How to Hire an Assistant (without adding an employee)
by admin ~ June 8th, 2009. Filed under: practice management.How to Have More Time Each Day: How to Find, Screen and Hire Assistants and Virtual Assistants
Sure, it’s nice to have an assistant to do all of the administrative and clerical work. In fact, it’s essential as in most parts of the country, you can hire such a person for $30,000 to $50,000 annually and the time they will free up for you can easily earn you an additional $150,000. Why? because they will do the work values at $15 to $25 an hour while you are generating more business where you earn $100 to $1000 an hour.
The latest trend however is not to take on additional employees but to outsource this work to a virtual assistant. These are trained professionals who are already familiar with your industry (e.g. securities or insurance) and may already work for other professionals just like you. So they don’t need to be taught form scratch. They work from their location using their PC, their phone and you contract for as much time as you need form them–either on a regular basis (e.g. 50 hours per month) or by the project.
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How to Have More Time Each Day: How to Find, Screen and Hire Assistants and Virtual Assistants
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June 22nd, 2009 at 12:11 am
Upon first reading this article I saw the term “virtual assistant” and immediately thought of some kind of android assistant. However on reading more into it, I notice that this term simple applies to a freelancer, such as myself. And I can tell you that the results are a lot better from certain freelancers than what you would get from other “professionals” in the area.
July 26th, 2009 at 10:57 pm
The hard part is to find a reliable virtual assistant. More third party sites will do what Ebay and Amazon marketplace have done to allow people to hire and review… and for virtual assistants to bid and advertise. Lots of moving services sites already use this model.
August 11th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Depending on the skill level of the required tasks, consider offshoring your virtual assistant needs as well. Whether it’s ordering your wife flowers, complaining about a bad invoice, organizing spreadsheets/data, etc. all of these tasks can be handled quite capably overseas for less than $6.00 per hour.
We happily deliver competent, capable VA’s to busy executives and management and are continuously amazed at how excited they are within a few weeks/months at the additional time saved. Most people are concerned about hiring a VA initially because they don’t think they’ll have enough for them to do, but a few weeks in you start to realize the capabilities of your virtual assistant and you can then pile the work on!
August 15th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Finding a virtual assistant is a tough jobs. Even though if you get one, you need to certainly get his trained from scratch.
August 17th, 2009 at 2:53 pm
Depending on the skill level of the required tasks, consider offshoring your virtual assistant needs as well. Whether it’s ordering your wife flowers. Thanks for sharing.
September 2nd, 2009 at 6:50 am
Real Estate is also a great example of a business where a VA is used quite often. Your points are spot on about how to save money with a virtual assistant and not taking on another employee.
September 28th, 2009 at 3:42 am
I certainly like the though of someone taking the jobs that I am not so keen on! I worry about whether they will get done properly I suppose and lower our standards, which just means I have to spend time on training. I know it is the right thing to do… just got to convince myself
November 24th, 2009 at 2:10 pm
Really it is a tough job to find a reliable virtual assistant.Skill,personality, education,experience and knowledge is the key factor that every assistant need to possess.Without all these factor they can’t performed their task smoothly.Thanks for your awesome blog.
December 5th, 2009 at 7:23 am
Love the article. Were thinking about adding an employee to the payroll, but can’t deem the financial side of things.
December 7th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
I agree, outsourcing is indeed the best way to go these days that you want to earn more and focus on your core business. Why waste your valuable time, effort and money when you can leverage by hiring a VA? We did that and we’re reaping the benefits.
December 26th, 2009 at 7:04 pm
My “friendly competitor” has been outsourcing to a “virtual assistant” in india, who answers his emails and calls for 10 cents each.
I’ve been tempted to do the same, but never made that decision because I never looked at it the way you do. This clears things up a little.
January 24th, 2010 at 12:27 am
i agree ! Finding a virtual assistant is a tough jobs. Even though if you get one, you need to certainly get his trained from scratch
January 30th, 2010 at 8:31 pm
it cut off costs if the job’s not to crucial. outsourcing, these day’s been booming.
February 12th, 2010 at 8:58 pm
I’ve tried a few virtual assistants and you definitely get what you pay for. It’s also worth spending the time to train up an assistant. It is frustrating at first - I’ve found in a few cases I’ve ended up thinking that I could just do it quicker myself and in fact I’m not using a VA at the moment for that reason.
I did have a really good one (google Virtusec) a few years ago.
February 13th, 2010 at 7:04 am
Nice info. Thasnks for the report.
But. It’s hard to find a good virtual assistant.
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:16 pm
I am an artist and I have just started a fine art and gifts business. Ohh..I can say it is so difficult to manage everything by myself! I wear many hats during the day…I am artist/painter, manufacturer, secretary / administrator , marketing director……I work from home so space is a problem. A Virtual Assistant would be a very good solution for me.
I think this article gives some very good insights
March 3rd, 2010 at 2:33 am
I started hearing about this technique a few years ago where you could outsource a lot of your back office work to companies out of India. At first I was skeptical of this practice, but I assume if it is general clerical work like you stated above there would only be upside to having that extra help.
March 9th, 2010 at 7:12 am
Its so easy to be caught up in the little stuff that can be done by anyone especially when you run your own business. Learning to let go and let someone else do the “busy work” will help benefit your business in the long run.
Hiring a virtual assistant may be more helpful than looking to hire someone at your physical location. If you list in a small town or a town with lacking talent pool, heading for the virtual assistant route may help ease finding the perfect person for the job.
March 18th, 2010 at 12:57 pm
i think i’m going to disagree with this, i would feel much more comfortable having a live, human assistant. I feel that many things can be lost in translation, expecially over the internet. and i would just be much more comfortable with someone i can see and interact with.
