Building and growing a business is not easy.
You will hit many roadblocks, find yourself overwhelmed with HUNDREDS of tasks to do, and you may end up burning the midnight oil to get things crossed off on your to-do list…
However, you don’t have to do EVERYTHING all by yourself.
The MOST efficient and effective route is to hire virtual assistants (VA) and build a successful virtual team that propels your business forward.
Building a virtual team to distribute the many aspects of your growing business may prove to be a lighter investment than you may think!
Building a virtual team liberates you to do what you do best. Focusing on the tasks that you’re great at and you actually enjoy. When you can do what you do best while outsourcing the rest, you’re free to take your business to the next level.
Loyal virtual assistants, when you find and lead them, will stand by you. Ready to do whatever it takes to propel your business to the next level.
In this post I’m going to show you, 5 hacks to hire the best virtual assistants for your growing business, tricks to building a successful virtual team, resources to find them, and 7 examples of virtual assistant services.
Let’s jump right in.
Virtual Assistants Will Change Your Life and Your Business
My wife, for example, is the content creator for our business.
Without her making meditation recordings, writing blog posts, making YouTube videos, taking pictures for social media, and sending emails to her engaged email list, there is no business.
Doing those things are in alignment with her best lifestyle design and are what is critical for the business to grow.
There came a point when we began hiring virtual assistants and outsourcing the other needed tasks so she could stay in the content creating zone.
We outsource the tasks that are necessary for our business, but they are tasks that by having virtual assistants, would change the life of her business. We don’t have to do these jobs since we are working more on those that are the BEST use of our strengths and time.
You can only put in 70ish hours a week for so long before your body crashes.
But with a virtual team, you add another 40 hours of work on your business per virtual employee that you have.
It’s Never Too Earlier To Hire a Virtual Assistant
It doesn’t really matter where you are, whether you’re just becoming an internet marketer or you’re expanding and branching out.
See, you’re paying your VA a salary each week. You are motivated to give your VA tasks each day to fill up their 8-hours of work you are paying them for.
When you have a virtual assistant on staff, it becomes necessary to delegate tasks to them that propel your business forward each day; otherwise, your VA will be twiddling their thumbs for their 8-hours.
You can instruct your virtual assistants to create content, manage your inbox, create graphic designs, work on aspects of your website development, organize your chaos, handle your customer service, anything that you need for your business.
Us entrepreneurs fall into the trap of trying to complete a necessary task when we really have little or ZERO idea of how it’s even done.
We’re talking MAJOR inefficiency issues here since you have to research the task before you can start, and then you end up tackling something that you could’ve just outsourced or had a virtual assistant work on.
How much of your free time and energy could you save by outsourcing tasks to a virtual assistant?
Hiring a Virtual Assistant Gives You More Freedom
With the collective efforts of a virtual team, your day is mostly filled with tasks that you’re most skilled in doing.
You outsource the remaining tasks to other competent people who can adequately handle the work.
I will help you find virtual assistants that are able to get these tasks done better than you, giving you the freedom to focus on what you’re best at. Remember, aces in their places.
As soon as we could, we began to outsource many services that were consuming our time that could be done more efficiently by others.
Looking back on it, if I had known the power outsourcing would bring to my business, I would have started hiring full-time virtual assistants much earlier.
Make one of the most revolutionary decisions for your business and build a virtual team with reliable and effective virtual assistants.
Now, if only you can find the PERFECT VAs for your virtual team, right?
Five Hacks To Hire the BEST Virtual Assistant For Your Virtual Team
If you'd prefer to listen to this content from the video above, play it or download it from the podcast episode below.
Let’s face it: Hiring the right virtual assistant is a LOT of work. It may even feel like your looking for a needle in a haystack. There is definitely some truth in that.
There are good virtual assistants, great virtual assistants, and those that are just a waste of your time, energy, and money.
During your search for the best VA, you’ll come across all of these types of candidates.
Been there, done that. Yes, this whole thing, the task of virtual hiring IS a skill.
