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Creating A More Efficient Communication Through Virtual Assistant Feedback

Virtual assistant with a megaphoneVirtual assistant feedback is part-4 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 3 of this interview – How to ask virtual assistant work revisions

Summary:

  • How to encourage and get virtual assistant feedback, thoughts and critics to help improve your online business?
  • Overnight results seldom exist. Can a trial period break the barriers between you and your virtual assistant?

Start of the interview:

Francis
Francis

Let me give you an example and then I would like to go back to the original question of “how to”, in the beginning, make the communication more efficient.

My main virtual assistant from Pakistan, he always did a good job with his work. But, it took me a long time until I encouraged him enough so that he openly shared with me his thoughts and criticisms.

He’s a super smart guy and I value his input a lot. But, in the beginning, I felt it was kind of hard to get him to talk without holding back a lot. This is even true when he criticizes some of my ideas now.

So, I’m asking openly, if I’m having a stupid idea tell me. And if it is a stupid idea and he tells me, he does it in an extremely polite way, in my view.

I would be fine if he tells me. Because after all these years, I would really be fine if he tells me “Francis, that is stupid. Do something lax.” But that’s perhaps the German in me who was talking 🙂

anonymous-user-thumb
Eric

Well, no, I’ve noticed the same thing because with my assistant, she was very apprehensive to really give me any of her input on anything. It was pretty much basically follow the instructions, do exactly what I said. But, that’s how we kind of build our relationship.

She’s a little bit more open in giving me ideas and suggestions on different pieces of software used to make things quicker and different things like that.

But, it took a little bit of time to be able to get to that point because I think that’s how any job or anything that we do in life goes.

I think that you’re going to be a little bit more apprehensive to tell your boss, you know, “Hey stupid, you shouldn’t be doing that or you should be doing this instead or whatever”. But I’ve noticed the same thing that you’re saying.

Francis
Francis

So, perhaps one has to assume that there is a trial period where the training takes place, the trust building takes place, the communication, payment and systems takes place; and only after that, we can really expect those sort of overnight results.

And, of course, each hour worked is each hour paid. So, this is an additional cost that is not very transparently advertised when someone talks about virtual assistants.

I never have had the experience with professional virtual assistants from the US. So, people who might charge $70 an hour have been really assistants who work as virtual secretaries for big CEO’s from big companies. That does exist.

I would assume that those people are so highly trained that you can expect this sort of overnight professionalism very soon in the start after only a few hours.

But, if in the opposite end you hire someone for $2 or $3 an hour, it wouldn’t be logical or useful or realistic that you have a professional virtual assistant quality after few hours. Because, then they would charge like a professional virtual assistant.

anonymous-user-thumb
Eric

Right, right. I think in every job or in every role, I think there’s always that time where you have to take that time to be able to train them properly and give them the right tools and the knowledge to what we’re trying to do online.

Continue reading part 5 – How effective is video screen recording in communicating your virtual assistant?

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How To Effectively Extract Virtual Assistant Concerns And Questions?

virtual assistant fears and concernsVirtual assistant concerns is part-8 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 7 of this interview – How audio-video software measures productivity with virtual assistant communications?

Summary:

  • Ways to effectively channel your virtual assistant concerns and questions: through blog posts or comments.
  • How to handle and prepare virtual assistants properly from the business owners’ perspective.

Start of the Interview:

anonymous-user-thumb
Eric

Is your site more geared toward the virtual assistant themselves or is it more geared towards the business owner or what is it about?

Francis
Francis

I will try to do both but I’d say that it’s more geared towards the business owners.

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Eric

Okay, alright. Just making sure because it seems like that you kind of split between both the business owner and the virtual assistant themselves. And that’s great.

So, I just wasn’t sure if we were talking about it from the perspective of business owner or the assistant themselves trying to work for the person or not or whatever.

Francis
Francis

I think it’s important to have both sides. And it’s also important for both parties to look at both sides. So, I have a page, a special tier page, for a virtual assistant with tips for virtual assistants but it’s a sub-page within the page.

But, I do believe that many virtual assistants are visiting my site and are getting some background knowledge on how an employer thinks. So, when they go to their employer—they are prepared.

Ideally, after reading my page, they will make another employer a little bit happier. On the other side, it’s very important to know as an employer what are the simple or complicated fears and questions usually virtual assistant have.

If you don’t know that, then, you will find yourself losing time and money. So, that’s why I feel having sometimes the commentary of my assistant or a blog post written from his perspective is very useful.

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Eric

Yeah, definitely it is. Because, as the employer, if you don’t know what the assistants are thinking or what’s going on at their end; it’s hard for us to kind of judge what are the questions that they might have or things that might come up in the future.

Continue reading part 9 – how to share large files with your virtual assistants

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Maximize The Effectiveness Of Your Virtual Assistant Communication

Business team shake handVirtual assistant communication is part-1 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!

