Build a Virtual Assistant Team

August 26, 2008 | 4 Comments

Siluetas 2

What is better: A virtual assistant team or one great virtual assistant?

My Virtual Assistant Network may not like this article.  However, I exist in that vague in-between region of helping virtual assistants become better marketers and a higher value to their clients vs helping business people use virtual assistants to improve their business process and get the best return on the money they spend.

So let me recommend something to you - do not hire a virtual assistant.  Hire a team of virtual assistants.  Not a pre-built team.  Build your own.

Here is why.

  • Not all your eggs in one basket.
  • Focus on a few tasks for each VA
  • Measure the effectiveness of each virtual assistant and expand or cancel based on individual performance.
  • Get one experienced virtual assistant to manage the team of other virtual assistants
  • If one person stops being a VA, you are not so dependent on one person.  You can more easily replace a limited skill set and focused tasks instead of one person that has been running your entire Internet marketing strategy.
  • You can leverage better pricing by expanding your work with someone slowly.
  • A business can see how a Virtual Assistant performs on a small number of tasks before entrusting them with more tasks.

Building a team of virtual assistants is cost effective and more stable for you in the long run.  It is also wise because you can hire the best VA for each task.  Blog writers are not necessarily good at online advocacy or link building.

Define how you would like to measure the success of each virtual assistant and hire a virtual assistant manager to coordinate and send you reports.  Of course, this only happens after you have a few VA’s that you have engaged and are working with.

This is even true if you are only hiring writers.  Hire 3 to do 2-3 articles or blog posts each.  Compare all the articles.  Which ones are most likely to get linked to?  Which ones are best for search engines?  Then hire all three if they are good.  Or hire the best one.  But remember, if you only hire one, he could later stop writing, become exclusive with another client or raise his pricing.  So having a team of writers is safer for you.

A virtual assistant can help you.  A virtual assistant team can transform your business and help you exceed your goals in less time.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

Virtual Assistant Skills

August 22, 2008 | Leave a Comment

Ladybug in the swirlYou may wonder how to find out what skills are the strongest for a Virtual Assistant you are preparing to hire.  One of the key reasons we started the virtual buzz assistant network is to help virtual assistants hone in on high value skills and only offer those skills to people that need them.

Internet Marketing takes a lot of time and you cannot set it up and forget it.  A virtual assistant to help you succeed on the web is a great option for many businesses.  But how do you figure out what their skills really are?

One thing I like to do is ask them to rank their skills from high to low.  Then you cannot say you are good at all of them.  Give them a list of the 5 or 10 skills you would like them to have and ask them to rate them in order.  Let them know it is part of the hiring process, and they cannot say two are equal.

Next, in a follow up, ask why they rated a skill (if you are interested in that skill) that high.  Specifically ask for examples that you can check out.  Ask the virtual assistant how many clients have used that specific skill of theirs and ask for references.

In our virtual assistant directory you can view the profiles of virtual assistants and see what skills they list on a 1 to 5 level of experience.  This gives you a good place to start.  In our directory you will only find skills that pertain to internet marketing.

While finding the most skilled virtual assistant is important, keep in mind that your budget may not let you hire the top virtual assistant.  We have seen that the virtual assistants with extensive experience are often booked because they are such a good value.  In that case, if you have a small budget, you may have to work with a less experienced and skilled virtual assistant since they are often willing to take a lower rate in order to expand and improve their skills.

The best skill a virtual assistant can have to begin with is to listen to a client and repeat back to him exactly what he wants to have done.  Without good communication and organization, a virtual assistant lacks the most important skill to keep clients happy long-term.

Posted by Ron McDaniel | Filed Under Blog 

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