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As a Virtual Assistant, Have You Ever Made a Mistake?

by Virtual Assistant
(June 23,2012.)

A business person who is very depressed after making a mistake

Well, virtual assistants are also human and we can also make mistakes just like other people do.

Today I did a little mistake. At this point of discussion I can say that was a little mistake, but at the time I committed it, it was a blunder.

My employer asked me to create a favicon for his new website. Apparently it was a very simple job. I just converted one of the stock photos into a favicon by using an online service. There are many websites offering this tool and you can find it easily by searching it on Google.

Coming back to my mistake.

After converting the favicon online, I simply uploaded the favicon to the Sitesell’s pre-loaded “Fav it!” module.

As soon as the icon was uploaded, I realized that I have uploaded this favicon to my employer’s other website which has a totally different theme as compare to this ideal-helper.com website.

So first step what I did to rectify my mistake is that I quickly snipped that favicon by using a screen capturing tool and then I told this matter to my employer straight away without wasting another second.

And you know what I got in reply?

“No worries regarding the favicon”

These were the first couple of words from my employer which brought me a sigh of relief.

As I am working with him for a long period and I know him very well. I know that he never loses his temper even though I made a big mistake. So I think that was the key I told him about my mistake without any second thought. I knew that he would definitely come up with the solution of my mistake instead of scolding and shouting over me which he never did.

In my opinion it was our level of understanding which caused the prompt resolution of this issue. If I do not have a trust over him, it was quite possible that I might have not told him the case.

So here I have a big question to all Virtual assistants:

Do we have a right to make a mistake sometimes or should we consider ourselves a “Robot” who never makes any mistake?

Even if you are an employer I would love to hear that how do you react when your virtual assistant does something wrong?

Please post in comments.

Jun 24, 2012 The FavIcon looks fine now, so all is good!
by: FrancisThanks for posting from your perspective as a VA! I wouldn’t have known that making this mistake would make you worry so much.Of course, I need your excellence in the work you do. It’s what makes a virtual assistant an asset for his employer.But let’s keep being humans, both of us.

And we both make mistakes – you know I do. What we make out of these mistakes, in this case a learning experience, is what counts.

Especially making a screen of the old favicons before they could have been lost was smart from your site.
Jun 11, 2014 Note to self
by: JohnI can relate how you feel. But, mistakes serve as a lesson for you to improve. And that’s also my starting point where I can learn my lessons and just keep on honing until it gets better. Sometimes, you can’t avoid that it’s confusing.

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Do Skills Really Matter for a Virtual Assistant?

by Virtual Assistant
(June 20, 2012)

When I talk about skills I don’t mean the skills which I currently have, I was not at all skilled when I started my freelancing career. Although I had some proficiency in Microsoft Office, especially with Microsoft Word and Excel and some data analysis skills, but when you are looking for an internet savvy person, of course I was not the right choice.

So working as a virtual assistant was not a simple challenge for me. Terms like HTML, SEO and link building were like an undiscovered world for me. Also I had no idea about how a website gets to the top of the Google search ranking.

When I got into this business and after researching and reading a lot of different materials on internet regarding my undiscovered barriers, I got to know that this study has a potential. I decided that this would be the job of future and if I learned these things it would definitely help me in future.

Honestly speaking, I was very lucky with my experiment. As I said that I knew nothing regarding any of the internet businesses. I have started out my career from scratch, but still I feel myself lucky that I found some good employers here at oDesk.

They not only trained me but paid me as well for that training. The only skill I had before starting my freelancer career was “My hunger towards learning new things.” Therefore I fed my hunger with the right food and today I can say that somehow I have learned a lot of new things as a freelancer.

So In my opinion the primary skill a virtual assistant must have is the “ability to learn.”

Everything else comes after that.

Well of course, you have all the rights to disagree with my point of view and you can explain yours by adding a comment to this post.

Comments for Do Skills Really Matter for a Virtual Assistant?

