The Upwardly Mobile

If you’ve read or seen the news lately, you’ve probably already heard of virtual assistants. Bestselling book The 4-Hour Workweek (#1 New York Times and Wall Street Journal) and countless articles in the business sections of most major newspapers and magazines have popularized the concept of low-cost, outsourced assistants. Despite the media attention, however, the concept hasn’t caught on quite as quickly as many thought it would. Unsure of the benefits, afraid of the risks, or concerned about the difficulty of communicating with a remote, possibly foreign assistant, most professionals haven’t taken the plunge. If you’ve thought about using a virtual assistant and just haven’t taken the risk, or if you’ve tried a virtual assistant and want to work even more efficiently and effectively, this article is for you.

This article will provide a brief overview of virtual assistants, explain how to effectively use them to save time and money, and offer some free tools for improving your VA experience. Read more to learn how you can save thousands of dollars per year, free up your time, and have fun in the process!

What’s a Virtual Assistant?

Virtual Assistants are self-employed personal and administrative assistants who help clients worldwide. VAs work from their own homes or offices and significantly lower the costs of the services they provide by eliminating most of the significant expenses associated with typical employment, including taxes, benefits, and human resource costs. Because virtual assistants work as independent contractors, they cover these costs themselves from their wages. Perhaps most importantly, because most virtual assistants work from international locations where costs of living are significantly lower, they can pass these savings on to you. For example, I currently work with a Sri Lankan assistant who completes common administrative tasks for $5/hr. My assistant, Pradeep, is capable and intelligent, and he completes tasks for me while I sleep (one of the many benefits of the difference in time zones) and returns his work to me the next day via email. Pradeep has a clear accent and his English isn’t perfect, but working with him is fun and effective!

Virtual Assistants can perform countless tasks skillfully and efficiently. Common tasks include managing calendars, compiling data, completing research, planning trips and events, and providing call-center services. Some VAs also specialize in one or more areas, like programming and web design, legal services, and even sales. I’ve outsourced a variety of tasks to Pradeep, including researching the legality of a business decision we were considering at one of the companies I work with, planning an itinerary for a vacation I was taking, and scheduling meetings with clients and coworkers. In all of these cases, Pradeep saved me time and money by allowing me to focus my attention on those parts of my personal and professional life that were most critical.

Benefits

Working with a virtual assistant is an incredibly effective way to save time and money. For the terminally busy, a virtual assistant can free you up to do the things you really want to do, like focusing on making that next sale, and free you from the things that steal your time, like scheduling (and rescheduling) a meeting.

For most, the time and cost benefits of hiring a virtual assistant are obvious. But if you’re not sure whether it’s worth it—or if you’d like to know exactly how much you’re saving—it can be helpful to take a minute and do the math. Say, for example, that you make $25/hr. If your virtual assistant costs you $5/hr. and can complete a task just as quickly as you can (which is very often the case), you’re saving 75% of your time or money every time you outsource a task. Even if your assistant takes twice as long, you’re still saving over 66%. Not bad for something that takes almost no ongoing effort at all, and that’s not even counting the money you might earn with the free time you’ll get! If you’d like to play with the math for yourself (and find out how much you could save in a year), I’ve created a simple excel spreadsheet for you here.

It’s also helpful to think of the benefits in terms of an actual life-style change. What could you do with five extra hours per week? With ten? What about all those new ideas you’ve been meaning to follow up on? Would you have time to finally start that side business or get back in shape? Could you even outsource some of the tasks you’ve been putting off? Maybe you’d have time to watch that new show your friends had been talking about, or spend that Saturday afternoon enjoying the sunshine instead of working inside. Maybe you can even enjoy a 4-Hour Workweek, like Timothy Ferris does! Whatever you’d do with your extra time, it’s clear that using a VA can be a great choice for just about anyone.

Ethical Issues

When I tell people that I use a virtual assistant, I often get questions about the ethics of the practice, and I’d like to take a moment to address those concerns here. Despite some claims to the contrary, I believe that using a virtual assistant is not only ethical, but an incredibly intelligent practice of global citizenship. The most common concern I’ve heard is the belief that paying someone such a small wage is unfair. When you examine the details, however, it’s clear that virtual assistants actually realize significant benefits through their work.

Let’s take my assistant, Pradeep, for example. According to the latest (2007) data I can find, the average individual income in Sri Lanka is approximately LKR 173,484 (Sri Lankan Rupees) or $1610 (as of the writing of this post) per year. Assuming his other clients pay him at $5/hr. as well, and that Pradeep works 40 hours per week for 50 weeks per year, he’ll earn $10,000 per year, or 521% more than the national average salary. This is a conservative estimate, since most VAs do some specialty work for which they charge a premium.

Likewise, Pradeep enjoys personal benefits as well. Pradeep can work from home—or anywhere else with an internet connection—and enjoys the flexibility of setting his own hours, spending more time with his family, and choosing how to best complete his work. Pradeep has even been featured in the Sunday Times, one of Sri Lanka’s largest-selling English newspapers. If this isn’t an enviable lifestyle, I don’t know what is. Perhaps most importantly, the relationship Pradeep and I have allows us to learn about each other’s cultures and benefit from each other’s experience, promoting an interchange of ideas and values.

