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I Love It When My Virtual Assistant Goes Out of His Way To Anticipate My Wishes

by Francis
(June 28,2012.)

This is just of the small little details that makes working together with a virtual assistant long term much more fun than with many and different assistants in the short term.

a very cute virtual assistant with a headset
She is nice to look at! Isn’t She?

Since I work together with my VA for so long, he knows me pretty well. Not too long ago he illustrated one of my webpages for me.

Oh Yes!

I do not even need to put pictures in to my posts myself. My virtual assistant does it for me.

Don’t the pictures look great?

Come on! Be honest. They look great.

In any case they look at least as good as if do it myself if not better. And that all I ask as a result from outsourcing.

What was the good deed my virtual assistant did for me?

When I wrote one feedback email back to him in reply to one of his daily work updates, I casually mentioned how I noticed a specific stock photo on a specific website more than others.

Because I simply liked it. It has a cute girl, it was appropriate for the site and what the heck; I am also just a guy.

I did not give any more instructions about it.

What happened one day later?

In the screenshots taken by the oDesk software, I saw that he was researching more stock photos of the same photo model. I wasn’t even thinking about putting up more photos of this specific person, but now when I think about it I don’t dislike the idea.

So thanks to this constant monitoring of Odesk of the work of my VA, I knew in real time what he was up to and could give him further instructions.

So, I am off to writing an email – or even faster, recording a voicemail – to him to let him know that I approve of researching and downloading two or three more of those pictures.

That just one of the great little details that happens to me on daily basis when working on my web business together with my VA that makes working feel more like playing.

What do you think about this?

Comments for I love it when my virtual assistant goes out of his way to anticipate my wishes.


Wish beyond command
by: Jomvie

It’s a cool idea—giving out varieties so that you can have a lot of options which one you will like and which ones you don’t like. This way, there’s not so much time wasted.

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What Favicon Should I Choose for My Website? Can I Outsource This Decision?

by Francis
(June 28,2012.)

Sometimes challenges are so small that you even don’t want to bother taking them on. I had to make a minor very small decision, but still the branding of my website was in question.

My VA setting up favicon for my website

I needed to choose a favicon that’s a little image you see in your browser bar right next to the name of the website and I needed to format and uploaded it to my site.

Check out this other post to see what went wrong with it and how I handled it.

I remembered how I did my first favicon by hand. It took quite a while and it was boring work and it didn’t really change much.

Though it was a perfect condition to outsource this working step. I had my instructions to how to do this lying out already. So I just sent them to my virtual assistant for reading. I also wanted his opinion on which symbol could best represent my site.

From a list of stock photos, I asked him to research and download one for me. He quickly proposed one photo as a favicon. By the way, my virtual assistant and I came up with a great little tactic to virtually get unlimited amounts of great high quality stock photos with a little work around and by outsourcing the steps in between.

My Virtual Assistant creating a favicon for my website

I will let you know when I will have a written post about it.

Great! My assistant chose the perfect favicon for my website. I just had a little problem with it. Perhaps you know it that stock photos must be attributed to the photographer so that nobody easily able to steal his work.

But a very small favicon does not have the place to write an attribution description to it and so I was stuck.

Could I use that photo or not?

It would have stayed like that if my virtual assistant was not pro-active and motivated and he did some work behind my back which made me really happy.

He went on to contact the stock photo customer services center and nicely asked if it would be possible to use a stock photo as a favicon without crediting the attribution details.

Soon the customer support replied and gave the exact conditions under which circumstances and on which pixel size the picture could be used.

Result:

No hassle, stress free, high quality favicon creation with all the little steps between outsourced to my virtual assistant.

I would be lying if I wouldn’t think that this was pretty elegant.

I know what you are thinking now!

So much trouble about a favicon?

Well! It might only be one little icon to you but it was one item on my to-do list for me as a website owner and it had to be done one day or another.

Thanks to my assistant. It got done much earlier than if I would have done it myself and that should be worth something or not?

I am looking forward to see your comments on this post.

To jump into the discussion, just click to the link below.