Jun 20, 2012 You Saw Everything Exactly Right. That’s the Most Important Point.
by: FrancisWhat a great and honest blog post from you. I like how you explained that you thought that you did not have many skills when you started and it’s true that you did not know much about website building.But you remember that we started out with simple data entry jobs and only because you showed the most enthusiasm and you are the most organized and hardworking data entry person that I trusted you with more and more complex tasks.So you earned yourself the right to get more complicated tasks yourself.

But it is true. The best two skills I asked to any virtual assistant are:

  1. the great command of English language
  2. and a hunger to learn.
Jun 28, 2012 money and skills
by: KittycatSince I started studying, I also have been working – otherwise I would run out of money after half of the month.^^
I’ve had 3 different side-jobs and just now started to work for a new employer. At the beginning it’s again really difficult and I think I don’t know anything (also bec I’m very self-critical). 😛
But after the experience of my other jobs I know now, that in a few months I will be able to do it very good. Anyway my friends and my boyfriend keep telling me, that I shouldn’t worry and that as you said “the ability or hunger to learn” is most important.
I think so too! And you’re right, one doesn’t only get money, but valuable new skills. =)
Jun 28, 2012 There is another skills that we missed out
by: Virtual AssitantI think there is another key skill that we missed out in our list and that is “Patience”Yes I know its very important that you should have a lot of patience especially in the struggling days of your freelancing career.I have referred oDesk to many of my friends and 90% them usually give up as they could not find a suitable job for themselves.

Even I can quote my own example, I get my first job after struggling for a good (perhaps not good) 6 months.
Jun 28, 2012 Interesting!
by: Francis@Kittycat: thanks for joining the discussion! Continue to feel free to ask any questions about outsourcing to me or my VA – we won’t bite and there are no forbidden questions. :)–@VA: what did your friends do when they “failed with Odesk”? Did they look to work as a freelancer elsewhere? Or what were the alternatives? They must have done something.

And now, with your experience and successes with Odesk – do you think you would land a job faster than in 6 months or do you think that’s a standard waiting period before you get a chance with an employer?

Honestly, I’m surprised you had to wait so long. There are also pretty bad freelancers out there. Seeing your skills and ability to learn, what were the employers not happy with?
Jun 28, 2012 Why I struggled for a long period?
by: Virtual AssitantWell I don’t blame employers for my failure. I was not well informed with the processes of oDesk and there were no guidelines available about how to apply for jobs and what should you keep in your mind while applying for jobs.So in my initial days I just wasted my job quota by applying irrelevant jobs. I got a fraud employer, I worked him for more than a month and he disappeared one day. His payment method was not verified that’s why I did not get a single penny.I think that if today I create a new account on oDesk, I will easily get my first feedback within 10 days. Obviously nobody was there to teach me these little goodies and I learned it from my own mistakes.

But wise people do not learn from their own mistakes, they learn from other’s experiences.
Jun 28, 2012 What is this job quota?
by: FrancisAlways interesting to get a look “behind the lines” and see things from your perspective as a provider/employee.I didn’t know there was a job quota. What does this mean? Are you only allowed to apply to a finite number of jobs? Is there a reason to this?About finding a job faster with the right kind of tips – I already sent you an email, and we will make a little sub-section with great tips on how to become a successful virtual assistant on Odesk soon. 🙂

Still, I wish you could get back at the cheap employer that didn’t even pay up for work already done. 🙁
Jun 28, 2012 Job Quota on oDesk
by: Virtual AssitantYes you can’t apply more than 25 jobs per week. Initially it starts from a quota of 02 jobs/week which gradually increases as you complete your profile and by passing different tests, adding a photo to your profile etc.you can read full job quota details here
Jun 11, 2014 Skills Matter
by: JohnIf you’re a VA, it is vital that you are skillful with basic technical skills since your main task is to deal things online. But, the most vital skills a VA must have are the ability to understand and convert each task—since time is very essential in outsourcing.

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Talking About The Morality Of Outsourcing

by Virtual Assistant
(June 19, 2012)

Over the past two days, I and Francis had a detailed discussion about the morality of outsourcing.

