Hiring a VA: Why Hire a VA? To Make Your Life Easier

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The world is different today.  It is faster, busier and it is more demanding.  As competing priorities increase, having a reliable Virtual Assistant (VA) by your side helps tremendously.

For me, my VA has been God-sent.  I am sure many can say the same for theirs.  VAs do not cost nearly as much as full time executive assistants, or secretaries that you have to provide an office for.

VAs work remotely, and likely on multiple clients at a time, making their rates very attractive for a successful career individual.  Think about it for a second.  If you are making $90,000 a year with 3 weeks of vacation, your hourly wage is approximately $46 per hour.  You can get a decent VA for $10 an hour.

This arrangement can be more lucrative if you have a side business and are making some money from it.  Think about your VA expense as business related expenditure.  Chances are you are already thin spread for time, and you can use your VA for both personal and business related tasks.

I haven’t factored in the tax component, but if you think about it, all expenses aside from your pre tax medical and dental are likely post tax (meaning after you pay taxes on your income).  Just like most expenses, you are spending money on a VA to get something back, which can be more time with your family, freedom, flexibility and peace of mind.

What Tasks Should You Make Your VA Do?

There are “life outsourcing: gurus out there who go overboard with what they recommend you make your VA do.  My philosophy is fairly simple.  Make your VA do tasks that would take you much longer to explain or do yourself, and those that fit within your comfort level.

Comfort level is important because while having your VA shop for the best deals on airfares, hotels and restaurants that meet your specifications, you will have to hand over your credit card information for the booking or reservation.  Similarly, there are many tasks, routine or otherwise, that require disclosure of more personal information than you may be comfortable with.  Decide prudently.

As far as time investment is concerned, there are tasks you do, then there are tasks best left for a VA.  Think about the time it will take you to explain the task to the VA and the time it will take you to do it yourself.  I don’t need to go any further do I?

The exception is if you want to train your VA for the future and you know there will be several other situations where you will need similar tasks done.  If so, the time investment is worth it, but give some consideration to the fact that your VA may not work for you in the future, whether voluntarily or involuntarily.

I like using VAs for routine reservations (hotels, cars, airfare, restaurants), setting up meetings and appointments, routine bookkeeping, reconciling various accounts and other repetitive tasks.

2 Valuable Tips When You Hiring a VA

Before attempting to outsource work to a VA, I highly recommend you evaluate the tasks very carefully and eliminate as much fat in the process as you can to streamline it.  Expecting your VA to effectively and efficiently complete processes that are flawed to begin with can lead to disaster.  Always eliminate to simplify before you delegate.

Another piece of advice is to get in the habit of writing “one and done” emails, something Tim Ferris talks about repeatedly in his best-selling book The Four Hour Workweek.  This basically means writing emails that reduce, or completely eliminate the need for back and forth correspondence by making the email specific, providing all relevant exceptions and options as part of an if/then scenario.

The idea is to send the email once, and let the recipient figure out all else and get back to you with only the final deliverable, not a response back to you original email asking for further clarification.

This is a good practice to perfect and implement even if you don’t plan on hiring a VA.  There are far too many benefits and efficiencies to be gained by practicing sound, clear and specific communication, even as an employee in the office.

Selecting the Best VA for Yourself

With countless options today, selecting a VA can be a challenge.  I can certainly appreciate that challenge.  If you are willing to find a suitable VA yourself, try websites like odesk and craigslist to hire a VA.

Odesk is definitely the preferred site when hiring a VA given the quality of VAs found through it.  Test out the candidates based on command of English, competence and diligence.  You can usually screen out most unqualified applicants in their first correspondence to you.

Always ask to speak to the VA over Skype (free for all so there should be no excuses) even if you are not going to do it.  This gives you the opportunity to measure command of English, and weed out those that don’t meet your criteria by preventing them from applying for the position.  I like to do this because most applications, resumes and sample materials are pre fabricated.  You want to measure your VAs capabilities in a real time environment.

Always get referrals or clients to speak to who can vouch for the VA’s diligence, work quality and experience.  There is no better testimony than first-hand experience. If you think you’ve found a gem, you might want to train and develop them so they can hopefully someday become an extension of you. That said, always keep attrition in mind.  There is nothing permanent in life except change.

Finally, there are full-fledge VA firms if you are concerned about continuity.  VA firms are staffed with many VAs.  You get an account manager dedicated to you who is your single point of contact.  Your tasks are then farmed out within the firm to those qualified to handle them.  There is a slight premium for these services, but these firms ensure that there will always be someone qualified who can help with your specific needs.