Summary:

  • Effective communication with your virtual assistant can help optimize and expand your business
  • The communication barrier between virtual assistant and employer makes or breaks your business
  • Learning the proper employer-to-virtual assistant communication habits gets your message across effectively

Start of the Interview:

anonymous-user-thumb
Eric

One of the things that I was looking at was when you said how you effectively communicate with your assistant.

And, that was something at first I had a little bit of trouble with trying to find a good way to be able to get all of my ideas across to the assistant. And kind of get them on the same page as me and everything.  I don’t know if I’m jumping the gun or whatever here but that was one of the things that I saw when I was trying to get optimal.

Francis
Francis:

Yeah. This is something I really like to talk about as a subject because I think the communication between the assistant and employer makes or breaks your business.

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Eric

Yeah. What I was thinking is that it wasn’t really a language barrier. Because, when I was going in, I thought that I was going to have a lot of issues communicating with someone from the Philippines.

And, I never really noticed that very much. Their English is really good. It was almost just as good as any native speaker that I’ve ever come in contact with.

So, I never really noticed any language barriers. But, as far as I am trying to get them to understand exactly what I was trying to have them do; that’s where some of the difficulties came in.

You know what I’m saying? I have to explain things 1, 2, 3 or 4 times so that they would actually know exactly what it was that I needed them to do.

And a lot of times, I’m just typing it on a Word document or PDF but it wasn’t sufficient enough to make them understand.

The first thing I’ve tried to do was to make screen capture videos and I would upload those to YouTube and try to have them watch those. But, the problem with that was, after sending them the videos and say, I’ve uploaded that at (4 o’clock) my time–it was in the middle of the night for them.

Then, I would let them watch it. And, if there are questions, then, they would have to send it to me and it would be in the middle of the night for me.

So, that would leave us an entire day where they weren’t able to work on it because they were asking questions. And, then, I would send them an answer.

And, if they had any other questions, it would really cause the process to take a long period of time, to really expand and it makes things take a whole lot longer.

The questions going back and forth in the different time zones and everything like that would really cause a lot of problems. You know what I’m saying?

Francis
Francis:

Yes, I do. So, at first, this prerequisite on some of your business aspects are time sensitive.

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Eric

Yeah, yeah.

Francis
Francis:

Do you have some things like, for example, customer relationships? Like someone having a problem – a customer writing. And, then, you have to react fast because else the customer will get angry. Has something like that been an incident? So, that’s the case for you?

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Eric

Well, it wasn’t necessarily something like a customer. But, it was just something that you can say you wanted a research done for something that I wanted to work on the next day.

I wanted them to do the research so that It could be ready when I woke up the next morning, something that I could start working on.

Well, I couldn’t start working on it because they were like, “Well, I had a question about this or how do I find the backlinks to that site? What programs should I use or how do I look it up in the software?” You know what I’m saying?

So, there were just these differences on technical things. After they understood what they were supposed to do, they could continue doing it without any problems, but the initial set up in getting them familiar with the process was the first struggle that I faced.

Francis
Francis:

So, from my experience of working with my main long term assistant, it does take a while until it gets into this magical overnight mode.

So, if it’s improving perfectly, then you can give your task to your assistant. And, it’s an advantage that we have a different time zone.  While you sleep, they work.

And, then you will get the result the next day fresh in the morning. So, that’s like the magical perfection.

Actually, one of my proposed ideas when I tried to come up with a domain name for my site was “Others Work, You Sleep”. I found this funny but it was too long. So, I stayed with Ideal-Helper. But, it’s truly something great when you reach it.

So, obviously, you want to reach that level. But, I do think you should not have the highest expectations at the beginning especially if you have a fresh employee and especially if you haven’t communicated back and forth a lot and there is not enough trust set up yet.

At the moment you haven’t had that frequent communication yet and there’s not the trust-work-relationship set up yet.

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Eric

Right. And, especially if it’s a new task, if it’s something that they’ve never done before; it’s hard to – at first, you kind of expect them to be able to do everything. That this one virtual assistant can do everything and anything under the sun when really it’s better to hire different people to do different roles rather than having one person trying to do every single job and every single task for you.

Continue reading part 2 – How to train an administrative virtual assistant to have exceptional and organizational skills

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How To Outsource Tasks With A Team Of Virtual Assistants?

team of virtual assistantTeam of virtual assistants is part-15 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 14 of this interview – how to handle a newbie full-time virtual assistant

Summary:

  • Learn how to control a team of virtual assistants and your online business.
  • Learn what are the pros and cons between a single virtual assistant and a team of virtual assistants.
  • Learn how to organize and outsource tasks to a team of virtual assistants

Start of the Interview:

Francis
Francis

Although, I’m sort of slightly switching topic; I would like to test out something. Do you know how to share screen in Skype?

anonymous-user-thumb
Eric

Yes.