Is it ethically fair to outsource your work to other countries?

How would you justify it morally?

The discussion went to an intense mode where we both asked each other totally personal questions (although there was nothing personal and the discussion was meant only for the sake of discussion).

We also discussed the basic realities and personal experiences of our working and living conditions, how much money a freelancer wants to earn as a virtual assistant, what or how much he can buy with this money, or if there’s any risk in hiring someone from a foreign country.

We also discussed about the payment process in detail and talked about the legality of this process, how freelancing companies like Odesk make sure that they transfer funds in a legal way and how they ensure that these processes are following the international money laundering laws?

As a virtual assistant (Provider), honestly speaking I have no regrets working as a freelancer.

In fact, to some extent I am helping the economy of my country. But when I think as an Employer, there are several things that have to be discussed before you outsource your work.

Although I tried to convey my point of view in the best possible way, quoted a lot of personal and general examples and think that I have succeeded in many arguments, still there is always some confusion left in our mind regarding the morality of the outsourcing.

So I think it would be best to have a general discussion regarding this subject and people from all over the world can contribute their point of view and let us know:

How do you think about this sensitive topic?

So, please jump into the discussion and leave a comment.

Comments for Talking About The Morality Of Outsourcing

Jun 19, 2012 It is a really touchy subject
by: Francis Talking about if outsourcing is right or wrong is difficult anyways. I don’t think there are two people with the exact same point of view about this topic.

But in the end, isn’t it the decision between two grown, individual people, the employer and the employee?

I always try my best to make the cooperation with a virtual assistant be as much of a win win situation as possible.

Anything beyond that feels like it is a little too much to ask, if you want my personal opinon.
Jun 28, 2012 thoughts
by: KittycatActually I haven’t given too many thoughts about the MORALTY of outsourcing. 😛

I was sure, that the freelancers wouldn’t do this work, if it wouldn’t be worth it and better paid than other jobs. After all this is a free market.

I’ve been traveling a lot and went to Bali once. The money exchange rate is 1 Euro = 11.000 Rupiah. For 11.000 Rupiah I was able to go to a good restaurant and buy myself a dinner with dessert and drinks. In Germany you most of the times don’t even get a lousy scoop of icecream for 1 Euro!

But anyway I find it very interesting what you as a freelancer think about all this. I hope to hear more! =)
Jun 28, 2012 I have a different point of view 
by: Virtual Assistant I think every business has its own Pros and Cons and it’s up to you how to take it.

For example you have a shop near the corner of your home but you do not buy any vegetables from this shop. Instead you prefer to buy it from another shop that fairly has a long distance than this shop because there you find some fresh vegetables at more comparative rates.

As you said that you went to Bali for travelling. Is it morally correct that you spend a lot of money on your travelling especially when you are spending this money out of your country? I mean there would be many places within Germany that you could have consider traveling.

I think it’s always fair wherever you go for travelling. After all its your money and you have all the rights to spend your money as per your will.

In my opinion it’s your right to keep your benefits at top of the priority unless it’s not illegal.

Nevertheless, Great discussion to argue! I am loving it 🙂
Jun 28, 2012 These Boots Are Made For Walkin’
by: Kittycat I went to NewZealand for a year and kinda stopped at Bali on the way back. =) That now seems like a million years in the past and my point of view has changed a lot since then.

Only recently we had a popular vote in my City wether or not our airport needs a third runway. 55% of the people said it doesn’t and so it’s not gonna be built. Instead the City will put the money in the extention of the citys public transport system.
I think this is a good thing in times of climate change, environmental pollution and all…

I’m grateful for the good public transport system we have in Germany. I will use it after my university graduation to do a morally correct 2-3month travel all over Germany! 😉 I’m so looking forward to that! There’s much in my own country I haven’t seen yet.

