Good experiences?
Bad experiences?

I need somebody to call some local businesses during business hours to find a part for me.

WIA

Yes. Mainly pretty bad at times because they seem to work slow (or bill you more than you would think it would take to get a job done). Then again I was paying them around $2 an hour so you get what you pay for? Sometimes they would just be a little unresponsive at times. I don't have one right now, but then again its probably because I'm not as busy as I used to be.

I used elance.

Yeah of sorts, I've hired freelancers to do menial tasks for me. They managed to fuck up even the simplest of tasks when I'd given them very strict instructions. Pay peanuts you get monkeys though I suppose.

I experimented with outsourcing after reading the 4HWW. I signed up with John Jonas' Replace Myself course and tried it out for a month. http://www.replacemyself.com/

I didn't know anything about running an internet business at the time, and thought that if I had a VA I could just give him a turnkey business solution and he would figure it out. Luckily this mistake only cost me 250 for the month. The course itself is pretty valuable for someone who has a specific purpose in mind for why they need a VA. Outsourcing to the Philipines is complicated and John has a lot of really good advice on how to deal with them.

Another website for Virtual Assistants is http://www.virtualbusinesslifestyle.com/
he has a free ebook that is worth checking out.

Bump.

Anyone actively using a VA for their daily errands? Or recommend a company? Assuming you clearly define tasks with deadlines, are they worth it?

I'm involved in a startup now, and things like market research, affiliate product research, monitoring site data etc will have to be done shortly. In your experience, is this kind of stuff beyond their scope?

After spending hours training him in excel over webex, he was finally able to make the updates I needed on his own. He couldn't really do anything requiring independent thought.

Yeah, you would be surprised how unproductive they are. We take the productivity levels we have here in the US/Western World for granted but there is nothing exciting about a $4/hour personal assistant that works four times as slow and poor quality as a normal person

yeah, I have two. One mainly for link building. I pay him $.50 an hour. 20 hours a week.(he's from bangladesh...his english is sucks). The second does customer service type stuff for some business type ventures and personal tasks for me. I pay her, $1.50 per hour. She make mistakes, but I give her bonuses for conversions. She worked for AT&T in customer service in the Philips, so she speak pretty good english. You gotta interview them all and make them speak to you in english during the skype interview. The best country is Philippines for VAs IMHO. Many of them have worked in US call centers and have advance degrees.

I've used staff from here in the past http://www.remotestaff.com.au/

I've been very impressed with the work but make sure you screen the candidates properly.

I was overwhelmed with school work so i had a VA research and put together a presentation for my public speaking class. The quality wasn't bad, belive it or not.

Quote: (03-03-2013 11:38 AM)elabayarde Wrote:  

yeah, I have two. One mainly for link building. I pay him $.50 an hour. 20 hours a week.(he's from bangladesh...his english is sucks).

Could you elaborate on link building? Its the one task where I am in the dark about SEO.

Basically you make relevant, inbound links to your website to help your website achieve higher ranking with the major search engines and also drive targeted traffic to your site. Its as low process and arduous, but isnt rocket science. So paying big bucks forit is absurd, UNLESS, you are getting high PR backlinks on a site with a high PR rating. I hope that helps...

Quote: (03-03-2013 10:40 PM)elabayarde Wrote:  

I hope that helps...

I get the basic idea. Ill look into that, thank you man.

I have too much work to handle everything and still live a balanced healthy life. I'm thinking of hiring someone to help me out but I want them to be local.

Has anyone had any experience hiring one? Any advice or tips? (Anyone in the DC area looking to make some extra $$$? Haha)

I've used VAs on and off for years.

For my last book launch (see sig) my VA was absolutely priceless.

I basically outsourced all the mundane book submission and facebook posting tasks to her and she did a really good job. I paid her $3/hr or something like that.

She did Facebook group posts, submissions to free book sites, submissions to reddit and a lot of other boring crap that would have taken me forever.

And then I turned her over to my friend who was launching his kindle book the following week.

With VAs the main thing is to hire from Phils. Forget about India and Bangladesh.

Sure they work cheap but they half ass everything and need to be babysat.

Pinoys and Pinays know how to think like Westerners and can own projects way better if you give them the room.

Obviously their English is good too.

I hired all my VAs on oDesk.

Quote: (07-16-2014 10:54 AM)VincentVinturi Wrote:  

With VAs the main thing is to hire from Phils. Forget about India and Bangladesh.

Sure they work cheap but they half ass everything and need to be babysat.

Pinoys and Pinays know how to think like Westerners and can own projects way better if you give them the room.

Obviously their English is good too.

I hired all my VAs on oDesk.

I made exactly the same experience. Sometimes you can find very good people from eastern europe as well.

Ive been using VA's for a number of years and for the most part Ive had pretty good experience with them.

As mentioned above the best VA's for administration tasks such as cold calling, telemarketing, data entry have all came from the Phillipines. Ive hired plenty of Filipino VA's and I can only recall one that did not work out so well.

The reason Filipinos are the best is because 1.) They speak damn near perfect English 2.) They are Loyal, Honest and Trustworthy. Ive never had a Filipino outsourcer screw me over, or over promise and under deliver.