Comments for What favicon should I choose for my website? Can I outsource this decision?

Jun 30, 2012 There was a little trouble with outsourcing this task
by: FrancisMaking the Favicon, my VA did a little blunder.Here is his post about it from his perspective.

I am sure it’s interesting to read about the web business from the perspective of the employer (me) and virtual assistant at the same time! 🙂
Jun 11, 2014 Cool bargain
by: JomvieI usually have problems with what images/pictures will I use for my articles. Apart from copyrights, the quality of images is my main problem. Stockphoto, getty, etc… are the only ones with great quality photos. Will check and try this out.

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What Happens if Your Virtual Assistant Makes a Mistake when Handling Your Web Business?

by Francis
(June 28,2012.)

It has taken many months of consistently excellent work and many moments where his work has always made me happy, but today it has happened.

My virtual assistant did a mistake. It’s about time, I thought. When I saw his email, I was worried a little bit if he might not be some sort of robot that always does everything right.

Just joking 🙂

But seriously, I outsourced a very very small task to him and was expecting that it would go smoothly as always.

If you are a Sitesell SBI website owner, you can easily create a little icon for the browser bar which is called a Favicon using Sitesell’s included module “Fav it!”

screenshot showing sitesell's Fav It module

I have done it for my first website but it was years ago. I remembered how I created the favicon in PowerPoint, exported it with a screenshot into paint and then somehow created with another free graphics software this favicon.

In principle, I know how to do this. For this new site ideal-helper.com, I wanted to outsource this very small task. Unfortunately, my virtual assistant mistook both sites and uploaded the new favicon for ideal-helper to my old website which has nothing do with virtual assistants.

He did two good things.

  1. First of all he informed me immediately and proposed how to remedy the situation.
  2. And 2nd of all he didn’t make it worse

Take home lesson:

Always Remember! Your virtual assistants are also people. They are humans like you and I, and we all make mistakes more than we would probably care to admit.

So when your virtual assistant does a mistake, cut him some slack!

If he does great work all the time, it doesn’t really matter if he does a mistake sometimes.

Dear Readers!

I would like to hear your opinion about this. If you have hired a virtual assistant and he would make a big mistake when doing some work for you or even a small mistake like the one explained in this post, how would you react?

And if you are a freelancer yourself, how would you like your employer to react?

Feel free to write your ideas into the comments.

Comments for What happens if your virtual assistant makes a mistake when handling your web business?

Oct 22, 2012 Everybody Makes Mistakes
by: Maria B.Every human being in this world can still commit mistakes even if he has done something over a million times before.If it happens that I make a mistake/s with my output or if the client is not satisfied with my work, I would ask him to specify the areas he wants me to change, improve, develop or enhance.

That way, we can work back on the same page again and be able to make ends meet.
Oct 22, 2012 trample on me
by: KittycatMaking a mistake myself I’m more than happy, when people don’t trample on me additionally. I always feel bad about mistakes, so this is punishment enough. 😛
Jun 11, 2014 An earthling after all
by: JomvieWell, as a VA myself, I do mistakes—sometimes. We’re an earthling bound to sin 😉 Considering his mistake, I think it’s reversible—there’s always a solution.

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Seven Skills a Virtual Assistant Must Have

by Virtual Assistant
(June 27, 2012)

a young and proactive virtual assistant with thumbs up

Becoming a personal assistant is much easier than any other freelancing work. You do your work under the direct supervision of your boss and he can analyze your skills and performance straight away.

On the flip side, a “normal freelancer” does not necessarily enjoy these advantages. To become the top virtual assistant of your employer, you should be very proactive to show off all of your skills. If you want to become a virtual assistant here are seven top skills a VA must have.

1. Honesty is the best e-policy

The primary skill a virtual assistant should have is honesty. I am not talking about being honest to the rest of the world; I am talking to be honest with yourself. If you can’t be honest to yourself, you cannot be honest to any person in the world.

So, always analyze your performance and the services you are offering to any employer. Remember employers are not fools. In fact, they are often more educated than a virtual assistant, so they always know what you are up to and how much time a particular task would need.