Actually I think it doesn’t matter whether I spend my money in Germany, Bali or another country. People can need it everywhere. But I do think it matters how we get to all these places on earth we so love to see… If I’d hat the time I’d just walk everywhere. 😛
But brilliant we can talk now via Phone and Interent around the globe without doing so much as one step.^^ (sitting on my desk)
Jun 28, 2012 A global world – It’s what we make out of it that counts 🙂
by: FrancisNice discussion, I’m loving it too 🙂

I find it sometimes even hypocritical if someone wants to tell me where to spend my own money. Especially under the argument of morals.

If what I’m doing is unethical or immoral, I want to know about this. This is a free blog, and if a freelancer from anywhere wanted to join the discussion and tell me “Outsourcing is frigging bad!” – then he is free to do so!

As I see it, I’m building opportunities for two grown up people: my virtual assistant and me.

He makes some money to support his studies. More importantly, he grabs the opportunity to learn tons of stuff from me.

And I profit from his hard work to get my projects (this website, other stuff) running as smoothly and beautifully as possible.

We agreed on the price. What could be wrong about this?
Jul 22, 2012 win-win
by: Kz I think there’s nothing wrong with outsourcing. US is the top outsourcing country all over the world and they are really getting a lot of revenue because of the outsourced people.

But let’s face it, it’s a win-win situation. Contractors like us really get a very competitive rate compared to what is being offered in our locality. It also creates a positive connection and long term relationship between/among the parties involved.
Jul 28, 2012 Outsourcing – what is it all about
by: Mohamed Rilwan Outsourcing in General has both Pros and Cons. In the view of an employer, it is a cost effective mechanism to get the things done from experts at a competitive advantage, however it is also prudent to pass sensitive information to the hands of the unknown.

Outsourcing can be argued as a cause for unemployment in an economy, by hiring people from foreign countries effects economy in a negative way and strips hundreds to thousands of domestic jobs, especially the skilled and semi-skilled workers.

Freelancing, therefore, comes into play, being a form of outsourcing, it creats employment to those that are unemployed on the other hand. Any skilled or unskilled can seek for jobs based on their criteria at freelancing still being very competitive.

Due to the development of technology, the world is shrinking day by day leaving less time with more and more work. A physical workplace is considered a burden for an organization when productivity is concerned over the expenditure.

Employers are more towards result orientation rather than task based. Therefore, anything that makes the job quicker, easier and cheaper will be more preferrable.

The modern research says that traditional jobs are moving towards outsourcing to have a niche market. The first to be on outsourcing being US, now the growth is not only in the USA but also in Europe and Latin America. In the USA hot spots include Hawaii, North Carolina and Tennessee and also rural parts of the USA also experienced a boom.

Skilled professionals like manufacturing designers (+241%), architects (+198%) and family attorneys (+179%) are joining the online work community faster than ever with triple-digit increases compared to Q2 last year. Engineering is another job category defying the conventional market with skills like Chemical Engineering (+182%), Electrical Engineering (+126%) and Civil Engineering (+100%) increasing exponentially year over year. This is extracted from a recent newspaper.

Therefore, there seemed nothing in the grounds of ethics as Francis highlighted that when both the client and the contractor agree on a contract based on positive terms, both gets rewarded.

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My First Work Update as a Virtual Assistant

by Virtual Assistant
(June 09, 2012)

Hello everyone,

I am the virtual assistant working together with Francis on this website. All posts which start with Blog Post by VA will be written from my point of view.

So here is my first ever post 🙂

Couple of days ago, I researched a method where I can download many stock photos free of cost. Normally it costs you a minimum $1 for each photo, but I have managed to download tens of photos without paying anything.

Of course the method is 100% legal and you can download these photos under their TOS.

I will write another post about how to do it sometime later in detail.

 

Taking A Day Off – Get Your Virtual Assistant to Take Over

by Francis
(June 11, 2012)

Today, I felt like taking a day off. If you employ a virtual assistant, it’s good manners to let him know if you are not available suddenly.

A short voicemail sent to him via email may be sufficient. To make most use of both your and your VA’s time, give him some instructions, too.

In my case, I asked him to prepare the stock photo research which he discussed in his last blog post, as well as researching deeper into the training modules from SBI.

