#15 – Danielle Cuomo – Grow your business the right way with USA based Virtual Assistants!
When we launched in 2008, the concept of using Virtual Assistants was new, unproven and it raised more questions than it answered. That era of uncertainty passed some time ago. These days, we hear more about the risk of not using a Virtual Assistant. Businesses of all shapes and sizes, from 1-person shows to corporations, want to be nimble, flexible, and use the most relevant technology to be productive.
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Show Notes and Highlights from the Episode are below.
How does someone know when they need to hire a virtual assistant? 0:06
How to get over the “I can do it myself” hump? 2:02
What should someone look for when they hire a virtual assistant? 3:06
What are the different types of outsourcing? 5:25
What are some of the most common outsourced tasks? 7:52
Are there certain things you wouldn’t want a virtual assistant to do? 11:41
Common mistakes people make when outsourcing and how you can avoid 12:39
How to keep a virtual assistant happy 14:38
Pros and cons of choosing an individual verse a team? 17:32
How to know when you fire your virtual assistant if things are working well 19:40
The Virtual Assist USA process, pricing, and who you should consider them vs. someone else 21:06
Can you trust your data using a Virtual Assistant? 24:05
WHAT SHOULD SOMEONE LOOK FOR WHEN THEN HIRE A VA?
“well, there are a few things to think about. So one, you touched on with the offshore versus American companies. And so, really, when you’re thinking about hiring a virtual assistant, that’s really one of the first things that you want to think about. Do you want to go offshore? Do you want to stay in the US? And then, from there, you want to talk about the virtual assistance experience. So in my company, we only hire virtual assistants with a minimum of 10 years of experience if you’re looking in like the five to 10-year range is a good range to look for.
You don’t want someone just starting entry-level working remotely or virtually because it’s very different from working in an office, and there’s a different set of skillsets. Doesn’t always translate well from office to remote. So the person must have experience working as a virtual assistant. Another thing that you want to look at is how the VA bills.
So a lot of VA’s will bill monthly, and some do not roll over their hours. So if you want to do 20 hours a month, you’re committed to 20 hours every month. And you have to find 20 hours of work every month. So it’s important to look for a company that does rollover hours, or they are more flexible where you don’t have to commit to a certain number of hours per month.”
SOME COMMON TIPS AND MISTAKES WHEN HIRING A VA
“So one of the more common mistakes that I see, and I touched on it a little bit, but spending enough time at the outset with the virtual assistant. So that’s really important. The relationship with your virtual assistant is very close. And so you must get along on a personal level as well.
As I had said, most clients come to me, and they’re really swamped. They’re at their boiling point. They really need a virtual assistant. And so it can be hard in a busy schedule like that too, to set aside an hour to meet with your virtual assistant each week to talk about projects and priorities and things like that.
But that’s really important. I can’t stress that enough to develop that rapport with your VA to talk to your VA about why you’re doing what you’re doing and why you want the VA to do what you’re requesting them to do. For example, if you’re talking to a VA about doing some research on some competitors, you could certainly say, research these five competitors, but if you take it a step further and you say research these five competitors because, in the next three years, I think that we’re going to grow enough to acquire one of them.
And I want to start thinking about that. You’re giving the VA a little bit more information. You’re telling them your vision, what your ultimate goal is with that task. And it just helps the VA get in a different mindset with the task as well. So I think the lack of communication is a big mistake that a lot of people make.”
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