And I’ve got ways that can help you minimize the learning curve of the hiring process.
Let’s begin with the FIRST and MOST important of the Five Virtual Assistant Hiring Hacks…
Research Virtual Assistants Before Posting Your Job Listing
My first major bit of advice is don’t even bother putting up your virtual assistant job listing - first.
You don’t want to be bombarded with applicants who aren’t even worth dealing with, and it’s insane how tremendous of a job it is weeding out the good applicants from the bad ones.
I tried sorting through hundreds of applications before I figured out this hack.
It just wasn’t efficient!
So how do you go about hiring a virtual assistant?
You do your homework. It doesn’t even matter what platform you’re using - Fiverr, UpWork, Onlinejobs.ph or whatever your hiring tool is.
Start by doing your research on potential candidates for the virtual assistant service you have in mind.
You can check out the specific jobs these prospect VAs have done in the past and you’re looking for virtual assistants who have applied and fulfilled jobs similar to what you’re need is.
Look at their ratings, their online portfolio, and go over their reviews from previous clients. I’m telling you, this is a serious time saver!
Dig through their profile, look at their experiences, check out the tests they took that are relevant to what’s needed for the job such as virtual assistant test, grammar and English language tests. If they uploaded a resume, take the time to read through this too.
Sounds like a ton of work, and yes, this whole researching and digging for information about your potential VA candidate takes a tremendous amount of time.
But believe me, your inbox will thank you.
Now, let's set some crucial elements to include in your virtual assistant job posting that will further separate the good from the GREAT candidates.
Begin your Virtual Assistant Job Posting With Your Name
In my search to find the best virtual assistant, in both the beginning and the end of my job listing, I ALWAYS add my name.
I do this to test applicants on their ability to notice small details, greeting me by my name in their cover letter instead of a generic “Dear hiring manager” "Dear sir or madam" or a simple “Hi.”
If I get that kind of greeting, they’re automatically disqualified from consideration.
Why?
Because it only proves to show that they do not have the quality trait of attention to detail. This lack of attention to detail is a foreshadow that they aren’t going to be the best virtual assistant.
They didn’t even notice my name, so how can I also be sure they will follow details in tasks I assign them for that virtual job?
I check that they address me, Miles Beckler because I have given them my name and they should then know who to address their reply and application to.
"Attention to detail is a CRITICAL component you want in every member of your virtual team."
Without trust in your VAs capabilities, your forced to be in charge of the final quality control, wasting valuable outsourced hours.
As a business owner you take on many roles, but one of the most important role is time management.
Your managing the hours you’re able to give to your hires and you want to make sure, at the end of the day, all those tasks you assign to your virtual assistants’ are well taken care of.
With a meticulous, detail-oriented virtual team, it liberates your day and eliminates the fear of doing the final quality checks only to find that some things need a total overhaul.
Training is one thing, but save yourself the headache.
There’s NO way to have a well-oiled business machine when my virtual team breezes through their tasks and do half-assed jobs.
It’s imperative that each one of your virtual assistants reflect the work ethic and attention to detail that embodies your virtual team.
Have your Virtual Assistant Applicants to Take A 16 Personalities Test
The right personality matters a TON when you’re looking for the perfect candidate for the VA job you posted.
I believe that in any successful professional relationship, your team’s personality should mesh well with yours.
Not saying you get a clone of yourself, or an exact match of another one of your current virtual assistants from your virtual team, but find someone who complements your personality and the personality of the job you need your VA to fulfill!
Once I have my shortlist, I tell the applicants to take a personality test.
To go to https://www.16personalities.com/ take the test, then send me the link to the description of their personality type.
Now, my instructions are obvious. I’m asking this potential candidate specifically for the LINK.
You’d be surprised by how many VA applicants message you the four-letter personality type they got from the test result, a pdf, results from a prior taken different personality test, or a doc file about their personality description.
