Avoiding Virtual Assistant Outsourcing Disasters

December 22, 2008 by yelena
Filed under Working with Virtual Assistant, blog

Time and again, Virtual Assistants list time- and money-savings as two main reasons for outsourcing. Yet another reason is skills. A small business owner either has to be a jack-of-all-trades (yeah, the master of none) or outsource to someone who’s got the skills she doesn’t.

Every day more and more business owners come to learn that they simply can’t grow or even survive without some form of Internet marketing. They also realize that even a simple Internet marketing campaign involves too many tasks. And these tasks have to be added to an already-endless “to-do” list. In addition to the time factor, it is simply not possible for any one individual to possess all the technical skills necessary to accomplish all aspects of running an internet marketing campaign.

Before you even start looking for a virtual assistant, it is important to understand which one of the two limitations – time or skills - you are trying to remedy through outsourcing. Knowing this will help avoid virtual assistant outsourcing pitfalls.

Short on Time

You have lots of business and not enough hours in the day. You have the skills and knowledge necessary for completion of the many Internet marketing tasks, you finds that it is more profitable to concentrate on your core tasks and outsource the rest.

For example, a personal coach might spend two hours each week researching and writing articles for ezines and writing for a newsletter. That’s 2 hours each week that this coach could’ve overwise spend working with clients or writing an ebook that could become one of the streams of her passive income. If that is the case and if virtual assistant’s hourly rate is less than the coach’s real hourly rate, it simply makes sense to outsource.

Short on Skills

The basics of most internet marketing techniques are not hard to learn. It’s the details that take time and plenty of experience. And it’s really the details that set you apart from your competitors and make or break your internet marketing. So a skill-constrained entrepreneur has two options. One is to spend time learning the skill and another one is to outsource.

The important thing to keep in mind in this case is that you need to understand at least the very basics of the tasks you’re trying to outsource. This will help you avoid miscommunication with your virtual assistant.

Additionally, people lacking knowledge about how something works, tend to underestimate the complexity of this “something”. Understanding the issues will help you ask the right questions when interviewing virtual assistants, spot weak offers, and manage your deadline and quality requirements.

If the reason you need a virtual assistant is to get niche skills that you don’t have, ask her for detailed explanation of how she thinks she can help you achieve your business goals.

Virtual assistants often emphasize the point of being fellow business-owners, of really understanding clients’ needs (as opposed to an employee). True! Yet it should not be taken to mean that virtual assistants are psychics or mind-readers. You’ll need to explain to your virtual Assistant need your goals, expectations, and performance measurements.

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