Francis

March 7, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Human vs Voice Transcription Software

Human Vs Voice transcription software is part-1 of an interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.

Summary:

Transcription done by a human always beats transcription done by a software – No matter how good the software is.
When you have a human transcriber, you can freeflow with your thoughts without breaking up the transcription.
The better the English skills of your transcriber, the higher the quality of the transcription.

Start of the Interview:

Stefan:

What’s the benefit of having transcription via a human outsourcer instead of voice transcription software? Like (the one) I tried already, Dragon Naturally Speaking 12.

I configured it and it understands me pretty well, actually. So I’m wondering what is the benefit because Dragon doesn’t cost me anything and an outsourcer would cost me money per hour.

Francis:

Okay so let me jump in here. First of all, account the question. Dragon as a transcription software is free? Is that correct?

Stefan:

No, it’s not free. I got it and I think there’s a full feature trial. You can try it out but I just got it so there’s no problem from my side.

I only used it for a day and I found it okay but the problem was it’s still kind of like writing it like on the keyboard. It feels the same way. It’s still the same tedious work, actually.

It’s just with your mouth instead of your hands. That’s why I’m wondering if it’s so much better to talk and then transcribe it.

Francis:

Okay. So as I understand it; using transcription software, Text to Speech software, is tedious because the way you have to speak so that the transcription software understands you is not natural.

Stefan:

Yeah, because I have to tell somebody new line (to enter a new line break) and it’s not like we are talking. It’s different.

Francis:

Yes, I agree. I think also that is one of the main purposes or reasons I love transcription so much. So when I will record something for transcription including this interview, I will not hesitate to speak in a natural way, I will use pauses, natural hmmms and aawhs.

I would ask questions and I can, at any point in time, interject a comment like “Abi (My Transcriptionist), please transcribe this literally”, “Note to my assistant: Please insert this and that”.

So as I’m talking, I can always when I have a new idea which strikes me, open sort of a new paragraph and tell my idea away from my head. And then continue. So you cannot free brains with a voice transcription software.

If we were doing all what we did until now which is probably already like 300 words of content. With the transcription software, we would have failed. Right?

Because it wouldn’t have gotten much further than the first typo or punctuation. Let’s not speak about putting paragraphs into the text in a natural way. A human transcriber will take care of human elements, pauses or punctuation.

Stefan:

Francis:

Also, a smart human transcriber, let’s say high quality transcription person who has decent understanding of English could be able to separate endless sentences like this on I use right now into shorter sentences.

I have to be honest with you, in my case, I haven’t asked my transcriptionist to shorten my sentences for me. I haven’t done that. But I could do.

I assumed that I would need to invest a little bit more money in a transcriptionists which some basic editing works. But that could be done by this same person.

Continue reading part 2 – Transcription service cost comparison

March 7, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Establishing Effective Virtual Communication With Your Assistants

Long-distance communication with your virtual assistants is part-8 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.

Click here to read part 7– Why outsourcing fails?

Summary:

Daily communication from both parties is essential for successful outsourcing results.
One effective way of virtual communication is video instructions.

Start out talking like you would talk normally and then adapt your video presentations based on the feedback of your assistant on if you make it difficult or less difficult.

Start of the Interview:

Francis:

As I’ve said before, it is very important especially at the beginning to have daily communication. Not necessarily from you to your assistant but from your assistant to you. In other words, he writes you daily emails or makes a presentation or he calls you and you take time, when you have the time, to respond to all his emails.

The most efficient way for you to talk to your assistant, in my opinion, is video recording. If you make video screen recording, you can in a very fast way, tackle a lot of different subjects without needing to explain what you’re talking about because the assistant can see what you’re talking about.

If it’s a designer job, you open your screen recording, point to what you like and what you don’t like. And as you talk, you open a new window – open Google, research something. Show how you would research and ask him to really closely review the videos and learn from that.

