What’s Stopping You From Using a Virtual Assistant?

outsourcing-projects-for-succedd In Tim Ferriss’ book The 4-Hour Work Week (aka, my 2nd Bible), he dedicates an entire section to VAs and the benefits of hiring virtual assistants to do almost any task for you. At first, I was reluctant to agree with the idea of outsourcing because I was always the one who wanted to do all of the work myself. But, after reading more about VAs and how they could help me, I soon realized the huge advantage I would have by making a VA a part of “my team”.

Now, understand that there are a lot of people out there who use VAs for almost everything they do. If there was a way a VA could cut up their steaks and feed it to them, they’d probably have them do that too. Tim gives an example of a man who asked his VA to “make up with his wife” after they had gotten into a little quarrel. The VA sent his wife an apology letter and some nice flowers. I think if I did that, my wife would be pissed…anyways, I digress.

I’m not so much about outsourcing my personal life, but I did learn that my life was better after outsourcing the things I wasn’t that good at (and even things I was good at) and the things I didn’t enjoy doing.

It been almost a year since I first cracked open Tim’s book, and I’ve since hired a VA on 10 separate occasions, for 10 different projects. I have yet to hire one to do personal things like plan a trip to Asia or find a venue for a birthday party that has a nice room large enough for 25 and serves chicken tikki masala, but here are a few examples and how VAs helped save me some time and ultimately make me happier:

Web Design:

The Smart Passive Income Blog was custom designed by a VA. It’s also being redesigned and upgraded as we speak by the same person. The only work I did was point my VA to websites that I liked and which parts of those websites I wanted on mine. After a couple of
- Hours spent, including posting the job on elance.com and communication with the VA: about 2 hours total
- Estimated amount of time it would have taken me to do it all myself: 20-25 days (researching and implementation)
- Results: a custom designed wordpress blog theme (you’re looking at it!)
- Cost: $250.00

Search Engine Optimization:

When intheleed.com started, I was getting some traffic, but I wanted to take it to a whole new level. I hired a VA who specialized in SEO, and they did a lot of work for me in such little time.
- Hours spent, including writing 2 press releases and blog descriptions for the VA: about 3 hours total
- Estimated amount of time it would have taken me to do it all myself: over 2 months
- Results: the VA and his team posted my press releases to almost a thousand article websites (which created backlinks to my blog), and my blog description to 200 different search engine listings. Within a month, my organic traffic increased by 50%, and I ranked in the top 5 in Google for all but 1 of the 5 keywords I asked for. I was able to reach more visitors, and after my eBook came out, more customers too.
- Cost: $400.00

Web Research:

A lot of times a new business idea pops into my head. In order for me to determine if it’s a good one, or one that is marketable, I need some initial web research done. Instead of spending time to do it all myself, I leave it up to a VA. All I have to do is give the VA exact instructions and a blank excel template with the information I want – and 8 hours later I have tons of data to look at.
- Hours spent, including writing a procedure list and communication with my VA: about 30 minutes for each topic I need research for.
- Estimated amount of time it would have taken me to do it all myself: 8+ hours per topic
- Results: One day I’ll ask my VA for some data, and the next day it’s in my inbox. How awesome is that?! The data is as good as your procedure lists allow it to be, so it’s really important to tell the VA exactly how much detail you’re looking for.
- Cost: $1.67/hour. Yes, I said $1.67 an hour. (thanks to odesk.com)

Other Projects:

Here are some other project I’ve also hired online help for:

iPhone applications: Quoc, my business partner at LOLer Apps, actually just wrote an awesome post about why we outsourced our ideas. It’s actually his first blog post ever, so if you have any nice comments, I’m sure he’d really appreciate it!
Voice Talents: I hired a voice talent for my audio book to go along with my intheleed.com eBook.
A Flash movie: As I’m writing this blog post, I’m actually on Skype at the same time talking to a VA about creating a flash movie for me as a presentation tool for a contest I’m entering. Once it’s finished, I’ll give you all the details. I’m really excited about it!

Conclusion:

Outsourcing work was such a weird idea to me at first, but it has opened up many opportunities and has given me more time to work on things that I really want to do. Personally, it’s also really fulfilling to play a project manager role while working on these VA projects.

If you’re interested in hiring a VA someday, I wrote a helpful post on LOLer Apps that has gotten some nice buzz on the net about how to maximize the potential of your project while working with a VA. Check it out, because it’s applicable to all outsourcing projects, not just iPhone apps.

