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How Your Virtual Assistant Can Help You with Your Website Design?

by Francis
(September 12, 2012)

From my VA's work diary: Setting up a quotation template to one of my webpages

From my VA’s work diary: Setting up a quotation template to one of my webpages

Although the virtual assistant I am working with is not a designer, he helps me with my website design tremendously.

I thought that some useful quotations would look nice on my webpages. After I shared this idea with my virtual assistant, he researched a few dozen high quality quotations and sent me an Excel-sheet with his propositions.

My work as always was very easy.

I simply picked the quotations I like best!

Then as if it wasn’t enough, my virtual assistant proposed quite a few different templates of how the quotations would look their best on my webpages.

After picking my favorite template, all I had to do is sit back and watch as my virtual assistant implemented each quotation to my different webpages.

The Results:

They look rather nice 🙂

Don’t you think?

Be it stock photos or quotation pieces or even Google web elements, once you instruct your virtual assistant how to do it and once you give him access to your content management system, any virtual assistant can help you with your website design.

This again frees up your time as a webmaster to create excellent content or to build relationships with other webmasters.

Without the help of my VA, the creation of quotation images would have been a project that stuck into my head and I never would get around to do it.

Now all it takes is some instructions and a little bit of time and the next thing I see the project is completed.

Would I ever build another website again?

Hell Yes!

Would I ever build another website again without the help of a virtual assistant?

You bet I would not! I wouldn’t even think about it.

But what do I know? 😉

I am sure you have your own opinion about this.

Just click on the comments button below to let us hear it.

Comments for How Your Virtual Assistant Can Help You With Your Website Design?

Sep 13, 2012 My VA even set up a photo gallery for me 🙂
by: FrancisMy virtual assistant is not a designer, and neither am I. Still, with some solid internet research, he managed to create a slick photo gallery for me.
Sep 20, 2012 Nice
by: AnonymousI like the context of your blog, it really is helpful, I should recommend this to my friends Harrice
Jul 08, 2014 Super VA
by: JomvieVirtual Assistants give too many wonders for their employer/s. I think it’s mandatory since the job title itself defines the person holding it. And speaking of VA, I, myself am a VA in training. Although I’ve worked with too many persons on the internet, this time, this is the only job that I felt I am now in a serious online job and that feels good.

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How My Screen Recording Software Helped Me Catch up with Instructing My Virtual Assistant Fast

by Francis
(September 11, 2012)

Yesterday, I came back from a one week vacation. Fortunately, my virtual assistant “kept the fort”.

While I was away, he continued to faithfully work on his assignments and sent me daily email updates.

Obviously, when I came back, I had to take care of a huge load of emails, not only from my virtual assistant but from personal stuff too.

How did I get rid of the task of following up with my virtual assistant – ultra-fast?

Here is what I did to prevent myself from procrastinating and not doing the task, losing lots of time by writing an email, writing an answer to each one of my assistant’s emails or doing a bad job following up my assistant’s updates.

    1. I simply opened my screen recording software before I even touched the first email,
    2. Then as I read what my assistant said

I answered him directly into the video

Fortunately, the screen recording video records both audio and visual information.

When I answered to a question from my virtual assistant, I clicked to the webpage in question or the item tried to solve my challenge or at least give feedback to the best of my ability.

The big advantages of doing it like that

  • I didn’t lose time reading the email first, thinking of my solutions and then answering.
  • Also I did not need to re-read anything twice.

I felt this was a quite time efficient way of following up with instructions.

Who doesn’t know the flood of emails that waits for you after you return from a vacation?

If you struggle with too many emails and want to get everything done, pick one sender and work through all his emails at once using screen recordings.

Since my free screen recording software only records five minutes of video at a time, I simply saved each video after five minutes into the Dropbox I share with my virtual assistant and started the next one.

I got through dozens of emails in half an hour of time and gave instructions that were precise and instructive enough so that my virtual assistant has something to work with while I manage to get completely unpacked and ready for work.

If this helped you or you have another opinion, feel free to add to the discussions in the comments below.

Comments for How My Screen Recording Software Helped Me Catch Up With Instructing My Virtual Assistant Fast

Jul 09, 2014 Keeping up with time
by: JohnAudio-Video recording software is just so amazing that sometimes you won’t be able to keep up if you will not pay attention to it. And yes, it’s just so amazing that it makes communication comfortable and easier to follow.

