My life and business changed since we hired Ivy, our first Virtual Assistant. Don’t get me wrong it wasn’t all roses, there was a massive learning curve. Fast forward a few years and our team have grown into more than 10 staff overseas.
I thought I’d produce another video because we had so much feedback on the last one that I did, where I talked a bit about the team that we have and how we now have around 10 staff in the Philippines.
Frequently Asked Questions for Hiring VAs in the Philippines
It prompted a bunch of questions with people emailing and wanting to know more, so I thought I’d jump back in the studio and to produce another quick video answering just 3 of the many questions that have come in. Also, show you where to go to get more information if you want to learn about how you can take full advantage of this strategy in order to grow your business. I’m going to go through a couple of frequently asked questions that have come through in relation to hiring virtual assistance to help you to grow your business. From now on, if you hear me say the word VA, that obviously, is short for Virtual Assistant.
Question #1: What do you get your Virtual Assistant to Do?
The first question that many people want to know is what do I get my virtual assistant to do? What task can I actually outsource? This is a question that we’ve had so many times, so we decided to team up with a good friend of ours, Chris Ducker and we’ve actually created this list here of 105 different things that you can outsource for less than 5 dollars an hour. This here is something that we give to people when they come along to an event that we run, which is called New Rules of Business. I’ll talk a bit more about that later on.
Our 105 Things to Outsource Checklist
It’s a special handout and it goes through 105 different things that you can outsource. Most business owners, once they go through and complete this document, they find at least 20, if not 30 or 40 different things that they can be outsourcing immediately for less than 5 dollars an hour. There are so many things, it’s really only limited by your imagination.
Question #2: How much does a VA cost?
All right. The next question that many people want to know as well is how much does it cost in order to hire a virtual assistant? This will depend greatly on the person’s level of skills and experience and also it will depend on the type of tasks that you’re getting them to do and what professional qualifications may be required. It can be anywhere from, say 3 dollars an hour at a low point to anywhere up to 10 or 15 dollars per hour at the high end, for people that are professionals in their fields.
Hiring cost will depend on the VA’s skills set and Professional Experience
For example, people that are certified accountants or people that make drafts, or people that are high end video editors, then you’ll be looking at paying more professional rates. But, it’s still around one tenth, maybe, one seventh of what it is for employing a local staff member, most likely in your country.
Service Cost per number of Rendered Hours
Now, the average that we’re going to use is around about 5 dollars an hour. If we just have that number in your head, then you’re going to be pretty safe for a general virtual assistant. If you’re going to be hiring someone full-time to work in your business, that’s around 40 hours a week, 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, then you’re going to be looking at somewhere between about 600 dollars up to 1,000 dollars per month, depending on whether they’re working from home or they’re working from a serviced office.
Don’t get overwhelmed with the Numbers; Start with One VA
When we get together and spend more time, I spend about 45 minutes to an hour talking about this subject at an event that I run called New Rules of Business, which is free to anyone that’s running a business or planning on starting one. It’s in Australia or New Zealand, you can come along to that event and at that we have more time to go into real detail around how this strategy works and how you can use it in your business. By the way, even though I have now more than 10 staff in the Philippines, you can just start with one, that’s where we started a number of years ago. You don’t need to get overwhelmed by the numbers, just start small and then work your way up from there. It’s a little bit about what a virtual assistant costs and, of course, you don’t need to hire them full-time, you might want to hire them just part-time for 10 hours a week or 20 hours a week. Of course, you can run your numbers and work out how much it’s going to cost you based on around 5 dollars per hour.
Question #3: Should I do it myself? or Hire an Agency?
All right, the next question we’re going to go into really quickly is, should I do it myself or hire an agency to actually do the recruitment for me and even actually have them work from a serviced office? This question alone is a whole discussion in itself. I could talk about this one point for around 30 minutes, but I don’t have that time right now.
DIY Contract Hiring vs Agency and/or Serviced Office
They are different ways you can go. You can do it yourself and there are pros and cons of doing that. You can use agencies that just do the hiring for you and then once their hiring is done and you pay them a small flat fee to do the hiring, then they contract directly to you, you pay them directly and generally speaking, they work from home. Or the other strategy is where they work from a serviced office. That’s where you normally pay a management company that then hires the staff and effectively then they’re subcontracting those staff to you. You’re paying an actual company as opposed to the individual that you’re employing. You need to be very careful around this particular strategy and that’s why I really would encourage you to get some more information and to get educated.
A Little Bit of Knowledge Can be Dangerous
There’s a saying that I wholeheartedly believe in, that is “a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous”. If you’re going to do this, you need to know what you’re doing and you need to understand what are the pros and cons of all of those different strategies. That brings me to the next step, but I now want to talk to you about some different ways in which we can help to continue the conversation and give you the answers that you need in order to grow your business.
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