Have you ever outsourced anything? How was the experience? If you haven’t yet, what are your reservations? Any questions?

Posted on : May 18th, 2009

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30 Comments (Click Here to Leave a Comment Below)

Reply watzmann on May 19th, 2009 at 4:30 am

Thank you so much for this article. It opened my mind. There are so many professionals out there who can make some jobs much better than me. Any by the way, $1.67/hour is less than a coffee in Germany.

Reply Pierre on May 19th, 2009 at 5:01 am

wow- i was struck at phase A… now its time to get things going! By the way, thanks!
best regards from Canada… here the coffee is above 1.67…

Reply DDFD at DivorcedDadFrugalDad.com on May 19th, 2009 at 5:12 am

I love the Ferris book and I have been discussing it with a friend lately . . .

Funny you mentioned SEO in this post, I have been meaning to ask tou about your approach I guess the cat is out of the bag now . . . Can you email the contact info on that specialist?

Thanks for sharing!

Reply Bluntmoney on May 19th, 2009 at 6:56 am

I’m going to check out odesk – thanks for that resource. I’ve tried to hire VAs on several occasions, but only one project has been successfully outsourced. I’m on board with the idea, but can’t seem to find quality people. (With the stellar exception of the programmers who did my app.)

Reply Jamie Hook on May 19th, 2009 at 7:40 am

Excellent post, i am going to start using more of these VA services, you have finally tipped the balance.

Could you also provide me with the contact details of the SEO guy you used?

Thank you,

Jamie

Reply Craig on May 19th, 2009 at 9:20 am

I am not technical at all so I have been outsourcing design and maintenance although still having some issues. Will check out elance.com to have the blog fixed hopefully. Did you get your SEO guy off of elance.com as well? Would you recommend outsourcing that for a new start-up blog? Looking to get some help with technical and link backs outside of my own work and networking.

Reply Blogging Banks on May 19th, 2009 at 9:20 am

While it seems like a nice idea to leverage the work of others and thus gain more hours in one day, aren’t you afraid that they would steal your ideas?
For example if the coder for your Iphone App knows your idea he could have stolen it and presented it himself and sold it to people.
Another example is the SEO guy with the research could have created a site which is competing with yours, by using all the key words that he gave to you or simply “forgetting” to tell you about a keyword that happens to generate the most traffic.

Reply Pat on May 19th, 2009 at 9:28 am

Good question. This was something I was scared of at first too, especially when outsourcing our iPhone app idea. However, with the use of a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), your ideas can be protected legally. Elance actually offers a sample NDA here:

http://help.elance.com/forums/30970/entries/34759

Also, I usually choose my VA based on their good feedback and reviews from previous clients. I think the last thing a VA would want to do is earn a bad reputation and probably end their VA career (which for some IS their career), for taking someone else’s idea. That beind said, they will understand and not be offended if you want them to sign an NDA.

Thanks for your comment! Great question!

Reply Sonny on May 19th, 2009 at 9:28 am

I have thought of having some kind of virtual assistant especially since most of this web design/seo stuff is new to me. However, I have enjoyed learning so much that I really want to keep going. Maybe if at some point I get to the point where it actually becomes work then I would seriously look into it.

Reply Enrique S on May 19th, 2009 at 10:06 am

I like doing things for myself, and try to learn even the most mundane skills. being new to blogging, I’ve tried to do most of it myself. The only thing that I outsourced so far was the logo and graphics design for my blog. This was a wise choice, as the person did a great job!

Reply Pat on May 19th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
I agree, your logo looks great! Did you find him/her through 99designs.com or another website?
Reply pfincome on May 20th, 2009 at 8:42 am
I outsourced my logo and graphics as well for PFI. I am horrible with graphics so this was a simple decision for me to make.

Reply Steve @ Start-Up on May 19th, 2009 at 2:33 pm

I’ve read Tim’s book as well where I was first introduced to the VA concept. I have yet to use a VA. I don’t want to spend money on things that I can do myself since I’m not making any money. If I was making money from my online ventures, I would consider using a VA to help.

Did you start using VA prior to earning income from your site?

Reply Pat on May 19th, 2009 at 2:37 pm

I started using a VA before my eBook came out. I was already making a few dollars a month via Adsense, at this point – but the SEO help really did boost my adsense and future sales.