 

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How My Virtual Assistant Helps Me with Outsourcing Monetization, Link Building and Email Marketing

by Francis
(September 11, 2012)

My virtual assistant researches, prepares and places illustration on my website

My virtual assistant researches, prepares and places illustration on my website

My virtual assistant researches, prepares and places illustration on my website

My assistant not only takes care of social media marketing for me, he also keeps track of everything

One of many tools from SBI! is the very powerful keyword research

 

Since I have started to work together with a virtual assistant on my SBI! Business which I am just starting out with, things have gotten way better. On my new SBI! Site, I am working on my business plan right now.

Do your research first to be successful

If you are an SBI! Owner, you know that Site Build it has its own proprietary keyword research tool as well as excellent training on how to set up a business that is successful.

In fact this training is so effective that the business has to be successful, if you follow this training.

Here is the big If!

My first SBI! site was pretty successful in my opinion, but in fact I have neglected some serious instructions at very right beginning of this training.

And that was the “Keyword Research” and “Monetization Research”.

The Result:

My first SBI! Site is successful in terms of traffic: thousands of users every day. On the flip side, I am struggling with monetizing this traffic.

Get a Virtual Assistant to help you with monetization

Well, this was before I worked together with a virtual assistant (or at least before I gave him access to my SBI! site).

So right now I am working on ideal-helper.com and like my first SBI! site I am trying to set things right again. I am trying to set up some profitable links and correcting some pages because of the recent Google algorithms, specifically those called Panda and Penguin.

Motivation by doing teamwork with a VA

Working together with a virtual assistant at the same time is really motivating. Since we both share a folder in dropbox, I see a notification every time that my VA works on something. And this in return motivates me to stop procrastinating and get back to work.

To be honest, it’s a very “unfair” agreement.

As an employer, I can get to sleep off whenever I want.

My VA has never “slept off” in a year or more. I know it, because I can see this on the screenshots which Odesk provides me.

My Virtual Assistant helped me set up an email marketing campaign

Today I have succeeded in finishing way more than I would normally succeed in a week in one focused night – and all of that because of a quick back and forth between my personal assistant working on background work and preparing some files for me.

If you are asking yourself what my personal assistant did for me:

I set up a sales page for an Ebook that VA has set together from existing material of my first website so

  • I have pointed out to him which content I wanted to be formatted into the EBook.
  • He has painfully manually copy pasted everything together
  • Formatted into a nice EBook
  • Created a cover page
  • Researched the pictures
  • Created some links

And I only had to proofread this.

Pretty nice agreement, won’t you agree?

And if I tell you that how much time this have spared me and how much more effective this was than working alone. You may not believe me anyways, but I know what huge advantage I have on working with a VA on my website.

Comments for How my virtual assistant helps me with outsourcing monetization, link building and email marketing

Oct 16, 2012 Here Is What My VA Has Achieved So Far.
by: FrancisWith the help of my virtual assistant, my email marketing funnel has reached almost 50 emails by now. I didn’t write all of them.In fact most of them weren’t written by me at all. All I did was to set up some voice transcripts from what I wanted to say in the emails. In other words my emails are talking to my visitors.From the voice recording these emails are:

  • Transcribed into text,
  • proofread by my virtual assistant,
  • set up within the Aweber email interface,
  • and a good to go

I only proofread them once at the end for a last time to make sure everything is set up alright, but it has sure increased my efforts to build an email marketing funnel a lot.
Jul 08, 2014 Just simply amazing
by: JomvieYou will rarely find that kind of virtual assistant who can do almost everything for you. I am really amazed with that wide range of skills and hopefully I can have some probably 30% of his 100% skill for me to start with 🙂
Feb 20, 2015 Much Less Complicated Than It Sounds
by: FrancisThe ability from my main virtual assistant, although it is pretty amazing, probably sounds more intimidating than it is. Although I know he’s very smart, hard working and motivated, we started out together with relatively little knowledge about SBI. He knew how to take care of other websites and also have knowledge about HTML.But the most important factor contributing to him gaining so many skills was he was always and regularly communicating with me back and forth. Also, he worked hard to really understand the meaning behind some instructions and not only try to follow the instructions by the letter. That showed itself when he was proposing different approaches and, researched without being asked, alternative and better ways to do things.When a virtual assistant goes beyond the instructed and comes up with a better way to do things than the employer previously planned, you can bet that an employer will be more than happy. This is what over-delivering mean from the side of a virtual assistant.Another aspect was that I had much more time than I have right now and I could record extensive videos and audio messages to instruct my main virtual assistant very closely on a regular basis.