And while you talk about when you will be available and how is he doing and what you like and what you don’t like. At the same time you open a window, you show him stuff; you show him a tool; you show him a forum where he can research and tell him, “Open an account and asks questions there. I have made great experience with this forum, for example.”

Or at the same time you have the video running, you put an E-book for the first training into the Dropbox and tell him he can find them in the Dropbox and please review it for 3 hours. This E-book will answer all your questions.

This will keep the time you need to interact with micro-managing his work to minimum. And from all the feedback I received from my assistants, they all loved video recordings.

Stefan:

Okay. I don’t have the experience with how others think about video recording. But when I have video recording then I see, for example, I have a problem and I go to YouTube find the tutorial for something.

I’m very annoyed by people who are talking about something and they take 2 or 3 minutes by showing me this is a browser and you go there, and then click on it. Then you open it and you drag it to your screen and then you read it. Really stupid stuff…

Francis:

Yeah. For you, it’s stupid. For someone else, it’s perhaps very useful.

Stefan:

But the very important stuff is only like 2 seconds and they skip it which is very nerve wrecking for me because I have to analyze what did he do, how did he do that? Because they skipped like 2 minutes and then he’s like what is he doing?

Then I go back and the very important stuff was 10 seconds and the other important stuff. So I want to prevent that from doing that myself when I’m doing, as you proposed, video recording.

Francis:

Yes.

Stefan:

How did I “Don’t do that mistake”?

Francis:

Since you don’t record a video to post to YouTube to get many views, you don’t do that for that reason.

Stefan:

Yes.

Francis:

But you can do it. You can publish your video right after sending it to your assistant and create some content this way if you want. But you are doing the video for the sole reason of training your assistant, so do the video as it feels natural to you.

Don’t force yourself to do it a different way than you would do it naturally. But ask in the video as you talk tell him, “Whenever there’s something unclear in this video, let me know.”

Then adapt your style of video recording to whatever your assistant feedbacks to you. If for example he says, “Yeah, I know what a browser is and please don’t tell me to click on things. I will figure that out.” Then you make it easier.

If you send him a recording and, for example, you open a window and say, “Yeah, you just login to your WordPress dashboard then you show the published post and you SEO optimize them.”

Stefan:

Yes.

Francis:

Then your assistant says, “What’s a dashboard?” Then, you know to make your video simpler. Then you say, “Yeah, you click on this URL (you do it). Then here is the login button. Here you find the dashboard. Here you find the published post. Here you find the draft post, etc.” Then, you know you had to go back and back simpler.

In my opinion, start out talking like you would talk normally and then adapt your video presentations based on the feedback of your assistant on if you make it difficult or less difficult.

If your assistant doesn’t tell you clearly, this is not understandable; you will find that out automatically if you can implement your instructions or not. If you cannot implement it then it’s clear he hasn’t understood it.

If you explain more simple than he needs it then you cannot know. Then you need his feedback and he has to tell you, “Yeah, you can make it more complicated.”

But if you repeat something 2 or 3 times then on the second video, you don’t have to explain “Here’s the dashboard from WordPress, etc.” anymore. You can just say, “Yeah, review the last video if you don’t know how to do it.” Have them keep and review the videos until they know it.

Stefan:

Yes.

Francis:

The idea is to record one time on your end as an employer and the employee has to review the video as often as needed until they are able to ask questions or ask for clarifications or simplifications.

Your job is done once when you do 1 video. The assistant’s job is done when they have implemented the work or given you feedback that they need more instructions. Then, the next video comes.

Continue reading part 9 – Discussing different types of communication

March 7, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

An Effective Job Description Solves Virtual Assistants Retention Problems – Save Your Precious Time

Virtual assistants retention problems is part-3 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.

Click here to read part 2 – Fixed price vs hourly rate

Summary:

If you always keep firing the people, you are just running behind your project and it gets never done
A good job description always help you to retain your workers so it’s recommended to communicate as clear as you can at the start of the cooperation.
You need to handle your virtual employees very tactfully, otherwise they will flee away without any prior notice.