Reply Steve on May 19th, 2009 at 8:14 pm

I like your idea of utilizing a VA that has had a lot of good reviews. My next door neighbor is a small business person; he was somewhat disillusioned: bottom line, stated that he got what he paid for. But maybe he did not do enough research. I will be keeping this post, and your experience, in mind for the future.

Reply Rachel on May 20th, 2009 at 1:01 am

Just out of interest – do you have any idea how much time the VA put into each job? You say how long it would have taken you to do it yourself, but a VA specialising in that field should take less time.

I don’t know exactly how odesk works, but I am surprised that people are willing to hire their skills and time out for such a low rate

Reply Pat on May 20th, 2009 at 9:35 am

Hi Rachel,

Let’s see if I can answer your question:

-web design VA: I would guess a total of 40 hours, a weeks worth of his time
-SEO work: I really have no idea
-web research: what happens is they bill the time they spend on your project, so you can delegate exactly how much time you want them to spend on it. I usually do 8 hours at a time. Oh, and the reason I could find someone for $1.67, is because they are from the other side of the world, where $1.67 in American Dollars is about the same as their working salaries in their home countries.
-voice talent: about 40+ hours
-iphone application: about 1 month, 8 hours per day

Hope this helps!

Reply pfincome on May 20th, 2009 at 8:38 am

I have outsourced a few ghost writing articles for a niche blog I worked on last year. I used Elance and thought it was a very rewarding experience. The problem I had was that I didn’t do research on what I really wanted which ended up costing me money.

I am now close to outsourcing some more niche articles through Elance and possibly a new niche website. I am planning only to use passive income funds generated thus far as my budget. That way I can recycle my positive cash flow back into income producing assets.

Reply Nick Green on May 20th, 2009 at 9:57 am

Sorry…I don’t think my question was posted…

I am looking to do almost the same thing for my own site…what VA did you use to submit Press Releases? I tried Get Friday, and it seems they do not have that expertise…

Reply Pat on May 20th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Hi Nick. Actually, it was seogenies, who I found via elance. I believe they do have a website: http://www.seogenies.com.

Reply Web Career Girl on May 20th, 2009 at 10:02 am
Sounds like a really good idea – and amazing that you get such efficient work for that price per hour!

Reply sid on May 20th, 2009 at 10:08 am

I’ve always considered using a virtual assistant but wasnt really sure if it was a good idea. I like the fact that you’ve used seo experts to outsource the traffic to your intheleed website.
thanks for the insightfull info.

Reply Son "sam" Koral on May 20th, 2009 at 1:40 pm

Thanks for another great post!

I too was wondering who did your SEO work. Although I have some traffic that I built up, I can always do with more.
I wanted to know what are some of the things we’d want to as a prospective SEO person prior to hiring them? I mean, since you don’t know exactly how high google will rank you, can you ask them the steps that they would take to ensure that you get as high as possible?

In my case, my website, linked to my name above, has major competition when you do a search on google for “fathers” and “custody”. Is it possible to rank higher, moving other sites down? I currently rank 15 as of today (05-20-2009) but have gone as high as #9.
Will the SEO company tell you what they can do, or is it a “hush hush…that’s our secret!” type thing?

Thanks again for the great blog!

Reply Francis on May 20th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
Thanks Pat for a great post.
Cool!

Reply Francis on May 24th, 2009 at 5:18 pm

Hi Pat,
I am in the process of making a website and was wondering your thoughts about experimenting with this VA. In regards to web design and also uploading the content.
Anyfeed back would be great and also suggestions of where to find a good one. Thanks

Reply Barbaric Links: Summer’s Here Edition | The Corporate Barbarian Blog on May 26th, 2009 at 2:58 am

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Reply Joe on May 26th, 2009 at 7:40 pm

These new and upcoming freelance websites are very exciting. As a web designers and graphic designer I hope to build my personal portfolio through a few of these sites.

The great thing is during this economy many people want to try to save money by using freelance designers. At the same time, many people are out of work and are counting on freelance jobs to have some income coming in. It also will improve their portfolio to obtain that killer job once the economy does turn around. Sounds like a win win for all!

Although I hope to bid on some projects at 99design.com in the near future, I hope to place a project on there so I can have the full experience!

Reply 5 Reasons to Outsource Your Passive Income on June 8th, 2009 at 4:54 am

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Reply Web Career Girl on June 10th, 2009 at 12:19 pm

I love this idea – and the whole hourly rate thing is just amazing! When I am earning a little more from my own projects there is no doubt that I am going to outsource, outsource, outsource!!