Francis
Francis

The plus button or…

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Eric

Let’s see, I’ve done it before but I don’t really…

Francis
Francis

Ah, yeah. I have it. I’m sharing my screen now and please don’t get overwhelmed, I just want to show an idea I had.

anonymous-user-thumb
Eric

What program is that you’re using?

Francis
Francis

That is Lucidchart.com. That’s online. It’s integrated with Google documents.

anonymous-user-thumb
Eric

Okay, cool.

Francis
Francis

So, I had tried to do some flowchart. It’s simply overwhelming but, in principle, what this shows is we start with ideas and do certain steps then do the keyword research.

Do certain steps than writing starts with voice recordings, a transcription then it goes back in some sort of feedback loop.

We look at the result. We fine tune it, do some steps. And then when I’m happy with the interim results, I create a content page from that with my VA who does some more steps. I’ve implemented a few links from SBI tools or articles in to these steps.

And then I go back to:

  • Optimizing stuff building the traffic from that page,
  • Doing some supporting steps,
  • Going to the Aweber email creation,
  • Checking the steps,
  • If the stats exceed a certain level then you monetize or you find if you can make an auto-responder or a Content 2.0 invitation,
  • Freebies creation, so when you want to have submissions, you’d create some sort of free gift to download. Stuff like that.
  • I tried to make some sort of a flow chart.

The idea of that is because we are talking about the team of assistants. This is much more than one person can do.

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Eric

Right, yeah.

Francis
Francis

Especially, so I’m just stopping now; especially when you are having more than one site going through that to do that sort of process. But that’s sort of my dream final result.

I have a team of assistants and then I start with an idea saying it would be cool if we could talk about this but in high quality.

Then we start with the research finding good keywords. Then we are picking my brain. So, in other words, my assistant puts together a list of ideas and input from internet research and then I just give my comments about each of these topics. Very much like the list of ideas we have in Google documents.

anonymous-user-thumb
Eric

Right. I think that’s great. Go ahead, I’m sorry.

Francis
Francis

Yeah. And then just it goes from there into the next steps of the business building process. And that’s how I would like to really speed start my content creation process with a team of virtual assistants. So, I have a sort of overall assistant but he could not do everything.

And now I would like to expand to have a writer on my team or an editor for fine tuning transcribed content, for example. And then, we go from there.

anonymous-user-thumb
Eric

Right. And for example, like for me, I was thinking about how I’m willing to start getting into YouTube a whole lot more with my videos because I think that’s a lot for my audience is.

I thought, okay, I can get my general virtual assistant to be just doing basic stuff you were talking about and then hiring maybe somebody to be my video editor. So all I have to do was just drop the videos in the Dropbox, and they go ahead and edit the videos.

Send them back to me and then I could let my general VA upload them to YouTube for me. Put the different descriptions. Add the links and things like that.

Then, I even thought about doing a podcast and I could hire somebody to do the editing of the podcast. Because those are things that I can do but it takes hours and hours of my time to do this thing.

The thing is that somebody else is probably a whole lot better at it than I am anyways. And then have somebody send that back to my virtual assistant and let them upload it.

I’ve been doing a lot of the same things as I kind of trying to come up with some kind of process rather than just being, how do I want to say it, hiring for different roles and having to process.

So, that’s where they can actually do different things rather than just randomly expecting my one virtual assistant to do everything.

Because I think that’s one of the things that as beginners are hired, we think that we can desire one person that can do everything and that kind of gets in the way of expanding your business.

Francis
Francis

If you have a person who does everything and you rely on that person 100%; what happens if he goes away? Then all of it falls together. All your training is lost. All your internal knowledge goes away. And you have to start from scratch and perhaps even have to fear that your knowledge goes somewhere else.

So, it makes sense to have some big pictures only for yourself, some big dreams. And some tasks, some very specific tasks given to specialists. If they are full time specialists or project based specialists, it doesn’t matter. But, keep them separated from each other slightly.

So that everyone talks with your Hiring Manager. But the Hiring Manager himself in the end does nothing else than manage. He does not do the technical stuff perhaps.

Continue reading part 16 -What are the standards in hiring part-time administrative assistant?

 

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Targeted Keyword Research With A Virtual Assistant

Tools for targeted keyword research

Brainstorm It

Adwords

SEO-programs

Keyword samurai… AFL?

Different sort of keywords

targeted keywords

long tail keywords

related keywords…

Using a VA for targeted keyword research

unoptimized text

keyword cloud

research keywords with lateral and vertical brainstorming

optimize the text

Re-read for usability and natural sound

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Interview with Suvidh Marwaha, CEO of Taskseveryday on Bloomberg Tv

Suvidh Marwaha, CEO of TasksEveryday

As an entrepreneur and someone who enjoys the advantages of outsourcing to virtual assistants, I was very interested in watching the interview featured on Bloomberg TV from the CEO of TasksEveryDay, an outsourcing service, with its CEO Suvidh Marwaha.