Going back to that attention to detail, you’re giving those potential VAs instructions, and you want to get the ones who follow them completely.
When you hire a virtual assistant, you want to work with them long-term, so you need to get everything right at the very beginning.
Hire only those who follow instructions, really pay attention to the smallest detail, and has a personality that meshes with yours.
What I am looking for in this personality hiring test is
Does their personality type work well with that of Mine and Melanie's? Does the personality result career options match the job I need to fulfill in my VA?
Another great way to use the personality tests is for you to get familiar with their preferred training styles. This becomes a beneficial tool that I can use to more effectively lead my virtual team.
This next step isn’t an absolute requirement. However, it can reveal many additional insights into whether this candidate is right for the job.
Require VA’s To Make You a YouTube Video
Okay, so this isn’t super required, but I personally love it!
I always request, and always hire the virtual assistant candidates that make a video so I can further measure their skills and gain additional insight, just as you would with a face to face interview.
Following this request is something that can put them ahead of the competition if they take the time, muster enough courage, and send that video out to me.
I ask them to do some really easy and simple things in their video.
Things like, show me your work environment, tell me more about yourself, why they want to be a full-time virtual assistant, what their work experience is, that kind of stuff.
There are three things I draw out from my Virtual Assistants videos:
- I want to vibe them out as I look into their eyes and see the kind of person they are. It’s crucial that you have that kind of connection with them, so working with them wouldn’t feel like you’re dealing with some phantom VA.
- I need to make sure their home office is conducive to productive work. I mean, how can you expect your VA to do their job right, and focus on their task when their desk is in the kitchen right next to the fridge, or the door or in some high traffic area.
- I like to hear the story of my future virtual assistant.
Virtual Assistant Hiring Hack #5 - Get acquainted, learn Their Story
Nope, I’m not saying you go through their personal story and have them recall some past trauma that makes them cry over the phone or in their video.
However, in the video request, I ask them to tell me why they want to work full-time as a virtual assistant.
You HAVE to know something about the kind of expectations they have, their goals, plans, details like that. You want to know that they’re looking for a long term career and their ‘whys’ for wanting to be employed by you.
Let me share with you an example of how I found my virtual customer service representative and how her story entirely won me over.
She passed the initial cover letter check, personality test, and in the video she delivered her story in the most sincere and super clear way.
First, she told me about her job as a team lead or manager in this BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) in the Philippines.
She talked about her long commutes, how she was about to get married, her plans of having kids, and was mainly wanting to spend more time with her family by being a work from home mom.
In her video, she caught herself going on this tangent about her family life, her hopes and dreams and then bounced right back to "business mode."
She let her defenses down and was open and authentic for a few minutes in the video, and it sold me!
I knew she had her long-term "Whys" she wanted to work from home as a virtual assistant.
I want you to really take it to heart that when you hire virtual assistants, your goal is to have them with you for as long as possible.
Continually hiring, rehiring, training, and retraining every six, nine months or every few years is an awful ton of work and just too much of your time and energy.
"If you want the BEST virtual team you have to learn how to pick the Best virtual assistant candidates. "
These virtual assistants will change your life and your business. Let’s recap.
Follow these 5 virtual assistant hiring hacks:
- Do your research and create a shortlist of applicants
2. Include your name to create an effective job posting lead.
3. Have applicants take the 16personalities test.
4. Encourage them to make a YouTube video for you to show their work environment.
5. Learn their "Why" they want to work Full-Time
"Execute these 5 hiring steps, and you will be able to weed out the good VAs from the EXCELLENT VAs that you will want to work with, will be in it for the long haul, and will effectively help you grow your business."
Should you Hire Task-Based or Full-Time Virtual Assistants?
Ready to start hiring virtual assistants? Hold on for a second and think about if you’re going for task-based or full-time VAs.
Remember, when hiring your delegating tasks and depending on where you are in your business development and how much work and cash flow you have will directly impact your decision as to whether you want to hire your virtual assistant for a full-time position or a task-based position.
