What Can A Virtual Assistant Do For Me?
I get asked this question a lot.
The short answer is that a virtual assistant can help you with almost any administrative task.
Of course, it’s a little more complicated than that.
Ideal tasks for virtual assistants are those that don’t require deep knowledge about your business, don’t need a lot of explanation or training, do need to be done on a recurring basis, and also help you make more money.
However, most businesses don’t have a lot of “ideal tasks.” After all, if something is easy to hand off, you’ve probably already delegated it.
The trick is how you get things done that are NOT easy to hand off.
Here’s the strategy that works for us…
Begin by finding a competent person and committing to work with them over time.
Then make the first projects you give your virtual assistant work that can be done without knowing a lot about your business - but that will teach them about your business as they do them.
These projects should be things that need to be done over and over again, so once you teach your virtual assistant how to do the work, they can take responsibility for it (and get it off your plate for good).
Start with marketing projects…
We like to begin with marketing projects, because they need to be done over and over again each month (which means you can keep your virtual assistant busy without it taking a lot of your time and effort to keep coming up with new ideas for projects).
Marketing projects also directly influence revenue (when you make more money, it’s easier to justify paying for a virtual assistant).
Plus it’s easy to find instructions other people have written that you can give your virtual assistant so they know what to do. (Shameless plug… We sell these instructions, which we call “Easy Projects,” as part of our Help Without Hiring Toolkit. But you can also find them on places like eHow.)
Sales projects and customer support projects are also good starting points.
All 3 of those types of projects - marketing, sales and customer support - can be easy to give someone (without it taking a lot of your time), are recurring, and help you grow your business. They also teach your assistant a lot about your business - your assistant comes to understand your products and why people buy them, gets to know your customers, and learns how you like things done.
Then hand off other projects…
Once your virtual assistant has been working for you for awhile, you can start handing off the non-ideal projects - those projects that require a deeper knowledge of your business to do properly.
You’ll find them a lot easier to hand off when you are giving them to someone who knows your business.
Want more information about what a virtual assistant can do for you?
This week’s free template lists 70 projects a virtual assistant can do for you:
Project Checklist: Administrative Tasks
Here’s an ebook written by Karen Reddick, a virtual assistant who specializes in working with authors, for $12.95 that lists even more ways to work with a virtual assistant:
A to Z Guide: Best Ways to Work with A Virtual Assistant
Here’s an FAQ from the Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce that has tips about how to use a virtual assistant:
Client’s Guide to Working With a Virtual Assistant
Interviewing Tips and Techniques
Interviewing can be fun. Or one of the most time-consuming and frustrating parts of the outsourcing process.
Choose fun.
Use screening and preliminary interviews to cut back the the number of people you interview to a minimum. Then use your time on the phone with them wisely - listening more than you talk - so you get the information you need to make the right decision.
When you only do a few interviews and keep the time they take to a minimum, you can focus on the best part - meeting and getting to know people who will contribute their time and ideas to help you propel your business to the next level.
This week’s free template offers tips for interviewing a virtual assistant or freelancer. Good questions to ask the person you are interviewing are included in 4 other templates; good questions to ask references are included in another.
This template focuses on the interview process:
- What to listen for during the interview,
- What you need to find out by the end of the interview,
- Doing preliminary email interviews to save time,
- Evaluating skills, and
- Finalizing your decision.
Download the free template here:
www.proresource.com/freetemplate.html
Need Marketing Project Ideas?
This week’s free template is a checklist of marketing projects that you can outsource to a virtual assistant or marketing freelancer.
Some are simple and easy to outsource; others require a fair bit of knowledge about your business and would be more suitable for someone who has been working for you for awhile.
If you’re working on a marketing plan for 2010 or just want to spark some ideas, this is a good starting point.
As always, you can get the free template here:
Help Without Hiring Toolkit - Free Template
Want more marketing ideas? Check out my other blog at www.MarketingIdeasYouCanCopy.com…
Get More Leverage When Outsourcing
Leverage is the ability to expand the results you get with a given amount of effort.
Outsourcing is a perfect example of something designed to provide leverage.
By having some else do work for you, you’re getting greater results with the same amount of effort on your part.
But does outsourcing automatically provide leverage?
No, it doesn’t.
Outsourcing one-time projects, for example, provides very little leverage.
Sometimes you have to do it – for example, when you outsource the design of your website because you just don’t know how to do a website yourself.
