Enough with being my own VA; I’m going to hire one. (With free teleclass)

October 10, 2009 by Johnny
Filed under: Announcements, Online biz

NOTE THAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS POST: Tim Brownson’s book How to be Rich and Happy, which I reviewed last week, is now half price! Get it now if you’re interested, before he returns to his normal state of only partially insane.

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It’s kind of ironic (not erotic, although it’s that too) that I used to have a website at LearnToBeYourOwnVA.com but am now planning to HIRE a V.A. (a “virtual assistant”) instead of being my own. Funny how that works. See, if your business is brand new, it makes sense to be your own V.A. and do all of the things a V.A would do by yourself. But as you grow and your time gets short, it starts to make more sense to invest some money and hire someone do to the little things for you.

Basically, I’m looking for someone to take some of the administrative work off my desk so that I can focus more on serving my clients and writing lots of hilarious stuff for like ten different websites. And on chickens. And beer. So I need a V.A to help me me clear the clutter so that I can do that.

(By the way, in case you’re new to this concept and don’t know what a virtual assistant is, think of an “assistant.” Got it? Okay, now imagine they have to work with you while not being anywhere near you and hence would be working “virtually.” That’s the basic concept, although “virtual assistant” recently has come to mean a speciality in all of those things I was trying to teach on LTBYOVA.com… mailing list stuff, blog posting and management, shopping cart miscellany, and so on.)

I’ve decided to do this because:

1. I have fifty thousand projects going on at once and have fifty thousand more that I kind of want to do, and
2. I can’t keep them all straight or pursue many of them, because
3. It takes me hours and hours to go through my email each day, and
4. A lot of what needs to get done in my business could easily be done by someone other than me, and besides
5. I know there has to be a more efficient way to do things than the way I’m doing it now but I don’t know what it is, and most importantly
6. I don’t want things to fall through the cracks, which is kind of dangerously close to happening now because it’s hard for me to keep track of things.

So, in the grand spirit of my doing everything in public, I figured it made sense to chronicle my own process of finding, hiring, and working with a V.A. here, on the blog, so that other folks who are thinking about doing the same can learn from my experience. Or maybe take it as a warning.

Now, luckily, I happen to be in cahoots with Marcia Hoeck, who I know I can trust because not only has she done a ton of research into the best ways to find, hire, and work with V.A.’s, but also because I lived with her for the first 18 years of my life. So when I realized that I was going to need to hire someone soon, I asked her about it and we decided on this little reality show.

So what I’m going to do, first and foremost, is to listen to the free teleclass she’s doing this coming Wednesday. (You should sign up for that too if you’re reading this. C’mon.. what are you, chicken? It’s free. Sign up and listen along with me.)

Then I’m going to get her book (available soon; join the teleclass list to be notified) and read it. Fortunately, since I’m in charge of her websites and because I’m her son, this part is easy.

Right now, that’s as far as I’ve gotten. I honestly don’t even know what I need. Like, you know how sometimes you know you need help but don’t know what the hell you need help with? That’s me. I figure a V.A. could definitely sort my email and get rid of the spam before I see it. I figure she could remind me of things I need to do at various times, track my projects, and keep me on task. But beyond that? Yeah, I kind of don’t know.

There’s also the issue of cost. From what Marcia tells me, good V.A.s typically charge $30-$35 per hour and expect a retainer of at least 10 hours of work per month. That means I have to be willing to part with at least $300 more a month than I am now, which is daunting.

An extra complicating element? I jokingly said on Twitter, “I need an unpaid intern.” A few people surprised me by responding seriously, saying they’d like to do that in exchange for some one-on-one consulting and copies of my courses and products. So I’ll be interviewing these people too, but am honestly not sure whether I’m comfortable with an uncertified non-pro having deep access to my stuff.

I do think that if I have someone working for free, they will end up working WITH a paid V.A. who can train them in the best ways to do things. That’s for two reasons: One, the folks who want to “virtually intern” with me don’t have the technical skills I need from a pro V.A., and Two, training an intern to do my stuff won’t actually free up much of my time, which is kind of the whole point of this thing.

Now, if you’ve ever done anything like this, you may see how daunting of a task it is. How do you find a V.A.? What should you ask them? How do you know if they’ll be a good fit, and how do you know if you can trust them? I heard a story of a woman who hired a V.A. and, after a long and drawn out struggle with him, found out that the guy didn’t even have a computer and was trying to manage her stuff piecemeal on an iPhone. I don’t want to end up with that story.

I kind of don’t know the answer to any of the questions I just listed. I’ve never hired anyone before, yet everyone says that smart business owners outsource “the little things” so that they’re freed up to do more selling, more prospecting, more creative work, and so on.

If you’re at all wondering this stuff along with me, sign up for that teleclass on Wednesday. It’s free.

This is all going to be quite interesting.

Comments

4 Comments on Enough with being my own VA; I’m going to hire one. (With free teleclass)

Aislyn Laurent on Sun, 11th Oct 2009 1:53 am

I can’t imagine sending all of my sensitive data to someone else, not to mention someone I’ve never seen before. I suppose the easiest way to do this kind of stuff would be to talk to other business owners you know and trust and ask them who does their stuff?

This reminds me of the problems I had finding a good Tattoo artist. This person is going to be working on something very important and permanent. How do you know you’ve picked the right person? Trial and error, it seems.

I wish you the best of luck. {Also, if I were to apply to be on that list of possible unpaid interns, how would I go about doing that?}

Johnny on Sun, 11th Oct 2009 8:53 pm

Yep, all of that is why this is such a challenge. How do you know whether you can trust someone you’ve never met? That’s why I’m working with Marcia — because this is EXACTLY the quandary she’s addressing.

If you’d seriously like to trade some time as a pseudo-intern, please just drop me a line at johnny@johnnybtruant.com and let me know your situation, what you know, what you’d like to get out of such a relationship, any qualifications or specialties… you know, the works.

liz on Mon, 12th Oct 2009 10:01 am

1) Listen to your mom.

2) Start with a small task to test the person, ideally something that doesn’t require giving them access to your site, such as: graphic design, writing content etc.

3) Just because a VA appears to have lots of experience and knowledge, a great web site etc. that doesn’t mean they’ll care about you as a client or do a good job. I’ve learned that the hard way.

If they’re very busy, they may rush and make careless mistakes or delegate it to a less experienced person (without your knowledge).

4) I would not commit to paying someone a retainer or a monthly/weekly minimum unless they go through a brief trial period or trial job. If they don’t accept it find someone else.

5) It’s very tempting to hire someone from overseas to save money.

If you go that route, keep this in mind:

Besides the time zone difference (12 hours or more in the case of the Philippines), and frequent natural disasters in the Pacific Ocean, there’s also the language barrier.

Even if you only hire someone to do graphic design, if you cannot convey the message and the vision clearly in their own native language than you may not get the results you expect.

I hired a guy from South Africa through ODesk and we communicated it well since he spoke British English so I thought “what could go wrong?”

I told him “this is for the US market, please include ingredients that are commonly found in the US”. About half the recipes he sent I could not use because of the exotic ingredients he used.

So watch out for both language and cultural barriers when hiring from overseas.

Hope this helps and good luck!

How to simplify your business – with free audio : Johnny B. Truant on Mon, 2nd Nov 2009 2:24 pm

[...] few weeks ago, I mentioned that I’ve decided to hire an assistant. What may not have been entirely clear was what I was going to do, or what that arrangement would [...]

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