I have never tried VA firms, but have heard some very good things about them.  Let someone else worry about finding and training someone to do the work for you, rather than you looking for a new VA each time the old one leaves.  I am looking into a few firms myself, will try them out and report back here with my feedback.

So if you are struggling to create that ideal balance in life, consider hiring a VA and test out the experience for a few months.  You can always stop and resume your “normal” routine.  Something tells me though that once you go “virtual”, you will never go “normal”.

Readers: What are your thoughts on hiring a VA?  Do you currently have one? How is it going for you?

Here is another compelling case of hiring a VA for your business.

Sunil
Streamlining Life

12 Responses to “Hiring a VA: Why Hire a VA? To Make Your Life Easier”

1. Daniel says:

   January 14, 2011 at 9:23 am

   Sunil,

   Great intro post to the VAs. I know that they have made the process of bootsrapping my company 100x easier than if I tried to do it all myself.

   Elance is another great place that you can find VAs, but Odesk is better for on going work that VAs typically provide.

   I would be interested to hear what outsourcing firms you look at and finally decide to go with. I myself have been considering giving http://www.taskseveryday.com or http://www.asksunday.com/ a try.

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     January 15, 2011 at 10:50 am

     Hi Daniel,

     Good to see you here. I have used a combination of the Elance, Guru, Odesk and Craigslist.

     Elance has been best for technical projects, Guru with writing related and Odesk for ongoing VA assistance as you mentioned. CL is hit or miss as you can guess – there is absolutely no accountability. But I have found some of the best graphic designers on it.

     For SEO and Internet marketing, I recommend Infoyogis. I am preparing to write extensively about this firm, as they handle most my niche content websites.

     Hope that helps.

     Reply
2. Amanda L Grossman says:

   January 21, 2011 at 7:30 am

   Hi Sunil!

   Do you mind emailing me with your trusted VA’s info? I am in need of some website work.

   Thank you!

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     January 21, 2011 at 2:13 pm

     Amanda,

     I have spent some time on your blog as well. Welcome and very good to see you here. I will email you a couple that I deal with based in the Philippines. Excellent command of English, and very helpful. Check your inbox and hope to see you back.

     Reply
3. Helen Thistlethwaite says:

   February 24, 2011 at 1:04 pm

   Great information for those thinking about hiring a VA. However…. if you can get a VA or $10.00 an hour in Australia, you definitely won’t get high quality work. There is no way in the world that I would devalue my many years of extensive experience and training by charging such a low rate. I am not saying that all VAs charging that amount are not any good, I just find it questionable as to why you would go that low. HT

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     February 24, 2011 at 1:43 pm

     Helen,

     I agree with you in that the spectrum is quite wide. In my experience the decision to go with one vs. another often depends on the type of task one needs to get done. Wouldn’t you agree there is something for everyone out there? There is a market for $30 an hour VAs, and there is a market for $10 an hour VAs.

     Reply
4. David Landen says:

   January 17, 2013 at 10:08 pm

   Are most VA’s based outside of the United States? If so, how do you work out the time differences? In addition, do most people have references?
   Thanks,
   David

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     January 18, 2013 at 8:41 am

     not at all David. for example, we have several VAs based in the US (FL, WA, GA) that do sales calls for our SEO firm. you will definitely benefit more from wage arbitrage overseas however (best for technical outsourcing in my experience). many VAs work on the US clock – time difference has never been an issue for me. a good VA will always have references. better yet, site’s like I mention on this blog have reviews publicly displayed, basically references in themselves. does that help? what are you trying to do?

     Reply
5. David Landen says:

   January 18, 2013 at 10:53 pm

   Sunil,
   I don’t have an immediate need for a VA but I do see some people are outsourcing some of their work to them. So far, my blog is just getting started but I do like to think towards the future and anticipate what help I may need. Thanks for your input!
   David

   Reply
   • Sunil says:

     January 20, 2013 at 3:33 pm

     anytime David. feel free to reach out with any questions once you pursue

     Reply
6. Shilpi Roy says:

   May 4, 2013 at 3:27 am

   Virtual Assistants indeed are very helpful and they do make life easier. I too am a Virtual Assistant and looking forward to provide our service.

   Reply
7. Zubair says:

   February 23, 2016 at 12:46 pm

   Hi Sunil,

   Will it be possible to share your VA’s details with me over mail? I need some keyword research work and I hope they can help me with it

   Reply