So Jomvie, don’t worry. You will get there. Just keep your wits about you and you will raise your motivation up.

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Hide your Icon Bar to Eliminate Distractions and Increase Productivity!

by Francis
(September 01, 2012)

auto-hide-your-task-barHere’s a very effective and fast productivity life hack that I learned today:

Hide your icon tool bar, which typically is at the bottom of your screen.

You would be surprised how distracting it is when you are working online.

How to do it?

In Windows, you can right click your tool bar, select properties, and select auto-hide the tool bar.

It will fade out of your screen when you are not needing it. This way, you won’t be distracted all the time

  • By the time
  • By other programs
  • By changes in the notifications

Try it out! You’ll work much more productively.

And be sure to check out or other online life hacks!

 

Keeping your Virtual Assistant Busy and Productive with a simple to do list of task.

by Francis
(September 04, 2012)

busy-virtual-assistant-with-many-post-itsWhen working with a long-term virtual assistant, especially if you work on several projects at the same time, it is critical to keep an efficient to-do list of tasks ready for your virtual assistant.

Order your tasks by high priority and low priority at the least so that your VA knows what tasks to attack next.

A low priority task doesn’t necessarily mean that the task does not have to be done ever. It only means that any high priority task is more important than that.

It’s very simple really, but important for the productivity of your company and your virtual assistant.

I asked my VA to write about the to-do list of tasks that he uses.

Check out his post.

 

Outsourcing to Other Countries. Is it Morally Wrong?

by Francis
(September 04, 2012)

The first reflex when people hear outsourcing, when I talk to them about the contents of ideal-helper.com is to say that outsourcing to other countries is morally wrong.

But is it?

If you are paying your employee in other countries enough money so that he can live well and you can afford it, isn’t it the win-win situation?

Even if there is a job loss in your own country.

If you do private outsourcing, you wouldn’t have hired anyone in your own country in the first place.

To differentiate a point of view of saying that outsourcing to other countries is morally wrong, we have created a big section about ethical outsourcing.

Be sure to check it out!

 

Time-Sensitive Offer: Win a Completely Outsourced Website!

by Francis
(September 06, 2012)

Ever wanted to own a website that makes you money while you sleep? You have the chance to win a completely outsourced website, right now!

BTW-250x250

To join the sweepstake event for free, click here!

An expert team of website builders will build you your personal online business – for free! This service is worth more than 3000 $, and you have the chance to win.

Want to know more about this sweepstake thing?

Sure, profit from the video illustration to know what you could get!

This was one of many time-sensitive promotions done by SiteSell. Not only do they provide the best website building program out there, but they surprise you with nice gifts, giveaways or contests all throughout the year! 🙂

 

Advice on hiring people on oDesk!

by Francis
(September 14, 2012)

screening-virtual-employeeI got asked for some tips about hiring people on Odesk.

You may learn a few things from this!

For transcription, formatting pdf, and finding pics, you don’t need to spend more than 1- 1.5$/hour (probably none of the above candidates will work for so little).

Search in the categories Data entry and/or virtual assistants.

For all tasks, very specific instructions are the best. If you are pressed for time, record what you want to get done and share the video.

 

Comments for Advice on hiring people on oDesk!

Sep 15, 2014 How to find the perfect candidate?
by: John I don’t know much about the hiring process on oDesk, but one thing is for sure.. The hiring process is the same.But, how do you know a perfect candidate for the job?Yes, they were able to pass the screening test and all, but how do you know it’s the right person?Will there be another measure to gauge the ability?
Sep 15, 2014 Experience and their work results
by: Francis Unfortunately, there is no real guarantee that the person is the right assistant for you.There are some tests you can do before hiring a candidate. You can also ask for free work samples they did in the past to assess their past work quality.

Some employers ask for free work for a few hours, but I don’t recommend it since this is easily misused to abuse of free work of your future VA.

But you can test their work skills with smaller and growing tasks, to see how well they do. Only expand to more important tasks if they do well.

If a candidate disappoints you too much, consider re-screening some of your best candidates and / or comparing work output of competing virtual assistants.

 

Internet Outages: The biggest challenge when working with a virtual assistant

by Francis
(September 22, 2012)

young-employer-thinking-seriouslyThe last few days, my main virtual assistant was struggling with internet connectivity problems. Unfortunately, he was not able to work with me for a few days because of that.

I don’t blame him. But you can learn from this: no one is safe from losing his internet connection at a critical time.

