by Francis
(October 11, 2012)
If you get started using oDesk, in order to hire VAs or other providers, you’ll soon be tempted to hire more than one person. It’s a smart business move:
You can find out who is the best fit for your business and you can get much more work done.
However, don’t forget that managing multiple people takes time too and a considerable amount of time, if you do it well.
Here is how I work around it in times of time pressure:
I have my one main virtual assistant. He is responsible for many different tasks and I have heavily trained him. I discussed with him if he would be up for managing other virtual assistants for me.
I gave him instructions about how to handle my other team members and enabled his account to get the rights as a Hiring Manager.
This is possible on oDesk. You can, if you trust your long time virtual assistant enough, give him the rights to hire, fire, employ and manage other people.
This is outsourcing on steroids.
Here is where the real power kicks in. My virtual assistant not only closely manages and stays in contact with two additional VAs.
He also gives me feedback about their work and evenly distributes the workload to both of those co-workers. This way, I can get a lot of stuff done in extremely short amount of time.
Especially if you’re pressed for results right now, this is a good tactic to use.
Finding out who’s the perfect fit for your business takes time.
And if you first have to screen through several co-workers one by one, you might not get all the work done that you need to.
My main advice, my main take home message from this whole website is:
Get yourself one trustworthy main virtual assistant.
Train him in the way you have been trained so that in the case of need, he can “replace you” accordingly.
Would you rather do all the managing and e-mail writing yourself?
How much trust do you need to build with your main virtual assistant before you can trust him with your account and with the privileges of hiring people?
In essence, how long does it take before you trust your virtual assistant with your credit card?
Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comments.
Comments for How I Manage Multiple Virtual Assistants Over oDesk
| Jul 21, 2014 | Business and Personal Stuff Strictly training someone to get you a clone is indeed an excellent idea. Especially business outsourcing is innovatively changing every now and then. Your business should adapt quite well through the help of VAs who will focus and closely monitor in your absence. Yes, you can trust and hand all your business transactions. But I don’t think I can let someone take over my personal stuff even for years of working close to that someone. And I don’t think it has to do with “trust”, I guess simply it’s just for security reasons. Let’s just say, business and personal stuff are two different things that can’t be mixed and put together in one place. |
| Jul 21, 2014 | Outsourcing personal email I know of some well-known leader figures that are experts on outsourcing – who outsource their personal email. Personally, that goes too far for me too. For now. But taking care of some of your less critical matters (and be it reviewing some of your newsletters for the must-read-stuff for your employer) can be something I can imagine a personal assistant do. Those really innovative uses of VAs are reserved for those of you readers that are courageous enough to try out wildly new things. Keep your critically personal data safe, though. |
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