 

How I see the future of outsourcing

by Virtual Assistant
(June 12, 2012)

Hi Everyone,

Today we hired some Newbies to our team for a fairly short task. Both providers did an excellent job and have impressed both me and Francis with their extraordinary skills and hard work.

So the future of the outsourcing is very bright and I think we will see some more skilled and hardworking virtual assistants.

 

Working With a Large Team

by Virtual Assistant
(June 13, 2012)

As I said before that yesterday we hired a couple of new providers to our team.

While communicating them I realized that it’s a real tough job to handle so many providers at the same time.

You get messages from all of them back and forth and in the meantime you are also working on your own tasks.

 

Ethical Outsourcing – Is It Doable? I’ll Make It My Mission to Teach You How!

by Francis
(June 15, 2012)

As you may know, this blog still is pretty young. So there are many directions we will be able to go.

But it going to be about outsourcing stuff from your life to virtual assistants.

Just outsourcing is not enough. We have to ask ourselves some hard but necessary questions first.

How can we outsource ethically?

I’ll make it my mission to teach you, step by doable step, how to not only

  • get a trustworthy virtual assistant to do stuff for you

but also how to

  • be able to sleep at night (that’s a biggie!)
  • be able to justify having some other human being on the other end of the world work for you.

I’m in the middle of working out some more blog posts. Stay tuned for news from me.

And I hope you enjoy the news from the point of view of my VA (Virtual Assistant) as he supports my work and research with my websites.

See you soon!

 

Outsourcing to Pakistan – I’m Looking Forward to Get a Glimpse Behind the Scenes

by Francis
(June 16, 2012)

My virtual assistant is from Pakistan – but the subject of outsourcing to this country is of course pretty controversial.

My VA agreed to give me a look behind the curtains, farther than the classical media normally allow. This is interesting!

Don’t worry, I won’t make my blog into anything political. It still will be the number one place to learn hands on about hiring an ideal helper for your outsourcing needs.

To stay tuned, make sure to subscribe to this blog via email!

 

Know The Strenghts And Weaknesses Of Your Assistant And You

by Francis
(June 18, 2012)

If you are looking to hire a virtual assistant, you should first know what sort of assistant would be your most effective partner in real life.

Would you need a strict, organized partner?

Would you thrive with an ally that means your best but also givey you all the free room you need?

If you don’t know yet, do some soul searching.

In my personal case, I am creative and all-over-the-place, and I appreciate a highly organized VA that encourages me on my way. That is the best environment I can get when I am looking for a virtual team that makes results.

If you want to find out exactly how you best go about hiring a VA, read this post.

Comments for Know The Strengths And Weaknesses Of Your Assistant And You

Sep 18, 2014 disorganized to organized
by: JomvieI think I can pass on one of your standards of being organized—sometimes. :DI am grateful to be working with you for being given this kind of opportunity where I can hone my skills in organizing about any kind of stuff—literally or not.

I am not the one mentioned in this post, but I am one of those who have been trained and employed under Francis’ company.
Sep 18, 2014 There is strength in chaotic creativeness
by: FrancisBut for that alone, I think I alone am more than enough for any team ;)All in all being organized is learnable. And there are tools to help with that. I wanted to report about project management tools for some time, perhaps in another post.

Sometimes it’s all about priorization. Finding the task that makes a big difference and doing it first.

There are many things one can do once you have an online business. Too many things.

But the number of tasks that make a definitive difference on your bottom line are, in principle, quite limited.

It’s about focussing on those tasks that makes the difference.

Pros and Cons of One Dedicated Virtual Assistant

by Francis
(June 19, 2012)

Train one person really well, and you save lots of time giving instructions. There will be less misunderstandings, and you can rely on each other (for work and for results, respectively).

Downside: you need a backup plan for when the cooperation ends one time. No one expects you to work with one VA for a lifetime. And if yes, good for you 😉

I’ll teach you how to prepare for the change of a personal assistant with minimal time loss in a future post.

But if you have had a good assistant, be sure to leave him with more than a mere “”thank you”” as a feedback.