If you choose to work together virtually with an assistant, freelancer or even your colleagues, always think of a backup plan for when your internet connection fails:

    1. Be it your mobile smartphone with internet access for a short email notification
    2. An internet café
    3. Your friend next door who lets you use his internet for a quick email update

It does not matter how, but try to keep the communication between the virtual assistant and his employer alive. Who knows what one side of the team might fear has happened.

Luckily, my virtual assistant found a way to contact me quickly.

For the future, I’ll have to think if a backup solution might be a viable option – and how this fits into my business plans.

Take home message: Things can always fail

Outsourcing is useful as a business tool. But there is no need for exaggerated hype.

  • If it works for you and you get measurable results, that’s great.
  • If not, you might need to reassess your strategy.

It’s important to not forget the contras of outsourcing when getting into the outsourcing business. No matter how useful outsourcing is for most business owners.

 

Comments for Internet Outages: The biggest challenge when working with a virtual assistant

Nov 23, 2014 Solution for Internet Downtime
by: Francis I often have this kind of problem in the past few months and seldom on the moment or depending on the weather (but, it’s still slow even on regular days).

In a recent survey about broadband connection, Philippines has the most expensive and slowest connection around Asia and there’s not much for us as end users to solve this existing situation.

Yes, a backup solution is doable, but, how effective will that be? It varies on the situation.

In my opinion, I would prefer a backup solution where your online worker won’t have to go out and look for a place to bid some time, there’s this wireless or USB-like broadband where he/she will just pay for a specific amount that’s enough to fill the-internet-downtime.

A 4G pocket wifi stick will cost about Php 1,500 or 30-35 dollars (one-time pay only) and the credit load will depend on what you will register for, may it be 100pesos for a day or 200pesos for 3 days and so on..

The other one is an LTE USB stick and it’s likely more expensive—but, it’s more effective rather than travelling to another place that will not only cost you money, it will likely eat out your time as well.

Dropbox – Not Only Useful, But Also Safe!

by Francis
(September 27, 2012)

a-handy-box-to-do-loads-of-stuff-21673789

A great discussion came out of a recent guest post. There is no doubt that the Dropbox is an awesome tool. But is it also safe?

I asked my virtual assistant to do some research, and he added his assessment into the comments.

Spoiler alert: using the Dropbox is dead safe!

 

 

Coaching a Friend to Do the Hiring Process on oDesk

by Francis
(September 28, 2012)

screening-and-hiring-the-best-employeeI have the privilege of helping a friend hiring a suitable virtual assistant for different data entry tasks on oDesk.

He has never worked on this platform but needed help quick. So that is why I am right behind him following up via email as often as I can and giving him instructions and tips using video recordings and coaching emails.

I am excited about this and it is a really nice project and I like to follow up things in real time. Also it’s the perfect case study to help others on this ideal-helper site.

By the way if you are interested in getting coached just contact us and we see if we can work something out.

Anyways the most tricky part is to choose the right person. The right provider will do wonders for your business. The wrong one will lose your time and money. So of course you have to choose wisely.

Still it can be a fun process. You get to know a little bit a lot a lot of different people from all around the world.

Have fun with it!

I mean if you are a normal person and not a CEO, how often are you hiring someone?

So look at the whole process with open eyes like a kid and not like a burden that is slowing you down because ultimately it will speed you speed you down a lot.

I have written an extensive article about what challenges you’ll come across when you are hiring someone on oDesk and how to overcome these challenges.

If you are in this position, be sure to check it out.

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Article Writing Hits that Will Get You Banned from Amazon Mechanical Turk

by Francis
(August 28, 2012)

The “Turk” is a great tool to get cheap articles if it’s only about the personal opinion of a requester. For example, you can ask for a personal story from his last party or from his last vacation.

For this, I have made the experience that using Amazon Mechanical Turk works great.

You can get a 300 word article for just 50 cents there. No problem.

But that’s only because the writer does not have to research anything. He can simply write about his day and get paid for it.

However, be sure that you don’t get banned from Amazon Mechanical Turk for breaking their rules.

Their terms of service state that you cannot directly promote any website or business nor cannot ask the requester to sign up for anything.

Also you shouldn’t ask for any information that can identify your requester over a HIT.

If you ask for a personal story and it’s important for you that you get the name and the location from the poster, formulate the questions like this in order not to get banned from Amazon Mechanical Turk:

“For your article I need the name of an author and a location where the author comes from. This information does not have to be your own.”