Start of the Interview:

Francis:

If an assistant, when he works with an oDesk, chooses to leave the job because he can’t do it or because he doesn’t have the time; he risks two things. He cannot earn more money from you. And much, much more important, he risks a bad oDesk feedback score.

You, as the employer, have the responsibility and/or the power to communicate truthfully how your virtual assistant works for you during the contract. If he stopped working for you because he didn’t do what was agreed beforehand, in my opinion, that’s justification enough for a bad feedback score.

There are several subsections in the feedback score – the quality of the work, the punctuality, the availability, the communication and stuff like that. In this case, I would give a bad feedback score in availability and say in my comment, “Well we started out with an agreement, 10 hours per week. After 1 week, they didn’t do it. I wouldn’t recommend working without a clear contract, something like that.”

Stefan:

Yes. I totally agree with that.

Francis:

This is not to scare to the worker or to destroy his future on oDesk. If you communicate that this would be the natural consequence, this does not seem inhuman for me.

I mean, you had an agreement if they break the agreement they should expect something to happen. If you don’t take your consequences then you will continue with this working style all the time.

Also, you have to note that when someone else is applying for your job, they will check out your feedback score. They will check out what sort of feedback you leave to your workers.

And if you leave such a worker feedback one time with the back feedback score and say, “Okay. Normally, I don’t give a bad feedback score without a reason but this guy didn’t deliver on our agreement of 10 hours per week.”

Then the next person who applies to your job will be very careful because they know you will take consequences of not fulfilling the time quota.

Stefan:

Yes.

Francis:

I think this is a mixture of being strict and honest. If it was me who would be in this situation, I would tell the assistant, “Okay, I see you deliver much less work than expected. If it’s a personal issue, please tell me. If you just lose your motivation then we need to figure a way out.”

Either they get their motivation back or we slowly fade out the work and then finish the job. And while they slowly fade out the job, they need to take notes about everything they have learned so that the training process for the next person is easier.

Stefan:

Okay. This is a very hard situation actually. Because when you ask your worker that you lose the motivation, that you lose the interest in the job. And he just replies to you, “Yes, I lost the interest in the job because, in my opinion, I understood it wrongly.I thought the job was easier, the job was more interesting” and whatever the personal reasons are.

He tells you, he isn’t interested in the job anymore but you have a contract; what are you going to do now? Are you just going to fire him because he made a bad decision for accepting the wrong job?

Francis:

Firing is, perhaps, the wrong word. In practical situations, yes, you press the button to say end the contract. But in reality, this is open communication. You expected results, he expected some sort of work and the money. He doesn’t care seemingly about the money because the task is so not compatible to him.

He communicated that to you. So this is honest. This has to be respected. And now, we see where to continue, okay? One step would be to save the time trained into him by having him note down what he learned. That is damage control.

The second thing is you say, “Okay, thanks for communicating this. The next person I hire, I will be more clear with the communication if it’s interesting or not.” So you can have him write down what is not interesting on the job and put this as an attachment in the next job description. And say, “Review the job description. If you don’t agree to do this; if you don’t agree to do, for example, boring work…”

Stefan:

Or apply for what’s too difficult for them because he didn’t understand the work.

Francis:

Or that. I think both of that are totally viable. As long as there’s some improvement in your hiring process then you get closer to your goal. If you try the same job description the second time, you will have the same result the second time unless you’re lucky.

Stefan:

Yes. So as conclusion, you gave me the idea that every time you employ someone and you face problem like at the start, you should have him or her write a new job description for you.

Francis:

That is one idea. Of course, you don’t want to pay that…

Stefan:

And you’re going to do is take that and change your existing one. Mix it up. Create a new one that is better. And then when that happens again, you let that person create a new job description.

Francis:

Yes.