Finding Your VA

If you’re convinced it’s time to find a VA, there are countless venues to choose from. The ones I’ve used in the past are:

• Elance is easily the most popular option for finding a virtual assitant. The website features a simple, though slightly cumbersome, auction system, where virtual assistants will bid for your job at an hourly rate. Timothy Ferris is even featured in a YouTube video on Elance’s homepage that the explains how to find a VA there. The site is much better suited for single projects than ongoing relationships, but it gets the job done.
• Craigslist is now my method-of-choice for finding a high-quality, low-cost VA. Your best bet is to post a listing in the Jobs section of larger cities in India like Dehli and Bangalore. If you follow my hiring process below, you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to find high-quality, low-cost VA’s.

No matter where you choose to look, finding a VA can be incredibly simple if you follow a well-conceived hiring process. It took me a few tries to perfect my process, but it works incredibly well for me now. You can find a virtual assistant quickly and easily if you follow these three steps:

1. Post a simple, descriptive listing of your needs. Take a minute to think about what you’d like your VA experience to be like. What skills does your VA have? What kind of tasks do you giver her? How much do you pay her per hour? Does she complete tasks overnight and return them by email the next day, or do you give her longer deadlines? Do you communicate by phone, email, or chat? Will you pay your VA via PayPal, or use one of the other money-sending services like Xoom? Once you know what you need in a VA, you’ll want to make a post that will attract the best possible candidates. Write a clear job description that explains what you’re looking for, and ask for references of previous work. You’ll get the best possible response if you’re clear about what you need.
2. Ask possible candidates to complete a task. In order to best judge the quality of work you’ll get from your VA, you’ll want to create a sample task for applicants to complete before you bother talking to them further. I asked candidates to plan an itinerary from my home in Boston to a friend’s home in Connecticut that used only public transportation. The task was simple, but it allowed me to judge the speed, accuracy, and quality with which applicants responded. I also avoided having to plan the trip myself!
3. Interview the top three candidates via Skype. To complete the process, you’ll want to interview your top candidates. The easiest way to do this is to set up a time to talk to your candidates via skype, the free VOIP program. Ask applicants to call you, so you can judge their timeliness and responsibility. During the interview, you’ll want to ask about the things that matter most to you. There’s no perfect interview formula, so don’t be afraid to pass on somebody just because they don’t feel right. The best VA’s I’ve used are the ones I enjoy talking to, not necessarily the smartest or most well-spoken.

Working with your VA

Working with your VA should be fun and simple. When assigning tasks, it’s helpful to establish a process early that you and your VA can follow every time. These guidelines are a good start:

1. Assignments should be as clear and specific as possible. Say you’re giving your VA an internet research assignment on the War of 1812. Don’t just say, “research the war of 1812.” Instead, tell your VA exactly what you want. What’s the point of the assignment? What facts are absolutely critical for you to know? How long and how detailed should your VA’s response be? Would you prefer a word document? A PDF? Do you need pictures, graphs, or other media? Considering and specifying these things beforehand is critical.
2. Assignments should have a clear deadline and duration. When you assign a task, be clear about how long you expect the task to take and when you’d like to receive the work. Don’t say, “I’d like this by next Thursday.” If you’re assigning the task on Tuesday, this can be confusing. Which Thursday do you mean? I usually write something like, “I’d like this assignment returned by Thursday the 18th. I expect it to take about 3 hours to complete.”
3. Always have your VA confirm and repeat the assignment. When assigning a task, I have my assistant respond to my email to confirm that he’s received the assignment, that he understands it, and that he can complete it in the time frame I’ve specified. I ask him to summarize the major points of the assignment in this communication, so that I’m sure he understands what I’ve assigned.

Keep in mind that these are just a few guidelines. You’ll want to find out what works for you. Don’t be surprised if it takes you a few tries to get it right; working with an employee isn’t always easy, and non-native English speakers may occasionally misunderstand you. Then again, at $5/hr., mistakes aren’t really that costly.

Tips and Tools

Now that you’ve got a handle on the basics, here are a few resources for you to check out that will make your life easier:

• If you’d like to learn more, you should definitely check out Timothy Ferriss’s The 4-Hour Workweek. Ferriss pioneered personal outsourcing with virtual assistants, and his book contains an exhaustive list of ideas and resources to help you get started.
• All the software I use to work with my VA is free! I use Google Documents for sharing office documents, Gmail for assigning work and sending other file types, and Skype for free phone functionality.
• Paying your VA is incredibly easy online. PayPal is a great resource for most locations. If your VA lives and works from a location that doesn’t accept PayPal, you can use services like Xoom to send money for a low fee.

Conclusion

Working with a VA can be a fun and easy way to save time and money. Virtual assistants are easy to find and help free up valuable time. If you’ve thought about using a VA before, or if you like what you’ve read here, it’s time to take the plunge. Using a VA will revolutionize the way you spend your time, and it’s worth the few hours it’ll take to try out. If you have any questions about this article, please feel free to leave a comment below or email me!

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