If you are like many small businesses or individual Entrepreneurs out there, you are probably looking at ways to make more money or at least cut costs and increase productivity. Perhaps right now you are just looking for ways to survive and keep you and your business a float.
Outsourcing and using Virtual Assistants can be a key component to not just bringing more profit to your business, but in this new world economy, surviving and staying in business.
With more and more city, state, and federal regulations, taxes, and increased costs of benefits, and insurance, hiring a new employee is an expensive, time consuming, and outright scary undertaking these days. Plus let’s face it, It is a big pain in the butt most of the time as well.
The economy and the Government are making it harder and harder to succeed and both are treating businesses like Red Headed step-children and abusing them every time you turn around.
Small businesses with fewer than 20 employees spend an average of $10,585 per employee to comply with federal regulations. That’s $2,830, more, per employee, than it costs larger firms.
Now if that does not say it all, I don’t know what does.
What would you say if I can show you how to avoid all of those costs and most of these hassles completely?
Well, you can with Virtual Assistants. For just the price of complying with the idiotic regulations and red tape, you can almost pay for two virtual assistants working for you full time.
I started using virtual assistants way back in the late 80’s right after email became popular. I did not know I was actually blazing a trail or just how big of a thing I was on to at the time. It was just a necessity. I needed work done and the person that I could afford was not within 1,000 miles of me. So, it was necessary that I figure out how to make this work.
I really started using them again full force back in 2007 when I wrote the books, The 4 Hour Muse and The Muse Blueprint.
Because of the books, I ended up hiring several dozens VA’s and I figured out how to set up a system in which to hire and manage really good Virtual Assistants.
That experience is in no small part responsible for my current success. In all of my business ventures that is not a single employee to be found. Every single one on our team is virtual.
Once I broke free of the mind set that I did not have to be looking at someone’s mug to have them work for me, I was set!
I realized this part of back in 1990 when I was working with several Universities in the US and Europe helping set up their “Distance Learning” protocols and standards. I thought that Virtual Employees would actually catch on much more quickly than it did to be honest. The cost analysis that we did back there were amazing.
Not only does it cut costs, but I truly have access to some of the best minds not just in my town or state, or even country, but in the whole world.
This alone gives my ventures a huge competitive edge. Not only that, when I first started putting together studies on this two decades ago now (crap, has it really been that long? LOL), we saw productivity improvements of over 100% or more in case after case.
Plus the Duhh factor of not having to commute to work, not having to have an office where people constantly pester each other and interrupt each other and that you have to pay for!
Think about not having to get up and get dressed just for the commute alone. I can imagine having to drive to work.
Not only do I save money in not having to pay all of the overhead, but I don’t have to have a pile of red tape to wade through and the expense that goes with it. On top of that, the people I hire over my competition that makes them come into an office to work on average are 300% more productive. How is that for a number?
On top of that, I typically only have to pay about 1/3 in costs to them on an hourly basis. If you include all of the taxes, fees and red tape, my costs are closer to to 1/7th of that of my competition per team member. LOL How cool is that?
I have literally some of the brightest most capable people in the world working for me bar none.
Now let’s bring this back down to how you can take advantage of this too.
First off not all jobs can be done virtually but, anything you need done that involves a computer can be period.
For most tasks, you can almost always find a highly qualified person for $7 per hour and under. That is total cost. No taxes, insurance, benefits nada. That is your true cost. 20 hours of work a week and you pay $140 (or less) period.
Now what can a virtual assistant do?
A VA can do anything that you need done that does not involve actually having to touch anything. Here are just some examples and qualifications.
- Transcription
- Accounting
- Data Processing
- Data Entry
- File Conversion
- OCR Conversion
- Word Processing
- Blog Posts and Maintenance
- Works, Word, Publisher, Excel
- Presentation Formatting (eBooks, Presentations, Reports)
- Mailing List Development & Clean Up
- Off-Line to Online Posting
- Product entry for shopping carts
- Online Marketing
- Web Help
- SEO or Search Engine Optimization via linking etc.
- PPC Marketing
- Social Media Updates (update your followers and posts on Twitter and Facebook)
- Forum Advertisements
- Internet Research
- Online Tech Support and Customer Service
- Database Management
- Shopping Cart Updates and Integration
- Web Forms
How is that for starters?
How do I find a Virtual Assistant?
Well you can go online, find them and interview them yourself, or use a service. There are a bunch of them out there for sure or you can do what I do or did anyway.
I found out that like with any other employee, I can be kind of tough to find a good one. In fact, because I am such and exacting bastard and I proudly say that, I went through 32 applicants and hires before I found a keeper. 🙂 Now you may have much better luck or lower standards, but that is my current ratio.
I started a little service called www.YakWrite.com some time ago. I started it because since I went through the rather arduous process of finding these great VA’s I wanted to keep them around when I did not have work for them. I figured would let other people use them when I was not!
So I pooled my VA’s and now have them in one spot that anyone can use.
While we primarily do Transcription at under $20 per Audio hour, we also offer Virtual Assistants that have been prescreened and are managed by us for $7 per hour and under.
Many of our VA’s have degrees and even advanced degrees. They just happen to live in places where the Government has not gotten out of control yet and the cost of living is 1/5th of what it is in the United States and in a lot of Europe. It is as simple as that.
In fact overall, I would say that our VA’s work ethic is far better than many people in the US today.
Add to this all of the cost savings, I can’t figure out why nearly every company around is not using them.
It will take some getting used to if you have never worked with a VA before but, saving a boat load of money can make the learning process pretty bearable to say the least.
So, you might want to think about what you can outsource in your business. You would be amazed at how much easier and profitable your life can become.
If you would like to try out a VA hassle free. We have a trial run for you consisting of 7 hours of VA time for just $49.
Go here to find out more.
I will post more information on how to get the most out of your VA and tips on how to work with them effectively.
Cheers,
Andrew Anderson
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