Let me explain further what the difference is between the two and which one’s your best option.
Task-Based Outsourcing
Maybe you’re just starting out, and you need to outsource some of your task. Let’s say you only need help with installing WordPress.
You hire someone who can get it done, pay them, then call it done. Pretty straightforward, and it’s more of an as-needed task.
Hiring a task-based virtual assistant is what you can do when your either just starting your business or need a rare task done. It can be for starting your website, writing a few pieces of content, creating some graphic designs, but it’s nothing on-going after that.
Maybe you also don’t have enough work to give people on a regular basis, so you can’t have a full-time virtual team working with you, yet.
If this is where you’re at in your business, then task-based is the way to go.
Which Task Do You Outsource First?
What’s that task that absolutely drives you nuts and makes you groan and procrastinate because it’s just something you dread working on? Whatever it is, that is the kind of task you want to outsource first.
In our digital media business, Melanie is the talent. She creates the main content, the products we’ve sold since 2009, so she focuses on creating content.
The goal is to keep Melanie at the absolute highest production level, doing the things that are super valuable to our business.
So when we came up with a list of stuff we need to work on, the first thing that came up for us that was pretty challenging for us to deal with was the graphics.
Maybe graphic design is a skill you lack in, or maybe you’re not crazy about doing transcriptions and don’t have a passion for writing. Then hire a tasked based virtual assistant that does enjoy those things and is skilled at it.
Maybe you want to use WordPress, but you have ZERO idea how to install it. Then hire someone who can install WordPress for you.
Do you want Thrive Themes for your website? Hire that pro who knows a lot about Thrive Themes, and have them work on that for you.
Get your feet wet with outsourcing your task-based needs that get rid of those dreary tasks and make your day that much easier and that much better!
As your business grows and you’re paying for outsourced tasks a few times a week, you're going to want to quit hopping from freelancer to freelancer.
"As your business grows and you’re paying for outsourced tasks a few times a week, you're going to want to quit hopping from freelancer to freelancer and hire a full-time virtual assistant. "
Full-Time Hiring
I love hiring virtual assistants full-time! Although I started with task-based outsourcing, once my business grew, I knew I needed to have a full-time virtual team working alongside me.
I have employees who work on my business 40 hours a week now and I pay them on a salary.
Their paycheck is tied to the success of my business because they are part of my team. When they do well, my business is able to continue to grow.
The bigger my business grows, the better I can pay them. It’s a win-win.
My requirement is that they don’t have any other clients or jobs on the side and are 100% focused on my business. I want to make sure that they are able to dedicate their attention to any jobs I assign to them.
This model works, and I now have a full team of virtual assistants working with me.
Where to Find Virtual Assistant Websites
So far I’ve shared with you why hiring virtual assistants for your virtual team is so important, the five hacks to hiring the best virtual assistants, and what to consider when hiring for task-based or full-time VAs.
So where should you look to find the best virtual assistant for your virtual team? With all the different outsourcing websites out there, the choice can get a little overwhelming!
Plus, you want to be sure you get the BEST ones while not having to overextend yourself, budget-wise.
It’s also important to keep in mind that this whole hiring thing is a developed skill. Without experience, it’s not something you become good at overnight.
So unless you have HR experience, don’t be too hard on yourself.
"Hiring is kind of like going to the gym. At first, it hurts, you’re sore, and you’re like, ugh don’t wanna go back. But then you pick yourself right up, keep going back, suck it up, get stronger, then BOOM. You start reaping results you want."
Outsourcing doesn’t come without effort and sometimes, it doesn’t come without a challenge, but one thing’s for sure - your business can grow EXPONENTIALLY faster with the right virtual team.
Here are five great virtual assistant websites where you can find virtual assistants that will help you to grow your business.
Fiverr.com
Fiverr.comThe contractors on this platform originally offered their services for $5. Hense their name. They would write content, do your graphic designs, and all sorts of jobs each for just 5 bucks.
