{"id":21728,"date":"2021-01-03T09:05:17","date_gmt":"2021-01-03T13:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/?p=21728"},"modified":"2021-01-03T19:15:59","modified_gmt":"2021-01-03T23:15:59","slug":"hiring-a-virtual-assistant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/hiring-a-virtual-assistant\/","title":{"rendered":"Hiring a Virtual Assistant: Everything You Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Is hiring a virtual assistant a good idea? What do you need to know about virtual assistants before hiring one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hiring a virtual assistant can help you automate a lot of the work you do, and save you time. Tim Ferriss recommends hiring a virtual assistant in <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/4-hour-work-week-book\/\">The 4-Hour Workweek<\/a><\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Learn more about hiring a virtual assistant. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Hiring a Virtual Assistant (VA)<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>To achieve the 4HWW lifestyle, <strong>find a way to replace yourself. Almost anything and everything you do could be done by someone else.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So you might want to hire a VA. The first step to automation is hiring a virtual assistant (VA). You should do this regardless of whether you\u2019re an employee or an entrepreneur, and even if you have enough time to do everything yourself. There are a few reasons why hiring a virtual assistant can help:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>VAs teach you to manage.<\/strong> Having a VA teaches you how to communicate, how to lead from a distance, how to give directions, and how to deal with people who don\u2019t follow them. If you get a VA for between two weeks and a month, it should only cost between $100-400, and the experience should pay for itself within another two weeks.<\/li><li><strong>VAs reinforce step E (Eliminate) of DEAL.<\/strong> Once you have to pay someone to do something, it\u2019s going to be easier and more motivating to eliminate unimportant things. Having a VA will also force you to come up with rules for interruptions that require approval.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>People hesitate to pay other people to do things they can do themselves, especially if it\u2019s more economical to do it themselves. However, <strong>you\u2019re not trying to save money in this chapter, you\u2019re trying to save time.<\/strong>&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Where to Find a VA<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Since VAs work remotely, you can hire someone from anywhere in the world. There are advantages and disadvantages to hiring virtual assistants that are local vs. hiring one that&#8217;s farther away. Consider these four factors when you hire a VA:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Agency association.<\/strong> VA agencies exist all over the world and the author recommends going with a VA from a VA firm, or a VA who has a team. Then if one VA isn\u2019t available, there\u2019s backup. Additionally, you get people with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.shortform.com\/blog\/diverse-skills\/\">diverse skills<\/a> working for you.<ul><li>For example, VA agencies Brickwork and Your Man in India both use this structure. When you sign up with either agency, you\u2019re assigned a personal account manager who corresponds with you, and then assigns your tasks to whichever person on their team is most suitable.<\/li><\/ul><\/li><li><strong>Time zone mismatches.<\/strong> If you choose someone who lives in a different time zone than you, this can work in your favor\u2014if you ask a VA to do something at the end of your day, they\u2019ll work while you\u2019re sleeping, and you\u2019ll have an answer first thing the next day.<\/li><li><strong>Language.<\/strong> If you choose someone international, there may be a language barrier. Communication problems take up both your time and the VA\u2019s time, which increases costs. When contacting a firm, ask for someone who has very good English and say that phone calls will be required, even if they won\u2019t be. Request someone new if there are communication problems. If you choose someone local, you\u2019re probably both native English speakers.<\/li><li><strong>Cost.<\/strong> If you hire someone from a country with a weaker currency than the US, your cost per hour will be cheaper. The author says VAs from India, China, and other countries can range from $4-15\/hour. $4\/hour is for simple tasks, and $15 gets you PhD complexity. US or Canadian VAs tend to charge $25-100\/hour. When comparing costs, consider total cost as well as hourly cost. If someone more expensive gets something done faster, your bill may be lower overall. Also consider the per hour cost of your own time\u2014a language barrier might mean you have to spend more time answering questions or rewording your directions.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The best way to choose a VA is to trial people you\u2019re interested in.<\/strong> Assign a one-off project or a small recurring task, ideally something daily. To work on your communication skills, choose non-native English-speaking VAs initially, but use local help for any language-intensive tasks.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Privacy and Security Concerns<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Problems with privacy or security are rare.<\/strong> In the only case of information abuse the author found while researching the book, the problem was freelance help that a very busy US-based VA contracted at the last minute.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Established VA firms such as Brickwork have many security measures<\/strong> including nondisclosure agreements, encryption, and secure connections\u2014probably a lot more than you have on your own computer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Follow these rules to avoid problems when you hire a VA:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Use credit instead of debit.<\/strong> It\u2019s much easier and faster to reverse credit card charges than debit ones.<\/li><li><strong>Don\u2019t reuse passwords.<\/strong> If your VA needs to login to any websites, make sure that website has a unique password from all the other sites you access. If the VA needs to make new logins anywhere, they should use the logins and passwords you give them. This is especially important if your VA is accessing live commercial websites.<\/li><li><strong>Never use anyone untested.<\/strong> Don\u2019t work with any new hires and never let anyone working for you subcontract anyone new.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>If you\u2019ve followed the rules above, you\u2019ll find that if you do get hit by identity or information theft, they\u2019re not that bad and you can recover.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Hiring a virtual assistant can save you lots of time, and put you on the path for a 4-Hour workweek.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Is hiring a virtual assistant a good idea? What do you need to know about virtual assistants before hiring one? Hiring a virtual assistant can help you automate a lot of the work you do, and save you time. Tim Ferriss recommends hiring a virtual assistant in The 4-Hour Workweek. Learn more about hiring a virtual assistant.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":10019,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,42,30],"tags":[175],"class_list":["post-21728","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-motivation","category-work","tag-the-4-hour-workweek","","tg-column-two"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v24.3 (Yoast SEO v24.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Hiring a Virtual Assistant: Everything You Need to Know - Shortform Books<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Is hiring a virtual assistant a good idea? 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