2. Hard work:

Hard work is the key to success – whether you are working online or offline. I can say from my personal experience that hard work never goes unrewarded. It will definitely pay you at one time in your career. So, don’t be afraid to try your best even if you are hired at a very low price. I am sure that you will never regret my advice at some point of your career.

3. Smart work:

For me smart-work is more important than hard work. If you are a hard worker you will definitely be successful. But if you are also a smart worker you will be successful much sooner than a hard worker. Hard work is just one of the factors that you need for success.

4. Making Suggestions

As a virtual assistant it is one of your key skills if you are making productive suggestions and always willing to provide your honest feedback to your employer.

Some freelancers and virtual assistants hesitate to give a negative feedback to their employers just because they are afraid that their boss might not like anything negative regarding his business. In my opinion productive criticism is the base of improvement.

5. Communicativeness

Communication is another must have skill for a VA. If your communication skills are not good, you can never be a successful virtual assistant. But never feel dishearten, it’s something that you can be learn very easily.

6. “I can” attitude

a happy virtual assistant dancing on his success

Your attitude toward work must be positive and proactive. For me, your attitude covers 30% of your overall skills which may lead to success. An “I can” attitude is highly appreciated by the employer.

Always take responsibility and ownership of your work. Treat your employer’s business as your own business. Go extra mile for the betterment of the business and try to work under minimum supervision. Think positive and convert your positive attitude into productive work results.

7. Ability to learn

Last but not the least, your “ability to learn” is a thriving “hunger” you must have. Never say “NO, I don’t know how to do it” to any of your employers.

Tell them that if they can teach you, you can do anything. If you can’t learn new things you can’t survive as a virtual assistant.

If you think that you have these seven skills, what are you waiting for?

You already are perfect virtual assistant material who has a bright future in front of him.

And if you lack some of these skills, never get discouraged.

You just need the last skill “Ability to learn” – and I am sure that you will then develop all other skills very soon to become a successful virtual assistant.

 

Comments for Seven Skills a Virtual Assistant Must Have

Jun 27, 2012 Great observations!
by: FrancisI fully agree to that list of skills that are great to have for a VA. But most of them are also very useful to the “other side”, the employers!And one comment: the employers are not necessarily “more educated” than the VA. That’s a misconception in my opinion. They are richer and have a business or projects, nothing else.But we employers do check regularly on the work of a VA, no matter how long they may be working with us.
Not so much to keep track if the VA is not up to some procrastination.
But rather to follow along with the progress of the business at all times.

It’s for this sake that a VA should try to show as often as possible that they are also thinking about the business.

The business/project is likely the one thing the employer is most caring about.

So why not talk about it? It’s a win win situation for both sides!
Jul 22, 2012 I totally agree
by: KzBeing a virtual assistant is challenging but still a very rewarding job. Clients can be demanding at times.You always need to go the extra mile but keep this in mind:You can’t please everybody all the time.

Take criticisms in a positive way, gather helpful insights and learn from it.
Jul 28, 2012 Some additional skills
by: Mohamed RilwanI also do agree with the above skills listed, which are mostly important for a VA. Such skills are not only limited to VA, but for every employee as well.Further I would add;08. Patience: This is very important for a VA. The VA should be able to tolerate any criticisms faced. This will encourage him to do the job with a peaceful mindset and gives ability to overcome disputes very easily.

09. Motivation: This is the driving force for a VA to do the job at its best perfection. The VA should filter the positive sides of his job to motivate himself to do the job.