As to be expected, prices have evolved for Fiverr and now it’s easy to spend 30, 40, to 50 dollars just getting some content written or having a page added to your website.
If you want it done within the same day then the price bumps even higher for a Fiverr gig.
It can get crazy expensive, so I don’t go on Fiverr much anymore.
I do however recommend it if you’re just getting your feet wet and want something done such as getting your WordPress installed, transferring your website to another hosting company, getting a whiteboard animation video created, etc at a relatively low cost.
Fiverr is great for one-off, task-based virtual assistant services.
UpWork.com
UpWork.comYears back, UpWork.com was called odesk.com. Besides a change in their company name, their rates have also changed considerably over the years. But more on that in a bit.
I have spent around $75,000 on UpWork, (odesk.com at that time) hiring virtual assistants and paying people to do the task-based stuff I needed for my business.
What I like about this platform is there is a larger selection of more skilled individuals for your virtual assistant jobs.
You can also hire your virtual assistant from the Philippines who are willing to work for $5 to $6 per hour. Meanwhile, virtual assistants from the U.S can charger $30 or more for their virtual services.
The pricing model is what I don’t care for on UpWork. They keep jacking up their price for virtual assistant services, and the company gets 20% of what you’re paying your virtual employee.
What makes it worse is in addition to the 20%, they also charge a transaction fee of 3%
Because these contractors are getting a 20% hit on their pay, they usually charge more for their virtual services.
On the plus side, the review system for UpWork is great, showing what kind of jobs their virtual assistants have done and the relevance of those jobs to what you’re searching for.
Overall, it’s an expensive platform, although you can find a good amount of amazing VAs there.
Kapa99
Kapa99From my early days of entrepreneurship, I have since left Fiverr and UpWork for all of my graphics projects and have since become a customer of Kapa99.com.
Kapa99 offers unlimited graphics for the fixed rate of $400 per month. A BALLER deal! Kapa99 manages the process of having the tasks delegated and completed while all you need to do is upload your virtual assistant jobs.
You receive your finished product between 24 to 48 hours which is pretty impressive.
When you realize how important it is for your business to utilize medias such as Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest and Facebook, the way you think of your business shifts. That shift involves including digital media as a key ingredient to making your products and services look appealing to the world.
All of those platforms require consistently targeted images specifically for your audience, which means you need a reliable resource for the many graphics you’ll need.
Upwork and Fiverr are no comparison to Kapa99.com, which has delivered on all of my digital graphics needs and has genuinely enhanced our business.
MyFunnelDev.com
Sales funnels are vital to your business.
But sales funnels take time to set up. It takes time to integrate them with your auto-responder, time to set up a membership course, deliver your deliverables, and all of the pixel and tracking codes necessary to optimize them.
This is where myfunneldev.com comes in. I have been using Dave’s services for many years, and he has saved me from the trainwreck I was in when I needed an alternative to ClickFunnels. I have no idea how many hours of wasted time he has kept me from.
MyFunnelDev.com service is a fixed rate and will do a task every day for one monthly price, currently at $99 a month. Outsource your lead generation and sales systems to an expert in the business.
Onlinejobs.ph
Onlinejobs.phThe first place I go nowadays to hire my virtual assistants is Onlinejobs.ph.
Onlinejobs.ph offers a selection of good quality VA candidates for the best overall deal. You can also choose from Task-based to Full-time virtual employees depending on your virtual team needs.
Here's a full onlinejobs.ph review that goes deeper into this platform.
Pros and cons right?
Filipino virtual assistants, are the best in the world. They’re loyal, hardworking and are an incredible value for your investments. There are challenges though.
Depending on what you’re hiring your virtual assistant for, you can come up against cultural differences, time zone variations, and native English hurdles.
But really, some of those “challenges” can be a pretty big positive for your business as well.
Your virtual team can work into your evening hours or even while your sleeping and can offer unique perspectives and inputs.
From my business development journey and experience, over time I have perfected the 5 hiring hacks to use to hire your virtual assistants.