Stefan:

So you, again that leaves a good, perfect job description.

Francis:

If you want to save some time and money, you can also do a few job description increasement loops at the beginning of your job. Just hire someone to understand the job and to increase your job description quality. Communicate that so let the people convince you to keep them.

We are not; we are never forced to give out money. If you are happy with the work and want to continue the job, then continue to spend money.

If you are not happy, no one forces you to keep a contract. You can remove your credit card information whenever you want. You shouldn’t ever think that your money is to be taken for granted. You work hard for your money.

You expect hard results for your money. And if you don’t get them, be quick with damage control.

Stefan:

The only problem will be the job gets never done.

Francis:

Well…

Stefan:

If you always fire the people or remove the contract, you are just running behind your project and it gets never done

Continue reading part 4 – How to master the art of effective outsourcing

March 7, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Asking for Virtual Assistant Works Samples at the Time of Hiring

hand is reaching out and touching a large photo gallery

Virtual assistant work samples is part-6 of the second interview from Stefan from Germany, who lives the Four Hour Work Week lifestyle in Thailand.

Click here to read part 5 – Effective email communication with your virtual assistants

Summary:

At the time of hiring a virtual assistant, check if they have a portfolio in their profile and put it as a requirement in your job description that you need a portfolio
For design jobs, services like 99designs or Fiverr are more relevant than oDesk.
You can ask them to attach a work sample before you even start the contract. This will show you who is really motivated to do the job for you and who is able to give you a work sample.

Start of the Interview:

Francis:

Another tool in your hiring process which we didn’t talk about yet is asking for work samples. Check if they have a portfolio in their profile and put it as a requirement in your job description that you need a portfolio. This will take care of all the applicants which do not have a portfolio you don’t even interview them.

Also, you can ask them to attach something, a work sample or something else, in their interview. This is before you even start the contract. This will show you who is really motivated to do the job for you and who is able to give you a work sample.

On the other hand, it will drastically reduce the amount of people who will apply for your job because they have to invest a lot of time and perhaps don’t even get a job.

But if your experience is that when you open a job description and you get a hundred applicants then you can put hire requirements to cut down on the people who applied to you and really filter out the best of the best for you.

Stefan:

Yes, that’s a possibility that you could this.

Francis:

This can all be happening before you start the contract within the interviewing phase.

Stefan:

Most of the time the portfolio is very good actually and shows work which is to me is totally surprising because I wouldn’t hire someone whose portfolio of his past work is not okay – is not good.

Francis:

Yes, of course.

Stefan:

But, surprisingly, I don’t understand why often it’s very difficult for people to reproduce what they already did in their portfolio. I don’t understand this. This is totally illogical. I mean, they could do it once why can’t they do it again?

Francis:

Well, as I said in my opinion, I wouldn’t do graphics designs on oDesk.

Stefan:

Okay.

Francis:

Something like that. So E-book writing, transcription, data entry, data analysis, all website administrative tasks – all of those technical stuffs can easily be outsourced to oDesk.

Stefan:

You wouldn’t do layout, designs or all creativity stuff?

Francis:

At least, I cannot teach you anything about it. I never have done designer jobs over oDesk.

Stefan:

Okay.

Francis:

So if I tell you, “Do it”, I wouldn’t be honest.

Stefan:

No, it’s okay.

Francis:

So, in my opinion, I would probably use 99Designs or Fiverr or some of the Fiverr clones which are more expensive. There’s some $20 Fiverr clone, for example.

Stefan:

There’s also Gigabox, for example.

Francis:

Ah yes, that’s true. So I would probably go over there if I wanted to have a designer job. It might be surprisingly time and money saving. If you invest $100 once and have a great design instead of losing a few weeks of time, a lot of nerves and then $40 without having a result by training an assistant and not getting the results. Then if you do it the second time then you easily has invested $100 also.