April 17th, 2010 at 6:46 am
This is awesome I was doing research on virtual assistants such as programs to be my secretary. But are you serious? You can contract an assistant. this is awesome news man thank you. I will post another reply telling you how it went.
April 29th, 2010 at 11:11 pm
According to me it is important to have human assistant. I am as a businessman who act on internet business, especially in retail business, I need human assistant to serve my customers. In here i get the tips about how to hire assistant. Hopely i will find many topics here about how to make our business as efficient as possible especially in managing the workers of our company. Thank you for your support.
April 30th, 2010 at 12:22 am
I absolutely agree, we need assistant to get effectiveness of our business. Without assistance, we will have a problem in out focus of management in our company.
April 30th, 2010 at 12:25 am
Yes, we really need our assistant to upgrade our performance of work in our office. We have to hire expert assistance in order we effectively get our aim by spending our money to hire the assistance.
April 30th, 2010 at 12:29 am
I have ever tried to hire an assistant by paying her salary $60.000 ayear to do my task in my office to run my business. It was a very helpful for me. But she is only helping me in the administration tasks, whereas, I really need a person who is able to generate a good idea for my busniess efficiency and effectiveness.
May 13th, 2010 at 3:19 pm
If you want a reliable Virtual Assistant, check out those outsourcing sites such as Odesk or Elance. You can check out their previous experiences and feedback from their former buyers so you’ll know if they are capable and reliable.
May 20th, 2010 at 5:53 pm
Sure wished I could afford to hire a assistant.
May 22nd, 2010 at 5:22 am
Ya but how much do these assistants charge? And also you cant talk to them face to face if a problem arises. Idn its like calling a company now a days. you don’t talk to a real person until you go through 15 different automated menus. or just press 0.
May 24th, 2010 at 1:02 pm
I would defintely agree having an assitant is essential if your bogged down with admin work. I think if your building a business and it’s working and if your busy then its defintely essential so you can focus on growing your company, it also takes a massive amount fo stress off
May 24th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
Very insightfull and true. We should do what we do best and hire others to do the rest
June 2nd, 2010 at 9:33 pm
Interesting point. I’m not convinced but outsourcing but if it’s worked for you lot well done ….
June 4th, 2010 at 5:03 pm
I’ve tried to hire an assistant for my business, however, I had trouble with working round payroll services as I was trying to do it online. Can anyone help?
June 9th, 2010 at 10:01 am
The hard part is to find a reliable virtual assistant.
June 11th, 2010 at 5:15 pm
It’s really good to hire virtual assistant and get more free time to search new ideas and make money on them. And then you can hire additional assistants, then more time. It’s like a spiral. And I think that it’s not a very big problem to find reliable assistant. We have a lot of opportunities to find them.
June 14th, 2010 at 2:40 am
Outsourcing has worked very very well for me. My best advice? Define your job properly and don’t just choose th cheapest!
June 29th, 2010 at 9:09 pm
Good point but a warning here from some one who looked to reduce costs further and outsourced to inexperienced virtual employees. It eventually sorted itself out and I still have a good relationship with the people but it took a hell of a time to get to this point.
By the way, tried to d/l the free report but looks like the link is dead.
regards
Heather
June 30th, 2010 at 12:26 am
I often outsource using craigslist in the US. There’s lots of unemployment so people are eager to work and you can hire for small gigs really easy.
June 30th, 2010 at 10:48 am
It’s so easy to get caught up in tedious and menial tasks that wastes so much valuable time. The important thing about hiring a virtual assistant is to make sure you get someone reliable, and someone youc an trust. I’ve been thinking about getting a VA for a while, so this post has been very valuable to me. Thanks for the info!
July 7th, 2010 at 10:50 pm
This is a great way to get new and experienced employers. There are websites like oDesk where you can find compatible people by posting a job description and from there you can read the employee’s resume, see their past experiences with other oDesk users and can even see their timelogs.
July 8th, 2010 at 9:56 pm
I think these days if you set up an employee/assistant and put them on a pay for performance agreement, everyone wins. You have a hard worker and a booming business.
July 9th, 2010 at 2:27 am
The potential downside to this is, if the virtual assistant you hire has been also hired by others, how can you control how much time, energy and effort they’ll be putting into my needs.
July 9th, 2010 at 5:09 pm
I am getting familiar with outsourcing employment. For my line of work it is important to get any edge I can to stay in front of my competition. Outsourcing means reducing your costs, and you may be providing an employee on the other side of the world with a significantly higher salary than they could get otherwise.
July 12th, 2010 at 1:24 pm
Good point！I like virtual assistants!
July 16th, 2010 at 4:19 pm
I work in the adult market, and I’m working since years with virtual assistant. They’re usually professionals that are potential competitors, but they have the knowledge to help you very quickly. Very interresting to work like this, and a lot more cheaper too. Good article, thanks !
July 20th, 2010 at 10:47 pm
This is a fantastic idea. The concept of virtual assistance is brilliant.
July 22nd, 2010 at 12:40 pm
Virtual assistants are popular nowadays. Thanks to the internet. But choosing the right you for you takes due diligence because they can make or break your business.
July 22nd, 2010 at 12:46 pm
If you want a reliable Virtual Assistant, check out those outsourcing sites such as Odesk or Elance. You can check out their previous experiences and feedback from their former buyers so you’ll know if they are capable and reliable.
July 22nd, 2010 at 11:29 pm
Hiring virtual assistants is great, though I would want to make sure that their credentials are valid. I know with websites like oDesk you can create test projects for the person you’re planning to hire to insure they’re capable of what they say they are.