There are over 500,000 resumes of virtual assistants on onlinejobs.ph which is why you need to be able to weed out duds.
Strategically interview them with your business goals in mind and make sure you not only mesh well but can get on the same page with the goals.
When I execute the five virtual assistant hiring hacks, I find the cream of the crop at onlinejobs.ph.
Hiring A Virtual Assistant from the Philippines the Easy Way
Hiring is a difficult, time consuming process but you don’t need to do it all by yourself.
As mentioned, VAs in the Philippines are the best in the world, but you don’t have the time nor the energy to sort through the 500k resumes on onlinejobs.ph.
You can outsource the hiring process from the Philippines too!
Virtual Staff Finder is a company that will pre-qualify your filipino virtual assistant candidates and interview them for you. This service requires a premium upfront, and then they do the rest.
If you need a virtual assistant, designer, development, etc., but you don’t want to go through the long and tedious process of searching for, hiring and interviewing individuals for your virtual team, then it’s absolutely worth the $500 to outsource the hiring process.
Virtual Staff Finder is a professional team who will do it all for you.
How to Empower and Manage Virtual Teams
While you're considering hiring your first virtual assistant, you also need to need to start thinking about empowering your virtual team.
Remember the benefits of that initial personality test? It can be one tool you can use to become a better leader within your virtual team.
I wouldn’t recommend putting your leadership approach on the back burner and only start thinking about it once you have 3,4 & 5 VAs. You want to set the tone from the very beginning.
You have to establish the environment your virtual assistants will be working in. And as I mentioned before, you want to be able to identify candidates that will not only mesh with your personality but who can also effectively get behind your mission.
This culture my wife and I have created for our business is the one thing that nobody else can duplicate. It’s going to be entirely unique to your business.
No one else can re-create the vision you have on the inside of you; this is why competition is a myth, no one can be exactly like you.
In the beginning, you’re going to need to be in the trenches with your virtual team, establishing the standards for your customer service representatives and recreating the essence of your design flair, and the marketing of your brand.
Your virtual assistants will also need to be empowered by your standards and passion for your social media posts, and messages that are sent to your email list.
By being in the middle of your brands’ culture, your customers will feel your care, and experience recreated by your virtual team.
By being hands-on with your virtual team, you will be building the foundational framework for your business’ culture, and you’ll be grateful later on that you did.
Ensure your culture is permeated in everything you put out there to the world and your virtual team will buy into that more than money, time off, and any other benefits you can offer them.
Why? Because your virtual assistants will be working for something that is larger than themselves. Their daily tasks are furthering a vision, fulfilling a mission and purpose.
Train and Educate Your Virtual Assistants About the Mission and Vision of Your Business
Train your virtual team on the values of your brand that you want your customers to experience.
Share this mission with your VAs, and they’ll be indoctrinated by this culture since there’s a close connection with the tasks they do, how you operate, and how you relate with your virtual team and your customers.
This culture crafting in your organization is immensely valuable.
One-on-one coaching, directing, and care bringing each or your virtual assistants into that culture is what will make sure each element of your virtual team is working towards that aim.
This is the key to empower your virtual team.
How To Keep Your Great Virtual Assistants
If you begin with low-cost virtual assistants, you will lose them when your business begins to grow and if you do not scale their pay accordingly.
You want your virtual assistants to be able to reap the benefits of your growing business as quickly as possible, proving yourself as a competitive employer compared to anyone else in their home country.
Give your team weekends and holidays off, and make sure they have the kind of lifestyle freedom that will motivate them to stay committed to your business for the long term.
Even with a small budget, you can scale your team, and eventually your business. We’ve done it, and our business was totally bootstrapped.
You can make that happen, too! It’s okay to hire cheap but as the revenue of your business grows, increase their pay as well.
It’s no fun to start over at ground zero with a new virtual assistant.
Be competitive, allowing them to make more than anywhere else in their country while instilling your business culture within them and see them as lifelong employees.