10. Control: Work may flow in different capacities at a given point of time. The VA should be able to manage the work in accordance to the priorities placed and be able to meet the stringent deadlines. He should also be matured enough to decide which task shall be done and which ones shall be rejected.
Mar 09, 2014 I agree!
by: DeineI agree that a willingness to learn is very important to those who want to be a successful virtual assistant. This is true because the tasks are never fixed (and sometimes you end up doing a random odd job) so you really need to study every now and then in order for you to be able to do them.If you are assigned a task that you don’t know how to do, try searching for video tutorials in YouTube. You’ll be amazed at the wide array of videos that can help you with your assignment.
Jun 04, 2014 Multi-tasking skill
by: JomvieOne thing or skill that I admire most about virtual assistants, is their incomparable ability in multi-tasking. Their attention can jump from one thing to the other–which I would like to have.
Feb 20, 2015 Multi-Tasking is Actually Not Efficient
by: FrancisOne thing I have learned from business schedules is that doing several tasks at the same time feels busy but it sure isn’t.For you as a virtual assistant if you have ten tasks on your plate, it is much better to focus on Task #1 until it is done or until a milestone is acheived. Then just let your employer know about the status. If there is time left, continue to Task #2.The most inefficient way to go about it is to try to tackle all ten tasks at once. And the worst case scenario switching from one task to the other, whenever you hit a road block, you get bored or tired. That way you will get nothing done but one ten different tasks. That’s the least efficient way especially if you are waiting for frequent feedback from your employer.

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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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Promoting my website to web directories and social bookmarking sites. Was it worth it?

by Francis

website-social-bookmarking-case-studyMany of my very first attempts at Fiverr were geared to search engine optimization at that time. I wanted to boost the ranking of another site I had and – at that time – submitting to social bookmarking sites was a valid strategy.

Word of Warning:

Now, in 2012, this strategy is not valid anymore. Although it was useful before, nowdays I would not recommend outsourcing social bookmarking without a good action plan.

That said: I had bought at least eight different Gigs (5$ each) from different people promising me to promote my website to high page rank (do-follow) social bookmarking sites.

Some of them were very professional, asked me for information about my website and even created reports in Word and Excel for me to review.

In a few cases I had to ask follow up questions to get the results I wanted.

In one case, a backlink in the report did not work out. Luckily I double-checked the results.

Tip to you:

You never should just take outsourced results at face value. Always double-check. This way you will be able to turn it around before you are screwed over.

Anyways, in one case a link was defect. I asked for justification directly before I left my feedback on Fiverr. The person who did the Gig wanted to have a good feedback and did not want me to screw up his average feedback by giving a negative one.
He went out of his way and did several new links which all worked fine.

Communication, as always, was the key.

Can I say it was worth spending those $ 40?

I am not entirely sure.

In the past it was a valid strategy and my traffic took off at that time. Now the traffic is back to levels as if I didn’t have done those Gigs on Fiver.

Today I could say it wasn’t worth it, but obviously at that time I could not know about the changes in the Search Engine Optimization strategy.

So when you outsource anything, think about if it holds value for you in the future, one year from now. What will you gain from spending $5?

Five dollars alone does not seem much, but five dollars several times can add up pretty quickly.

Would you outsource you social bookmarking efforts or do you think you should do them alone?

Personally I think it’s pretty tedious work. So I liked to outsource it in the past. But I’d love to read your ideas about this in the comments!

Was it worth $40 and what could I have done with it?

by Francis

business-woman-working-ideaThinking about my experiments, I was just playing around with Fiverr. I was so attached by getting things done overnight and in few hours even that I literally forgot about hard numbers.

Honestly If I wouldn’t have been so enthusiastic about it, I would not have spent all that money. If I am thinking about it, I could just easily hire someone intelligent and eager to work on oDesk.

Pay him between $1-$2 an hour, teach him everything about social bookmarking within two hours and then have him work for twenty to forty hours depending on his payment.

I am sure he would have gotten many things done by that time that I have outsourced to Fiverr. More importantly I could use this service repeatedly in the future.

So it’s all up to you. If you want one trustworthy assistant, hire him and take your time to screen and train him. If you want to play around and want fast results, then I guess Fiverr is a real alternative.

Comments for Was it worth $40 and what could I have done with it?

Jun 11, 2014 Diamond turned stone
by: Francis Search of good quality on the internet is a bit hard since the internet world constantly evolves. And often, reviews are not reliable or accurate. I totally agree when you said that always do a background check before you entrust your work to someone else—to achieve the long lasting quality you’ve always wanted.