exact strategy.
• Be a nice guy. It’s a simple strategy that works well. The difference between productive virtual workers who produce amazing work over a long period of time and those who dwindle away into the virtual wilderness lies in how you treat them.
Todd’s Tools of the Trade
Here are the top tools Todd uses when working with his virtual staff:
• Screencast (Screencast.com): Step-by-step instruction on creating training content exactly the way you want it to be consumed by your VA.
• Dropbox (Dropbox.com): A document-sharing program that keeps everyone on the same page. Individual folders can be shared with different team members.
• Skype (Skype.com): The best means of communicating face-to-face with your global staff.
Todd’s ability to communicate clearly with his VAs, to understand what they are all about, and to see how they like to work with their bosses has allowed him to maximize the output of his virtual workers. Knowing whether each worker wants to be part-time or full-time as well as what start and end times everyone prefers to work are also keys to his ongoing success.
Finding the Right Virtual Staff
There are a wide range of platforms and options to connect you with VAs for your business, each with its pros and cons. Ultimately, you’ll have to choose the direction to go in, but here’s my honest opinion on each option.
1. Outsourcing Companies
Staffing companies allow you to rent employees from them to perform the various tasks you need completed. I can’t think of a good reason why anyone would want to take this route. Allow me to explain why.
Things to Consider
• These services are expensive because the outsourcing companies profit by marking up the cost of each VA’s work.
• The VAs are not part of your team—they’re paid by the outsourcing company and not by you.
• There’s little opportunity to create loyalty and trust because the worker is employed by the outsourcing company and not directly by you.
• If the outsourcing company goes out of business, all of your help will be lost overnight.
2. Job-Posting Sites
Elance.com, oDesk.com, and Craigslist.org all fall into this category. Job-posting sites are the best way to find virtual workers to whom you can outsource your project-based tasks. The way that you use these sites is quite simple:
1. Post a task or project that needs to be completed.
2. Set a price you’re willing to pay.
3. Get offers from freelancers.
4. Award a freelancer the job.
5. Set project milestones and begin!
Things to Consider
• You’ll be able to quickly find people to complete individual projects.
• You can see past reviews to get an idea of the worker’s performance.
• You are one of many clients each person is working with, and the workers understand that you may only work with them on just one project (although you do have the ability to work with them again if you like them). This can make it difficult to establish a good working relationship with a set routine.
• Rather than trying to make one full-time employer or two or three part-time employers happy, these types of VAs get paid more when they turn out higher volumes of work. As a result, the quality of the work may suffer.
3. Freelancer Marketplace Sites
The recent economic downturn combined with the popularity of job-posting sites has inspired many people to venture out on their own and create “VA for hire” services. These people are skilled freelancers with specific skills who classify themselves as entrepreneurs rather than VAs—and they are particularly popular in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Check out sites like Freelancer.com, Guru.com, and Fiverr.com to find an abundance of such freelancers.
Typically, you can expect to pay more for individual tasks or blocks of time via these types of sites in comparison with job-posting sites.
Things to Consider
• If you’re a first-time outsourcer, get started by trying things out by simply assigning a quick and simple-to-complete task. These types of freelancers are accustomed to selling their own services and will take the time to walk you through what they do.
• These freelancers will want to establish ongoing relationships with you.
• These freelancers are highly skilled, and they are also entrepreneurs, which means they charge premium prices for their services.
• Since you’re working with one person and someone with an entrepreneurial mindset, you may find that he or she is more opinionated and less flexible than someone found on a job-posting website, for example.
4. VA Recruiting Services
A firm providing you with a pool of potential VAs is a relatively new concept that has only been around for the last few years. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I own such a company, VirtualStaffFinder.com (focusing on the GVA role discussed above). To find a VA using this method, you sign up for the recruiting service, submit a job description, and then sit back and relax. You can focus on running your company while the recruiting team does the interviewing, background checks, testing, and additional screening needed to create a finalized list of candidates. Then you’ll interview the candidates, typically via Skype, and hire the one whom you are confident you can get to work with right away.
Things to Consider
• VA recruiting services are a simple and efficient way to find a VA because you don’t have to do any of the legwork.
• You’ll benefit from the experience of job-placement professionals who handle these types of recruiting situations daily.
• The VA becomes your direct employee and therefore a part of your team—trained and managed directly by you,