My New Virtual Team Challenge
I love being in the middle of my virtual team.
It is how our business has been so successful, we’ve trained each one of our virtual assistants with our business culture behind everything we do.
Since the launch of the Miles Beckler brand back in late 2016, being in the middle of our virtual team has changed.
With this shift, it is no longer practical to be in the middle.
However, I don’t currently have a virtual assistance serving as my project manager. Before now, I haven’t needed one but this person would free up some of my time to focus more on my videos and building up the Miles Beckler brand.
That’s the Hiring Challenge I did not anticipate when I started.
At what point in your business should you bring in a key player or something like your first line of defense?
Initially, you need to be in the middle to get things done the way you want them done and to develop the work and team atmosphere that makes your brand, yours.
It was a slow and organic process growing our business and took time for us to get where we are.
We made it all happen with me in the middle of our virtual team, I managed everything and was the backbone key player. We put in a lot of time, energy and money to grow our brand.
As we have progressed, there’s now a second brand in the making, which created this new challenge for me.
My Full Virtual Team Revealed
For our business, the goal was to keep Melanie creating content. I needed to shield her so she could have the energy to write smashing content every day and continue putting out content for our blog and mp3 recordings.
Depending on where you are in your business development, you can look for reliable virtual assistant services and build your virtual team around your weaknesses while you focus on your strengths.
Virtual Assistant Service Examples
I hope by showing you how my virtual team is set up, you can build a direction in your mind for what full-time virtual assistant you should hire next.
Here is my current, full virtual team.
Virtual Assistant Graphic Designer
I have a graphic designer VA who takes care of my development work. He also used to do WordPress development back in the day but because I was running an arbitrage-based business I had two different people working mainly on that.
When I chose to close down this service, I figured there’s no need for me to keep a full-time designer and a developer.
I decided to mash those tasks and give them both to just one virtual assistant. It’s tricky to find only one person who can do both, but they're out there.
Enhance Customer Support With a VA
Years back, I had a job in a call center that gave me at least 8 years of corporate experience in customer support.
So yeah, I would say I’m good at this kind of job, but then again it’s not the best use of my time since there are other more significant tasks to do.
My mistake was I did all of the customer support all by myself. I did the emails, I answered calls and did all that stuff which took a lot of time and energy to do.
Since we have a massive email list that keeps on growing, it’s just no longer practical for me to undertake this role.
The amount of questions that need to be answered, feedback responses, and thank you replies that go with over 100,000 subscribers is astronomical.
So the best move forward was to hire a virtual assistant to handle all of our customer support needs. We hired a full-time virtual customer service representative who works 40 hours and has been fantastic!
But I realized just one customer support wouldn’t suffice. Of course, she would need a vacation at one point. She might get sick, have some emergencies at home, after all, she’s human.
My ultimate goal is to keep my virtual team happy to make sure they stay with me and keep doing a fantastic job.
Hiring, training, firing, rehiring, and retraining VAs every month or so can be a pain, so I want to keep my staff for as long as possible.
That’s why I hired a backup for her.
My full-time customer support rep trained her back up. Now I have two reliable virtual assistants handling customer support concerns and feedback. This second hire was a game changer.
A virtual assistant To Write Your Content
I have a booming YouTube video marketing channel up and running, but I also want to keep up with my blogs for my written content.
I know my audience has different ways of taking in information, which is what the 3 Pillar Marketing Strategy is for.
I have a virtual assistant who transcribes my video content through Trint. Then, he re-writes it in written form, copy-edits it and sends it back to me as a post on my blog.
I give it to my virtual designer who works on the header images, Pinterest images, etc., and then uploads it to my WordPress blog.
On average, we put out a post or two every week, and that’s been going great.
So again, I make the best use of my time and energy by just doing the videos while my virtual assistants handle the transcribing, writing, posting on WordPress.
That’s my personal system. It’s efficient, effective, and productive, and I continue focusing on creating more content.