Then you have no choice – unless you can spare the time to learn how to build a website yourself, you have to outsource.
But it’s hard to save time or get more done when you have to invest the large amount of effort it typically takes to educate and manage someone who is doing their first project for you. One-time projects are very time-intensive.
Your leverage comes from outsourcing recurring work, where after you invest time in teaching someone else what to do, they can take over the project for you – and do it again and again and again.
You get even more leverage when you outsource a “role” – in other words, when you outsource not just work but responsibility for an area in your business.
At that point you are handing off not just tasks, but mindshare. The other person is thinking through the issues and making decisions for you. That gives you much greater leverage.
But it’s hard to hand off responsibility for an area of your business. It’s not something you can do lightly.
You need to work with someone for long enough that you have confidence that they are ready to act on your behalf and make decisions the way you would want them made.
Are you ready to do that in one area of your business?
Find out with this week’s free template, Ready to Outsource a Role?
Even Solo Businesses Need Nurture Marketing
This week’s free template is for a type of marketing that every small business needs, even one-person businesses.
It’s called Nurture Marketing.
The template walks you through the steps involved in setting up a nurture marketing program (also sometimes called “drip marketing”) for your business.
As always, it’s something you can do for yourself. But it’s also a project that is ideal for outsourcing, which is why it is one of our Easy Projects.
What is Nurture Marketing?
Here’s the description from the template:
Every business should have a nurture program in place to keep prospects warm until they are ready to buy. Ideally, you send them something every month until they become a customer. Your goal with the mailings is to:
• Educate people about your products and services
• Educate them about the value you provide (why your solutions are worth what you charge)
• Build credibility that you do good work and will deliver good results
• Show that yours is an exciting business – one that is growing and where good things are happening
How to Use Nurture Marketing
There are lots of ways to use Nurture Marketing:
1. If you have a long sales cycle, you can use a nurture program to maintain mindshare throughout the sales cycle.
2. If you have leads that are not fully qualified yet (people who have expressed an interest but are not ready yet to step into your sales cycle) you can use a nurture program to stay in touch with them until they are ready to buy.
3. If there are common misconceptions about your products or services, you can use a nurture program to educate prospects and correct the misconceptions.
4. If you have people who you would like to become prospects, even though they have not contacted you yet (and might not even have heard about you), you can put them into a nurture program to start warming them up.
5. If you have people who refer business to you, you can use a nurture program to stay in touch with them and keep them up-to-date on what’s new with your company.
Low-cost, easy to do
One of the great things about Nurture Marketing programs is that they typically are fairly inexpensive to run. If you use direct mail and you mail pieces you print off yourself or already have on hand, the cost is basically just postage. You can make it even less expensive by doing your nurturing via email.
I’ve written about Nurture Marketing in both of my other blogs. You can check out the posts here:
Start a Nurture Program
5 Lowest Cost Marketing Strategies
For this week only, the instructions for setting up a Nurture Marketing program are the free template. You can get it here:
Nurture Marketing
What You Need to Accomplish With a First Project
If you have been reading this blog for awhile you know that we don’t recommend outsourcing one-off projects.
Instead we recommend that you find someone you can work with on a regular basis, who can handle a variety of similar projects for you.
When you are looking for someone you can have a longer relationship with, the first project is important.
You need to find out several things:
1. Can they do the work?
Yes, they looked good on paper and sounded good on the phone. Now you need to see if they can actually do the type of work you need done.
You need to find out… Did they do the work right? Did they pay attention to the details? Was it what you asked for? Was it the level of quality you need?
2. Do you like working with them?
Are they reliable? Did they understand what you wanted? Did they deliver work as promised? Do the two of you get along? Can you see yourself working with them over the long term?
3. Is the price right?
Did they take a reasonable amount of time to do the work? Is the price what you were quoted?
4. How much training do they need?
How quickly did they understand what you were looking for? Did they ask good questions? Did they listen to your answers and act on them? How much more education will they need if they are going to take on bigger projects? How do they learn best?
Choosing that first project…
A good first project is one that lets you answer all of those questions.
It should be something that takes relatively little of your time to pull together.
It should not require you to do a lot of training.
And ideally it should deliver something that will be useful to you whether or not you continue working with this person.
For more tips on choosing a good first project, check out this week’s free template:
What Makes a Good First Project?
And when you sign up for our email newsletter, one of the free reports you get tells you what is the very best first project you can give a new virtual assistant (or anyone who is just starting to work with you).
Sign up here