I have made good experiences using this little addition that the information does not have to be his own to prevent getting banned from Amazon Mechanical Turk.

Carefully reading their terms of service is very important if you want to use the Turk long-term. If you get banned once, it will be very hard or impossible to get back in.

So stay on their good side.

Anything to add?

Did you have any experience or know anyone banned from this service?

Let us know in the comments.

Comments for Article Writing HITs That Will Get You Banned From Amazon Mechanical Turk

Apr 12, 2013 New in business
by: WebsideNoviceThanks for all those little hints, they really help a great deal!I’m glad I don’t have to make every mistake on my own. 😉
Apr 12, 2013 Glad to help 🙂
by: FrancisEveryone starts at some point. And there is more than one topic where I’m still a complete newbie myself.But if you can use the Turk effectively, I believe it is a very useful and effective tool for fast content production!
Jul 08, 2014 Wanted: writer
by: JohnThis is one of the reasons that workers of MTurk loved—no attachment with any of the requesters. They can do their thing and so is on the other end. But, only it’s a win-lose situation. This is actually a nice piece of information; it can help newbies who wants to try their luck with MTurk’s crowd sourcing services.

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Why are so many people working for so cheap on crowdsourcing?

by Francis
(August 15, 2012)

Recently a visitor asked us the question:

“Why are there so many people working cheaply with crowdsourcing services? Sometimes for as little as a few cents per minutes!”

When you are talking about crowdsourcing experiences, the No.1 service which comes into mind is Mechanical Turk.

Reasons why people are working cheaply on crowdsourcing services

What seems a cheap pay to you may not be cheap pay to someone else in another country. In many Asian countries, seemingly small amounts are considered a good pay compared to the cost of living of these countries.

$3/hour in the Philippines, $2 in India or Pakistan are some of the real life examples of pay rates people in these countries are very comfortable to work with.

When crowdsourcing, do it ethically

You must ask one question before the question if it is OK for people to work for cheap on crowdsourcing services:

“Is that ethical?”

We from ideal-helper.com care for what is happening in the outsourcing world. My personal opinion is that there is enough money for everyone to create a win-win situation.

If you find a business partner who lives in another country and would be very happy to work for you at a certain pay rate and it appears cheap for you, you can try to find a middle ground which will make both sides very happy.

In the end, it doesn’t change the fact that thousands of very different people from all walks of life are working on crowdsourcing services.

Some just are looking for a fun part-time and if it gives them a few additional dollars. This is just all the better and this is also not only limited to people from Asia.

Some people do not think of it as a real job. Some people just approach it as helping each other out for a small amount of money.

All in all, I am sure than there are very different reasons to work on crowdsourcing services like Mechanical Turk, even for very cheap. But not in all cases should this be alarming.

You must look closer at each individual case.
Is there a child working, is someone working inhumane hours for minimal pay…?

Yes? Then you should go and protest as much as you can.
I’ll be right beside you.

For some freelancers, crowdsourcing sites are OK

But for those people who are just doing it for fun as a hobby or as a pass time, however useless this pass-time may appear, it is still their choice.

Here are some real life case studies from people who are actually working on Mechanical Turk that could not be more different.

If you still think that it is wrong that many people are working for so cheap on crowdsourcing, I hope I have differentiated your point of view a little bit with this post.

Still feel free to add a comment by clicking on the link below.

Looking forward to a lively discussion.

Comments for Why are so many people working for so cheap on crowdsourcing?

Mar 10, 2013 Thanks!
by: Anonymous

Hi Francis, just thanking you for your blogs. It clarifies everything about working remotely. I sometimes do not have time to read all the newsletter but I filed it in a folder and read a few during my day off and gee, i truly learned a lot. Been working fulltime as a virtual assistant to two clients for more than a year now via oDesk.
Mar 10, 2013 It’s great that you learned something from this 🙂
by: Francis

Hi dear anonymous subscriber – don’t be shy, I’m not gonna bite 😉 –Thanks for taking the time to leave a comment and some feedback.

I’m thrilled this info is useful to you, because I believe about anyone who uses a computer regularly could profit from this info.

Sorry if some newsletters are sent out too often. Don’t feel hurried and take your time reading, absorbing and applying the knowledge.

And, most important of all, keep sending me your feedback, be it good or bad – this is the best way for me to learn!
Jul 08, 2014 No attachment required
by: John

I think one of the reasons why there are lots of people working on MTurk is the fact that it does not require workers years of experience in online jobs.It’s fast and easy money. And there’s no attachment between employee and employer.