As far as programming tasks the I usually hire middle eastern programmers, but you have to be very careful with hiring them, and give them crystal clear instructions. I usually hire from Odesk.com, so make sure you read their reviews and make sure they have alot of hours worked and damn near 5 stars. It may be even better to get a recommendation from a colleague if your looking for a good overseas programmer.

I have a few that I use to manage various business bits, do research, and handle some personal matters.

The most important thing I've learned from using VAs is to hire fast, fire fast. For every top-notch one that I've retained, I've fired 5.

I could write a pretty in-depth data sheet on hiring and using VAs if there is interest in that kind of thing.

That would be a valued data sheet

Book recommendation. Virtual Freedom by Chris Ducker: http://www.amazon.com/Virtual-Freedom-Be...1939529743

Want a smart US based kinda pricey assistant? https://www.zirtual.com/

Hello all, sorry I know it's an older thread but I'm looking to hire a part time VA abroad and was curious if there were any new insights/updates from others with experience. @ADarkerNight - Any hope of that datasheet?

Thanks to all in advance!

I'm also bringing this thread back to life. I'm looking for a virtual or real assistant. I need phones and email answered and thats about it. My last choice would be a white college girl.

Anyone have an good, US based assistant or virtual assistant experiences or recommendations. I know there are Phils choices but those chicks would be working through the night their time and that accent can be a little weird for me.

Quote: (07-20-2014 03:04 PM)ADarkerNight Wrote:  

I have a few that I use to manage various business bits, do research, and handle some personal matters.

The most important thing I've learned from using VAs is to hire fast, fire fast. For every top-notch one that I've retained, I've fired 5.

I could write a pretty in-depth data sheet on hiring and using VAs if there is interest in that kind of thing.

Quote: (12-11-2014 09:43 PM)Dr. Howard Wrote:  

I'm also bringing this thread back to life. I'm looking for a virtual or real assistant. I need phones and email answered and thats about it. My last choice would be a white college girl.

Anyone have an good, US based assistant or virtual assistant experiences or recommendations. I know there are Phils choices but those chicks would be working through the night their time and that accent can be a little weird for me.

Hey Dr.Howard, did you see the other thread on digital marketing datasheet created by Black Quixte (sorry if I mispelled his handle). I posed a question regarding VAs there as well and this is what he said:

"@fucksong: Yes, this can be difficult you have three options:

1. Go through a company
2. Find them on your own
3. Find competent people and train them
4. Go through recommendations

Each has its pros and cons. The first and the fourth are your best route. Usually you can expect to pay anywhere from $400-1000 a month for a decent to good VA with varying hours and skills. Some will be talented and just looking for an easy job and others are just located in an area where this is a good job and pays enough to survive and save some. If you buy American, make sure you get to know them. Finding a good VA outside of recommendations will be a pain in the ass but well worth it. Some companies are on the more expensive side but a great VA should be a tool to profit, not just a money hole. Check freelancing sites, forums, etc. etc. I'll go more into detail about finding VAs, questions to ask them, tools to manage them etc. etc. Im trying to answer things on the fly. "

I actually did find one company on my own years ago and what I did was have a basic assignment (research all online grocery delivery companies in my area) and gave it to 5 companies I had found on Odesk and elance. Just from the response times alone, I could tell who was good and who wasn't. There was one company that responded within 24 hours with quality work, a 2nd that was alright and the rest were so-so. So I tried to hook up that first company with ongoing business throughout the years. Only problem is earlier this year, their service levels have started to suck so I'm realizing it's good to have a few in your back pocket in situations like these.

Good luck

Quote: (07-16-2014 10:54 AM)VincentVinturi Wrote:  

With VAs the main thing is to hire from Phils. Forget about India and Bangladesh.

Sure they work cheap but they half ass everything and need to be babysat.

Pinoys and Pinays know how to think like Westerners and can own projects way better if you give them the room.

Obviously their English is good too.

I hired all my VAs on oDesk.

I concur. i've used an Indian VA to do simple tasks (copy website data) with comprehensive instructions with illustrations etc and they have still managed to fuck it up.

I also work in a company where they have outsourced some of their services to an Indian service provider and its the same thing. Give clear guidelines and they still screw it up.

Might check out oDesk as I have heard Filipinos are great workers.

Quote: (12-15-2014 12:31 AM)pialo Wrote:  

Quote: (07-16-2014 10:54 AM)VincentVinturi Wrote:  

With VAs the main thing is to hire from Phils. Forget about India and Bangladesh.

Sure they work cheap but they half ass everything and need to be babysat.

Pinoys and Pinays know how to think like Westerners and can own projects way better if you give them the room.

Obviously their English is good too.

I hired all my VAs on oDesk.

I concur. i've used an Indian VA to do simple tasks (copy website data) with comprehensive instructions with illustrations etc and they have still managed to fuck it up.

I also work in a company where they have outsourced some of their services to an Indian service provider and its the same thing. Give clear guidelines and they still screw it up.

Might check out oDesk as I have heard Filipinos are great workers.

Check out http://www.onlinejobs.ph/ for good VA's from the phillipines.

I've been really impressed with the staff I've hired from there recently.

Just make sure you screen candidates properly. Make them jump through hoops at the start to qualify them.

Once up and running I use camtasia videos to provide them instructions on what they need to do which works well.

If your hiring process is right you'll be able to find good, smart, hard-working VA's at less then $400 a month (full-time)