Hiring a Virtual Assistant—Everything You Need to Know

I have quite a bit of experience hiring help for my online businesses, but only on a project to project basis. iPhone applications, copywriting and web design are usually what I hire out for.

Lately, however, I've been incurring a lot of daily tasks in some of my businesses (mostly geared around the Niche Site Duel and other niche sites that I'm building) that I believe would be better suited for a full time VA. Working online for two years now, I know just how valuable my time is and where my time should be invested to give me the most return. Plus, I'd like to keep things as passive as possible, and utilizing a VA will help keep me from working during the beginning phases of some of these potential passive income streams. Tasks such as building a website and building backlinks, as much as I enjoy doing those things (I really do!), should probably be handed off to someone else.

For my niche site in the duel, I will continue to do things on my own as much as I possibly can.

As you may already know, last week my buddy Tyrone Shum hosted a free webinar where I basically asked him as many questions as possible about hiring a full time VA. Tyrone has a team of full time VAs working for him and also runs a very successful outsourcing training course.

The webinar was fantastic! He answered all of my questions in full detail, and we were even able to answer questions from many of you too.

The webinar session and audience Q&A are embedded for you below, and underneath each video you'll see an outline of exactly what was covered:

Outsourcing Webinar (1 hour 10 minutes)

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Download to Your Computer (Right-click > Save Target As)—215MB

• What are the benefits of working with a VA?
• Where do you find good VA's?
  • BestJobs.Ph
  • Virtual Assistant Board
  • Virtual Staff Finder
• How do you actually “hire” a VA?
• How do you know if a VA will be good for you or not?
• Are contracts necessary and what does one look like?
• What is the normal price for a VA?
  • See Chris Ducker's post on How Much Do I Pay My VA? [Editor's note: This site is no longer active.]
• Payments—how do they work? When do you pay and how?
• How do you give your VA web access to your stuff? Is it safe?
• What can you expect from your VA, and what can they expect from you?
• How do you communicate with your VA?
• Do VAs have their own software to do everything you need them to do?
• How do you manage your VA, making sure they are doing everything you want them to do?
• Special Trial Offer for Tyrone's Course for SPI Readers Only [Full disclosure: I make a commission if you purchase through this affiliate link.]

Public Q&A (28 minutes)

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Download to Your Computer (Right-click > Save Target As)—65MB

• How would you outsource backlinking?
• Full-time or contracting? Which one gives you the most bang for your buck?
• Do they have article spinning software, and if not, do you have to purchase it for them?
• How much time does a VA actually save you each day?
• How much vacation time are you supposed to give your VAs?
• What is a “recurring task” that you could give your VA?
• Is there any kind of legal action you can take against a VA if they don't play by the rules?
• What business hours do you have your VAs work?
• Is there liability insurance involved when hiring a VA through a parent company?
• Do you prefer a female or male VA?
• Can you search for specific skills from a VA, like ebook writing?
• Would you rather have one person who can do 10 different jobs, or one person for each specific job?
• Can they ever trick you into charging for more hours than they actually worked?
• How does hiring a VA affect your taxes?
• How much do you pay your VA per hour?
• Do you ever have meetings with your VA?

As you can see, we covered a lot of info. I am still doing some more research, but I am planning to meet with some experts soon and I'll definitely make sure to report back on what I find out.

A special thanks again to Tyrone Shum for taking the time to share his outsourcing expertise with us, and also for the trial offer for his outsourcing course which is only available to SPI readers for a limited time. [Full Disclosure: I earn a commission on trial offer signups if you go through this link.]

Feel free to leave any additional questions you may have in the comments section.

I'm off to Vegas for Blog World Expo, but I'll post some updates and photos while I'm there. Cheers!