Setting up my virtual assistant working on his own

I am going to be working full time from January 2013 on. That means two things:

1. Almost no time to work on my online businesses.
2. A lot of more fundings available to hire additional workforces.

When I will be getting my first paycheck - yay! - the first thing I am going to do is to increase the payrate from my virtual assistant by a factor 2. He has earned it and also:

He is going to have a much tougher time working with minimal supervision.

The time until now was all for preparation of "outsourcing myself" completely out of the equation. I anticipate weekly input from my side to my VA. More will simply not be possible, I fear.

On the other hand, I trust my VA with hiring additional staff as needed, perhaps even a writer for additional content.

Or at least for guest blogs!

Yep, I think guest blogging via outsourcing could be a very good thing.

The question remaining is: how much am I willing to invest into a great guest written article?

I will have to exactly measure the ROI from these link building activites.

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When People Criticize My Outsourced Website - And have nothing to show for it

I love criticism. It is the greatest indicator of what you have to do to get better.

I also love my website(s). They are a work of passion and life-blood.

Escaping Criticism (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So if someone comes over and writes to me:

"Your website looks dead-ugly" or something similar, don't expect me to swallow that comment without a snide remark.

(hint: it had something to do with a Yo Momma is so Fat joke)


If I have a website that is doing very well, and all you can say is to whine about

"But it doesn't look prettyyyy  ~~~"  >___<

Then I can't help you.

As opposed to many wannabe entrepreneurs, I swallowed the bitter pill and JUST STARTED and got my work out there.

I'm not saying it is perfect, or even pretty...

But at least, it is THERE.

Tweaking it can still be done.

Talking about it without having anything to show is easy. Just as is bashing about it blindly.

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If you have a business idea: go for it.

Work through it until you get some results. Ignore the overly critical voices from people that have no clue (but behave like they are the experts).

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I plan on outsourcing my job research to help me find a job faster even if it's just a day

To be honest, I am fed up of writing dozens of application letters and not getting many job interview invitations back. The times may be hard but damn it - I'm running out of time and patience!

As I take hours daily to research firms and enterprises for job opportunities, I decided: I am going to outsource this whole job research.

At a job interview (Photo credit: Arroz y Asado)

This does not mean I am going to let someone else apply for me.

No, that would be very bad and will bite me in the arse someday.

What I aim to get outsourced is the actual research of

1. Where are all those enterprises?
2. Do they have job opportunities?
3. What is the contact information?

Then, my job will be simply to call, write and apply on each of those positions.

Because I am looking for positions in Germany, outsourcing the process might be a tad tricky for English-only-speaking virtual assistants.

But at least it's a fun challenge!

I believe there is much to gain from this project, namely finding a job faster - even if it's just by a day.

Nobody will be able to say: I didn't try everything!

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• Group Interviews

How awesome is my VA?

I had a disheartening discussion about outsourcing some days ago. I was serously considering stopping my business out of moral reasons.

I asked my virtual assistance for his honest feedback for some really critical questions.

Example: How can I not know that if I hire someone in India or Pakistan, that I don't support anything illegal?

And the like.

My VA gave me some very solid answers. Very solid.
He wrote about 1800 words of text. With some very valid arguments. Of course, not all related to this one question, but many other critical points.

In short: my faith in my business model is restored.

He took about 5 hours for this research and writing. This cost me less than 10$.

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Synergizing with a virtual assistant. I blog, he illustrates

Now we are talking. Together with the resarch from my VA, I built a pretty huge webpage today in the new site builder from SBI.
He helped me pre-format the article in word. I copy pasted it into the builder, thinking of some unique information I cannot outsource along the way. Like a striking page description.

You can see the page here.

How does the teamwork continue? I point out which formatation I don't like - he fixes it. I ask him to illustrate the post with diagrams and graphics - he is on it faster than the speed of light.

Damn I love outsourcing :)

He has already started on a new project. In order to get more illustrations, we'll outsource the research again to even more providers. They'll jump on the team, he will give them the instructions, and I'll review the final results.

Easy? Easy.

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Working together with a virtual assistant that does transcription work for me and orders my thoughts

Yesterday I experienced serious writer's block. Nothing unusual for me.

Writer's Block (Photo credit: Elemento Zeca)

My solution: "call up" my virtual assistant. Actually, I didn't really call, but just used an application from Catch.com to record a message.

I was 1.5 hours long..! But at least it got me over my writers' block.

Simply telling what projects I was thinking about, how I wanted items be ordered, while dictating pieces and parts of future articles for transcription was surprisingly easy.

I was very eager to find out that my VA had successfully worked through the gibberish to yield some nicely polished stuff to work with.

This essentially replaced my writing work with a polish-and-put-the-best-stuff-together work. Which is way easier.

Writer's Block: 0 - Virtual Assistant: 1

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• Working World, Writers' Block

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Started Outsourcing Project with my Virtual assistant

Today I started a new SBI site as a project. I am pretty excited about it.

Gave me a whole new kick in the rear. Especially since I won't be doing it alone, but with my trusted VA, or virtual assistant, from Odesk.

Image via CrunchBase

I will teach him all I know about website creation and while doing so, will document what we learn and do together.

And just on a side note. I am sure this project will be profitable as hell!

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