Check it out in this video:

 

Did you watch it? Great.

Thoughts on this video

What was interesting to me, was that he mentioned two aspects on where any entrepreneur in today’s modern world can use the help of a virtual assistant:

Both tasks can be set up rather easily with basic packages you can buy on the internet. Some solutions are also totally free, at first.

Setting up a website or an E-store successfully – as opposite to functionally – is a whole different ball-game.

Before you even think about the choice of creating a blog or a website, you have to understand how many complicated tasks are connected to building your online presence.

Not only building it, but maintaining it. That’s the hardest part. And that’s exactly where an experienced virtual assistant can come in very, very handy.

Why are VAs called “virtual”?

A different twist on the discussion – which is often ignored – is the term “virtual” when talking about personal assistants.

There is nothing virtual about the assistants themselves:

  • They are not machines.
  • They are living, breathing people with hopes and dreams.
Virtual assistant girl

Often, they are highly skilled professionals in their field, and have a much more entrepreneurial mind than the beginner website owner.

Therefore we have an extensive section about being ethical in the communication with your VAS.

It’s easy to start thinking of your VAs as some kind of super computer program. If you interact only with them via computer (emails, Skype), and perhaps get the results magically over night (due to time zone differences) – there is some “virtual” aspect there.

Take your assistants seriously. Then you will be able to tap into the full potential of their productivity

Business is not done with machines. Business is done with business partners. And partners need to be taken seriously.

If on the other hand you master the art of effective communication with your “virtual” assistants, you are in for massive success.

Your partner in business will go above and beyond to assure your success…

Challenges with Virtual Assistants

Another interesting aspect of the discussion with Suvidh Marwaha was that the biggest challenge you are likely to run into, is the communication.

There are lots of cultural barriers between you and your assistant, if you choose to hire someone from the other end of the globe.

That being said, Suvidh presents one of the best tools that will solve this issue.

Tools that make communication as effective as it could be, only beaten by face to face communication in front of a common computer.

And that tool is: Video recordings

When you record a video with voice and screen recording, you are

  1. visualizing exactly what you want,
  2. and slowly but surely building a relationship with your assistant: one video at a time.

May it be that you make a comment or ask for the well being of your assistant while a webpage loads that you want to show him in the video.

Or that you give mild criticism, rendered productive by showing your assistant the better alternative right away.

Anyways, using video for communicating and training your VA is pure genius.

A long distance business relationship – can you do it via internet?

Since the contact to your VA is crucial, will you be able to do it?

Since this topic was so central, we discussed this extensively in one of my interview series.

Bottom line:

  • Make sure you are understanding about cultural differences.
  • Be friendly but keep control when handling your assistants (don’t let them dupe you either).
  • A friendly word or a well-earned money bonus from time to time does wonders. So do Christmas wishes, especially with VAs from the Philippines.
  • Be sure to praise them when they do things right.
  • Don’t scold them when they do things wrong, but offer constructive criticism in a soft and friendly way.

Learn and improve your instruction giving skills over time. Each assistant is different.

Armed with this advice, half of the battle is won. By learning from mistakes (or any other honest entrepreneur having worked with virtual assistants) have made, you can prevent yourself from making them yourself

Which means: you can save a lot of money by

  • Not making expensive mistakes
  • Getting an assistant on your own, without a service, to save lots of money long term

How much should a Virtual Assistant cost?

man offering money

From the TasksEveryday pricing, Suvidh Marwaha talks about having 1100$/month cost for one full time virtual assistant.

While this is lower than the price you will pay for most professional VA’s from the US (40-70$ an hour!), I feel this is still doable for less.

If you use a full service like TasksEveryday, you profit from

  • existing structure
  • pre-screened candidates
  • some guarantee for getting started right

But I believe you can setup yourself with an assistant yourself, if you do it right.

Hint: 

All the stuff you need to know on this subject is available, for free on the many pages of Ideal-Helper.

For free directed coaching (the amount of information can get overwhelming), feel free to sign up for the free email coaching…

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Conclusion & Suvidh Marwaha on Twitter

I wholeheartedly agree with Suvidh Marwaha’s statement when he says:

The faster you recognize this, the more edge you will get over your competition.

Virtual assistance is not some hip trend or underground secret any more. It’s one of the most effective business building tools you can have.

Your Opinion:

Now it’s your turn! Was this useful to you?

  • Yes? What did you learn?
  • No? What were you missing?

You matter.

You should have a say in this discussion too. Feel free to jump in and use the comment section at the bottom of this post!