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Article added or updated:
03/30/2008 |
Hire a Virtual Assistant
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by Damian Hons
So, the decision has been made to hire a virtual assistant...
Knowing your business needs and clearly defining them will be the first
step in the process. A good virtual assistant (or VA) will be asking you
these questions and having the answers ready will get your project
moving in the right direction faster.
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Truly assess your needs.
You may find that your current needs and future needs are different. An
honest evaluation of these needs will lead you in the right direction as
some virtual assistants can offer services that are specific to your
current needs, but may not have the skills for further demands. This is
not a negative thing, however, you should keep this in mind when
interviewing your perspective VA. If that VA can not provide, do they
belong to a network of virtual assistants, or associations that they
could pull help from?
Translating Budget Goals...
Most of the time you will not be pleased with the answers to questions
like “How long is SEO going to take?” and then the answer... “we charge
$x.xx for that service.” WHY SO MUCH?! These answers can be the wrong
answer to you and your perceptions of the VA could be distorted unless
you know your budget. The business owner usually thinks in terms of
total costs, the VA usually thinks in terms of hourly rates. Set your
budget, then take a look at the hourly rate: $25 an hour translates into
$1000 at 40 work hours. How many hours will your job take to do? Add in
the extras and you can determine how much you are ready to spend. Is the
service an ongoing service, or a “one-off”? What is the industry
standard for the work you need done? The more prepared you are with your
budget and how the budget relates to an hourly rate, the better your
search for a VA will be.
Learn the Lingo…
Excuse me? What are you talking about? What is a SOHO and do I need one
of those in my home office? Trade jargon can confuse you or even be
intimidating. Being in a position to make an uninformed decision is not
where a businessman needs to be. You can loose the pace of your
interview when having to ask what an acronym means, or why you might
need whatever it is the VA is talking about.
You can do a simple term search on Google or any search engine, start
with the type of work you need ( i.e. “search engine optimization”) and
then look for unfamiliar words or phrases. Look these new terms up and
you will be a more informed and prepared to contact a VA. Most of the
time you will find other useful tidbits like standard rates and how much
competition there is for the service.
Sometimes it would be nice to just to dump the project onto the VA and
forget it, hoping the work is in competent hands, but that can lead to
disaster. You could be charged for services you don’t need or are too
complicated and difficult to maintain if your relationship with that VA
ends (for what ever reason). Your VA may not even be able to provide the
service needed. For this reason it is wise to at least get familiar with
the technical details and language.
Word-of-Mouth Referrals
What can be said about word-of-mouth referrals, other than they can not
always be trusted but are better than a blind pick out of a directory.
Having said that, you can trust a referral if you have done your
research, set your budget and feel prepared to discuss your project
needs. I am including this information because a referred VA might still
not be the right virtual assistant for you or your business.
Armed with this information, your search for a virtual assistant will be
easier and in the end, the match you make with be a better fit for your
needs.
2004 World Wide Virtual (http://www.world-wide-virtual.us)
About the Author
Damian Hons is World Wide Virtual, a virtual assistant practice that
offers a wide variety of services from Word Processing to Search Engine
Optimization. His web site can be found here - http://www.world-wide-virtual.us
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