Also, with most professional designers you have the chance to have your work reviewed once or twice even on Fiverr. So if you’re not happy with the results, you are not paying the full price unless they have revised it once or twice. This is, in my opinion, a very good solution for designer jobs.

Stefan:

Yup. Right now, I don’t need a designer. But in the future I think I will do it whether it’s two versions. Either I do it small as you suggested in Fiverr. Do the 5 solutions – 5x 5, its $25. Or, do it way bigger also as you said Ninety-nine designs where you pay like $700 for a design or for 20 designs but you only pay for the one you choose.

So, from my experience, I think it’s very likely that only those 2 things are practical. Either go very small or very big for design and art stuff. On the other side, for technical stuff; for writing or what I need right now is not writing but layout.

Arrange the words and the pictures in the layout in a book. I’m writing the E-book right now and if I would outsource that, I am anxious to outsource that because somewhere deep inside I know that this won’t work.

Do you understand what my problem here is? Because from the past experiences I don’t trust this system anymore, I don’t trust that I can hire someone who does the job as I tell him to do the job. There’s also a little burying inside of me already.

Francis:

Yes, of course. If you have had failures in the past, then you will not be as trusting as if you had a lot of success in the past. That I think is natural. In my opinion, it is a doable thing. But if you already have lost your trust in the ability of your assistant then it will be difficult to get this job done.

So for anyone reading this interview, I think an editing and template doing job is very doable in oDesk or Elance or any other outsourcing platform for that matter. For you Stefan, personally, I propose to you that after the interview we talk about how you want the job done.

I figure out with either my assistant or someone else I hire especially for that to do it. I figure out how to make the instructions and then I give this back to you and you try that out with increased instructions.

Stefan:

Okay, could try that. I could try that.

Continue reading part 7 – Why outsourcing fails?

March 7, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

How To Ask Virtual Assistant Work Revisions Without Compromising Quality

Virtual assistant work revisions is part-3 of an interview with Eric, a fellow entrepreneur interested in outsourcing his work to virtual assistants all over the world.

Follow along to learn from our experience on working with VAs!

Click here to read part 2 of this interview – How to train an administrative virtual assistant for your online business

Summary:

Will getting too many revision offers from a virtual assistant give the employer peace of mind?

Will asking your virtual assistant for work revisions compromise the quality of work and delay your deadline?

Can hiring a person without seeing him face to face affect the ability to judge the character and compromise your business?

Start of the Interview:

Eric

I worked with virtual assistants from all over the globe. I worked with some from India, from Bulgaria, from Hungary and different places, and I’ve noticed, for the most part, mostly all of them are very eager to want to give me exactly what I want.

They’ll say, “I will give you as many revisions as you want” for a particular thing or they’re just very eager to give me exactly what it is that I wanted.

Francis

Yep. And did you use this offer? For example, they will write an article for you and they tell you, “You can have as many revisions as you want” would you then take them up on the offer or are you just saying okay they’re offering me this and then I’m happy?

Eric

Well, I think it gave me a little more peace of mind. I mean, when I was hiring them. Because, I think, especially, when you’re hiring someone that you don’t see face to face, it’s kind of hard to judge their character or judge the output that they’re going to give you. I think that by them offering that, it just gave me a little more peace of mind.

But, really like the last person that I just hired was somebody to work on a cover of one of my products that I’m going to put out next week and really I didn’t have to ask him for any revisions at all because the quality that he gave me was perfect.

He followed my instructions exactly the way that I wanted him to. And, so I really didn’t even ask him for any revisions at all. So I think it just depends.

But then, there are other times where I’ve asked for 4 or 5 revisions because it wasn’t exactly what I wanted and they freely gave me the revisions that I wanted and didn’t have any problem with me about that.

Francis

Okay. Perhaps, that’s a take away lesson for virtual assistants if you really want to jumpstart the trust between you and your employer offer bonuses like that. Free revisions, going over what is requested and then you are off to a good start.