Virtual Assistant Editor
My wife has written our blogs since day one. However, editing a massive eBook to sell on Amazon, adding instagram posts, tweets and Facebook posts is job in itself.
The editing that needs to be done can take up an enormous amount of time. This is where a virtual assistant editor can be a huge help.
It made sense for Melanie to have a final editor so that she can keep on writing and get that content out onto those different platforms.
Layout Design VA
We also have a layout design VA who designs our eBooks. He does the actual document design and has been on our virtual team for a while.
Currently, we’re in a transitory period since signing up on the awesome flat rate at kapa99.com.
Figuring out this transition right now but we are currently doing both.
Outsource Your Bookkeeping
I can’t emphasize enough that EVERY business needs to have a Certified Public Accountant (CPA).
I highly recommend hiring a CPA as soon as possible. As you move forward in your business, your CPA will be your guide in tax preparation which I’m telling you is a heck of a task to do.
I seriously don’t know what I would do without my CPA.
He’s an indispensable component in helping us with our tax prep to guiding us to the best kind of business entity to establish
But then again, you have to factor in the cost…
Here in the US, hiring a CPA is very costly, and many of the things a CPA does a virtual assistant bookkeeper can do too.
That’s why we hired a bookkeeper who charges significantly less than just having a CPA racking up hours and hours doing math for us.
Our virtual bookkeeper manages the books and keeps up all of our numbers month to month. When tax time comes, I pass the data over to my CPA.
This is more cost effective, quicker and all around a much more straightforward process.
Integrations Specialist on My Virtual Team
My virtual team could NEVER be complete without an integrate Pro. By handling everything from my email optins, campaigns, memberships and shopping cart, he successfully takes a ton of work off of my plate.
He’s a MAJOR resource in pushing our business forward, and I’m super grateful for this guy.
The stuff he does is impressive and considering what kind of a beast an Active Campaign is to optimize; it helps me so much having him handle the jobs he does.
I pay Dave a large monthly fee to have him work on all of this stuff, and he’s worth every dollar!
Dave and I are testing out an integrations program that cost significantly less than what I pay him. You can check it out on myfunneldev.com.
Dave does an fantastic job at helping me push my business forward.
Scale Your Virtual Team, Scale Your Business
Scaling your business and your virtual team is tough. If you haven't begun outsourcing yet start with one task at a time.
What is one task that you dread doing? One that you really don't have the know-how in or have not had the time to fit it in even though you’d like to have it done or see it as a necessity for your business?
When you’re first getting started with outsourcing, you’re going to need to find virtual assistants who can give you quality work who will also accept the pay you’re able to offer.
Initially, you’re going to be limited by whatever your budget allows.
That's why I love onlinejobs.ph budget filter.
If you know you only have $100 a week to spare on virtual assistant services, onlinejobs.ph allows you to set your filter to match your outsourcing budget.
Hiring Virtual Assistants and Empowering Your Virtual Team Pays Off!
You will make mistakes; you will have disappointments with task-based outsourcing and full-time hiring. If you can execute this flawlessly, please share your method with me!
In the business world, there’s going to be plenty of opportunity for creative solutions.
When something doesn’t work out the way you want it to, you have to be willing to adapt from your newfound perspective.
Commit to the process of hiring and grafting a virtual team into your remarkable business culture. Bring in people who will bring your business value and who resonate with your values and principles.
It may look scary, intimidating, messy, and even a time-suck kind of experience. But the payoff of your virtual team building efforts is worth all of it.
You’re creating a lifestyle business, more freedom for yourself, and ultimately helping yourself achieve your personal goals without being tied up or feeling stuck in where you are today.
When you have competent virtual assistants accomplishing your goals for you, helping to remove roadblock after rockblock, you’re unlocking virtually unlimited potential for your business.
And that’s the game plan, to build a successful online business!
Got some comments, questions, feedback on how to hire a virtual assistant? Questions about building your virtual team?
I’m here to help if you need some advice.
Just ask below.