Feedback is enormously important for a VA!

 

Get Things Out of Your Head and on the Table – Tell Them to Your Virtual Assistant

by Francis
(June 21, 2012)

My head is always full of ideas. As a web-business owner, it’s hard to keep up with all the ideas, the potential projects etc. And actually doing any of them.

I call it inspiration overload.

There is a good way against that. I like to send my VA a long voice recording, where I “speak my ideas off my chest”. They don’t need to be perfect for now. Nor are they often well organized.

But my virtual assistant can always take care of organizing all those ideas in doable action steps, in categories, by priorities.

This alone makes a trustworthy personal assistant an invaluable asset. Not only for any business owner. But for any creative persons with too many ideas for their time.

I’m sure many of you fall into this category 🙂

 

Expanding My Team Again

by Francis
(June 24, 2012)

My VA and me got back in touch with an assistant I have worked with over a year ago.

We had a very productive cooperation at that time and I’m trying to work out some take-home lessons for you, dear readers!

How would you like some insights behind the scenes, and possibly directly on the desk of an assistant working on the other end of the world?

I thought so 😉

 

Letting Your Virtual Assistant Work Out Your Web Page Creation With HTML From A Word File

by Virtual Assistant
(June 25, 2012)

It takes time to build a webpage correctly. Even with a good content management system, you still fiddle around with HTML until the page looks just right.

But you could be doing something else in that valuable time. You could be

  • building more content,
  • sharing your expertise
  • or managing more cash flow to your business.
  • You could also just do nothing and chill out, your choice 😉

My solution?

I outsourced the process of course.

After teaching my VA each step along the way with screens, video recording and voice messages, he knows the process as well as I do now.

A huge time saver. And another reason why you should consider hiring a VA for your online business, if you have one or consider having one.

 

Writing Pages With A Tag Team Combo With Your Virtual Assistant Feels Like A Breeze

by Francis
(June 27, 2012)

OK, now I know I got your attention.

Creating a website is actually sometimes hard work. Although it is very much worth it!

Still, I remember the times when I did all this stuff all alone. How did I ever manage to do it?

This new site, ideal-helper.com, grows at a much more rapid pace.

One reason is probably, that I already have more experience building webpages.

But the main reason is, that I can team up with my virtual assistant to produce this content – that actually looks pretty fine in my opinion, btw.

I don’t think I’ll go back to working online alone any more. Depending on my budget, I will always have one or several virtual helpers hired and ready to help me out.

 

Interesting Discussion About My Virtual Assistants Beginnings of Online Work

by Francis
(June 28, 2012)

We have an interesting discussion going on in the comments of this post.

Don’t be shy to join this – or any other – post and ask away. Be as personal as you want, we don’t hide and won’t bite 😉

Update:

Having my VA work from Word files into websites works great. This has at least doubled my productivity and I am far ahead in schedule.

Which means you’ll get to read more insteresting stuff about outsourcing much sooner!

—

Now back to the interesting discussion I mentionned above…

 

Outsourced Interviews about Mechanical Turk Workers

by Francis
(June 29, 2012)

I am curious about life behind the scenes of Mechanical Turk workers. So, I designed key questions for an interview of several Turkers around the world.

Stay tuned for the results, I am sure they will be eye opening.

And if you did not know about Amazon’s outsourcing service, where you can give tasks to micro-virtual assistants, then you should check out my post about Mechanical Turk!

 

Teaching My VA to Manage This Very Site for Me

by Francis

Ousourcing on a real life example. As we speak, this website and blog are partially managed by my personal VA.

I teach him everything there is to know about building and maintaining a website business.

He helps me run it in a way that lets me focus on what matters.

Typical win-win situation, right?

 

Interact With Us! Your Opinion Matters the Most!

by Francis

What would you choose if you had to decide between hiring someone with a fixed job or an hourly job assignement?

Take the (new!) poll and let us know!

 

Explaining My VA the Blogging Feature on My Website

by Francis

The screen recording software Jing is not only free and awesome, but also very useful to explain things to your VA.