Eric

But, I think there can be a problem there too. I mean, I know that there are (probably) some employers who could probably take advantage of this in the same extent.

Yeah. I mean, I think that most people that you worked with, if you’re willing to offer that to them and you give them a good product and you worked hard and you follow the instructions exactly as they’re given to you.

I don’t think that they’ll really take advantage of that. I don’t think. But, you know there are still probably some people who will.

Francis

Yeah. I assume that both of us, we have quite strong ethical values or standards. That perhaps it’s inconceivable for us how abusive some employers or wannabe-employers can be.

Or are not really employers, they are just people who gained the system of trust or initial trust of virtual assistants. And gain the fact that there are possibly many and growing more people of also beginner assistants trying to make a name for them and have a lot to lose.

So, I think that is a fact that one cannot ignore when we have to react to some reactions of your virtual assistants. So, for example, they are a little bit withdrawn in the beginning.

Continue reading part 4 – How to encourage virtual assistant feedback and suggestions

March 7, 2016 By Francis Leave a Comment

Virtual Assistant Training Is Important – But Manage Your Time Effectively!

Train your personal assistants thoroughly: it will pay back to you tenfold. On the other hand, also make sure that your virtual assistant training efforts are applied effectively.

Working with one VS multiple virtual assistants

I tried working with a team of providers on Odesk. This was stressful, as each and everyone needed and deserved clear instructions from me.

Outsourcing turned into a full time job – I would have gotten things done in the same time that I outsourced it.

Not so good!

Now, I decided to train dedicated, highly motivated staff for me. Focusing on the virtual assistant training for one provider at a time took less time and yielded more results.

How many assistants do you want to hire and train at the same time?

Always think before hiring multiple assistants

Here is the maximum that I was willing to work with after years of outsourcing experience – in addition to one primary virtual assistant:

One specialist for one-day-a-week tasks in addition to my “main” virtual assistant
Several short time helpers for on-off fixed price tasks that needed to be done in few days

Be prepared if your personal assistant quits

There is one big risk and downside to hiring one excellent provider and training him everything you know, though:

What if the cooperation ends?

There are many reasons a freelancer would stop working with you.
He could be unhappy with the payment.
He could have other, more lucrative working agreements with other employers. He could have found a better paid, permanent offline job.

This is a risk you have to be aware of, as an employer. I propose one solution to this biggest risk:

Create a backup virtual assistant training plan!

Ask your assistant to work out a training plan that would be able to teach another virtual assistant the same steps that he learnt himself. You profit twice:

The VA shows how well he has understood his tasks. They say that you have not mastered anything before you cannot teach it to others.
He creates the instructions for a possible successor for you. No need to worry about being left alone with all your work on the desk. (There will be a transition phase though, where less work will be done!)

Save this training plan and be prepared to send it to a possible successor.

Automated Virtual Assistant Training with an Autoresponder

Or, if you are successful with your online business, you can also distribute your training using an email autoresponder service to a whole team of virtual assistants. Automate the expansion of your enterprise, so to speak.

Whatever happens, I am really glad the cooperation works so smoothly for all this time till now.

Feedback is as important as training was

You taught your virtual assistant lots of skills that he will profit from in future assignments. Don’t forget that he used these skills to work for you, for many hours, at a competitive price.

The least you, as an employer must do, is put in some work to write a solid feedback for him.

When you are working with a provider who does a very good job, like mine does, make sure you leave him with more than a few words of thanks at the end.

Francis

Summary:

Start of the Interview:

Summary:

Start of the Interview:

Summary:

Start of the Interview:

Summary:

Start of the Interview:

Summary:

Start of the Interview:

Working with one VS multiple virtual assistants

How many assistants do you want to hire and train at the same time?

Be prepared if your personal assistant quits

Create a backup virtual assistant training plan!

Automated Virtual Assistant Training with an Autoresponder

Feedback is as important as training was

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