the least technical areas followed by the most.
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  • Profile picture of the author Josh Mayers
    Hey,

    I have used virtual assistants, and personal business assistants in the past to network through social media online in efforts to find leads for me that I can close over the phone.

    There are many different ways that people can use VAs to grow their businesses, but I personally like to outsource my lead generation by hiring VAs to find and get prospects interested in what I have to offer, so that I don't have to spend all of my time chasing leads.

    -Josh
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  • Profile picture of the author Marked09
    I used them mostly on Forum Posting , Social Media Posting and Management of Documents, Links
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  • Profile picture of the author Highway55
    All of the above (if they apply to your business). You could train a VA to do anything and everything. The only thing I would not use a VA or a regular assistant for would be to check my sales numbers.
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  • Profile picture of the author VASEO
    The VA can working any work that you need,
    As I provide the VA to do seo, content writing, website management, forums, and any work that customers require.
    So you can hire VA to work any work that you can training for them.
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  • Profile picture of the author Lizfish
    Admin and research mainly
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  • Profile picture of the author Eddie Wilson
    A bit of this and a bit of that. Mainly to read through the emails and then forward the ones that need my attention to me. I also hired a writer VA for a while when I expanded my content providing service, but I didn't like her style of writing so that only lasted a month.

    I've used VAs for pretty much anything, but I have realized that it's really the email stuff and research that is what I need done for me.
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  • Profile picture of the author Najgel
    There are things that you won't trust anybody to do for you, but after you have found some essential people to work with you things are going a LOT smoother.

    Personally I am using VA's for copywriting mostly.

    If someone is building a whole virtual team essentialy you need 4 people:
    • A copywriter
    • A techie to work on your wordpress customization
    • A graphic designer
    • A virtual assistant (a support person)

    From my point of view this will allow you to focus on every other possible aspect of your business while maintaining fast and efficient task sharing between your team members. As the team grows it might get difficult to even hold time frames between each other since in the IM era we are working across the globe in different time zones and activities
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  • Profile picture of the author artflair
    In my case it is stuff that I know nothing about - programing and graphic design
    Sometimes if I feel that I just don't have the time to do something that takes a lot of my time, I'll hire someone else to do it as well...
    Art
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  • Profile picture of the author Brent Stangel
    Some times for bulk content creation.

    I'm too picky about quality to trust much to anyone but me.
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    • Profile picture of the author kilgore
      Originally Posted by Brent Stangel View Post

      I'm too picky about quality to trust much to anyone but me.
      I definitely know what you mean here. We're currently looking to hire some writing help, but finding quality talent who can not only write well, but in a style appropriate for our company and our customers is a challenge. The style of writing that most people learn is school is, unfortunately, not very useful in a business context.

      As for other tasks? I'm also too picky about quality, not so much that I have to do it all myself, but to trust someone I'm paying $3 or $5 an hour. My experience is has been that you get what you pay for, so I'd rather pay my staff $15 or $20/hour and know that things are going to be done right than try to save a few bucks and end up spending a lot of my time training or correcting poorly done work.
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  • Profile picture of the author usemyteam
    We hire VAs for various purposes.

    1. Web Development
    2. Project Management
    3. Content Creation
    4. Graphic Design
    5. Social Media Management

    These skills or so called description is not rolled into one person. In fact it is way better to hire someone to do specific tasks rather than have someone do a lot of tasks. Trust maybe an issue but if they have good work background, what you are paying would not be a waste.
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  • Profile picture of the author Katie Rich
    I AM a V.A. but not for marketers, I can't afford to work for $2 - 4 an hour, which is the amount that most marketers expect to pay.

    I do work for tradesmen and craftsmen (women), writing and sending work quotes and letters, answering customer calls.
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  • Profile picture of the author cherbeat
    I use VA's to manage Social Media (once I train them), backlinking, Forum posting sometimes, SEO and whatever I helps build the business.
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  • Profile picture of the author JessUBotNinja
    I think 4 Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss talks about the use of VA's the best. About automating things first, being sure to give proper and detailed instructions, managing them, etc. They can be very helpful and powerful tool if used effectively and efficiently. Keep in mind with certain tasks there is going to be some training, and finding a good VA might take a few rounds of hiring and firing.
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  • Profile picture of the author JohnnyPlan
    You can best utilize virtual assistants by finding/hiring and training a capable person who can learn your own business inside and out and become your second pair of hands/eyes to assist you with the intricacies of your business. This person will take some of the pressures off of you and allow you more free time for dealing with the big pay off aspects of your business. And, really only you know what aspects those are.
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  • Profile picture of the author CashMoneyOnline
    Banned
    I like to keep them around to do the boring stuff I don't wanna do. The low level things...I focus on what is making the most money and then outsource the rest.
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  • Profile picture of the author LuckyIMer
    I have worked with many of them, usually for web development related stuff.
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  • Profile picture of the author Brian Tayler
    I have them do what I find most boring aka whats hardest for me to move forward on. Research... writing... more research..
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  • Profile picture of the author Carlo Martin Yrure
    VA's help you get things done faster and give you more time to focus on other income producing activities.
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    • Profile picture of the author irinalovespaper
      There are many tasks that a business owner can delegate to a virtual assistant. For example, a real estate agent usually needs to complete around 80-90 tasks to sell a house. We saw that 70 of those tasks could actually be completed by a virtual assistant, and that is just for real estate. You can actually move almost 80% of your to-do list to someone else's list.
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