Nearly 12 months ago I took the Kolbe Test; it’s a Psychometric type test. If you’ve never completed one of these tests I suggest you invest the $40 or so, I certainly found it money well spent. Every test I’ve done and my partner has done has been very accurate)

The Kolbe test helped me identify my strengths

My strengths are

• Analysing Options

• Creating Strategies

• Allocating Resources

The problem that I had been coming up against was that I was really bad, rubbish in fact at finishing jobs off. I was always coming up with great ideas and strategies but very rarely executed on them.

The cynics might say did you really need a test to tell you that you struggled to get projects completed and the answer would be a definite

‘No, I am well aware!’

However, the value for me was in identifying my strengths and having them articulated concisely in 3 bullet points.

I looked at the list and allocating resources, said to me getting outsourcers to do the work. That was one of the turning points for me in really getting focused on building Outsource Success as a business, primarily to help support me in my entrepreneurial endeavours.

What are your strengths and weaknesses and how can using outsourcers fill in the gaps for you?

Topics: outsourcing | Give Your Two Cents »

An excellent place to start is to ask you the questions…

What tasks do I dislike doing?

What tasks do I often put to one side and say I’ll do that later?

What am I not doing that I know I should be doing?

Make a list of these jobs and hand them over to your Virtual Assistant as soon as possible.

Post the list of your jobs in the comments section below, it’ll help you and probably others too.

Gavin

P.S. I’ve added 11 tasks to get the list started

1. Sending out invoices

2. Balancing bank statements

3. Preparing my accounts

4. Doing my accounts

5. Proof reading my writing

6. Moving sections on a webpage

7. Uploading my blog posts

8. Adding messages to my auto responder series

9. Reviewing the results from Google analytics

10. Monitoring and improving my ad words campaigns

11. Monitoring blogs that I want to keep up to date with

Topics: Virtual Assistant | Give Your Two Cents »

It’s an age old goal setting principal. If you don’t know what your destination looks like how you are going to know when you get there.

It’s important to map out how you want your Outsourcing relationship to be.

Here is the scope of the role I’m looking to fill now, there is probably someone within my existing team who can do this for me, even so I think it’s important enough for me to write a list of my requirements. It makes me identify exactly what needs to be done and helps me highlight areas which are my ‘current time wasters’

• Work with minimum supervision and interaction

• monitor projects that are in progress and keep them moving,

• send reminders to people that have not responded to deadlines

• keep track of payments

• ensure projects get completed

• remind me of work that I need completing and keep me to deadlines

• filter out junk and non critical e-mails

• be pro-active and be able to undertake research or mange others collating research

• format and add images to my blog posts

• insert video posts into the blog

• sift through job postings on elance and reply to interesting jobs

Topics: outsourcing | Give Your Two Cents »

If you’re going to look for labour on e-lance then it’s important that you write your post in a way that filters out respondents that you do not want to work with. You want to keep some of the respondents behind the velvet rope.

As I’ve described in a previous post you can often find yourself so inundated that you literally need a Virtual Assistant to find yourself a Virtual Assistant. (link to previous post).

OK how do you filter out some of the noise…?

It depends on what your task is and the type of relationship you want. If you want a low touch outsourcing relationship (link to previous post) then you can ask for something specific in your post. e.g. Please do not enter into any conversation via the Private Message Board, these instructions are very simple. If you find the need to ask questions at this stage then you are not the right person for this job, please do not submit a bid.

If you would like to be considered for this bid then insert the following line into your bid.
‘I have read and understood the terms of this bid’.

One good way is to ask for a sample of work to be co. It’s only really viable to do this if you have either a big project that you are posting or you have a good track record on elance.

When I say a good track record, I mean a good ratio of Projects Posted to Projects Awarded. If you’ve posted 8 projects and only awarded 1 what person is going to bother submitting a ‘free sample’ to you? There not because the chances are that you are not going to award the project.
You have to get the balance right if you ask for too much then respondents will be put off and all you’ll be left with are the desperate.

If enough people are interested I’ll make a video demonstrating some examples of people who know what they are doing when it comes to using e-lance. Just put a comment in the comments box below, if 10 of you want it I’ll create the video.

Topics: Virtual Assistant | 3 Comments »

There are 2 main breeds of Virtual Assistants, those that are based in western countries like the US, Canada, UK and Australia and then those based in developing countries like India, Philippines, China and Mauritius.

The VA’s from the Western Countries often market themselves as being an extension of the clients business, being able to think for the client and be proactive taking care of things before they become an issue. They can be a bit like the right hand person or, executive assistant a MD may have when running a multi national corporation.

A number of the Western VA’s think that the Indians et al have jumped on the bandwagon and hijacked their industry. Welcome to globalisation.  The more people that use cheap overseas VA’s will help raise awareness of the industry and grow the numbers of people wanting their more expensive option.

Obviously someone as competent and experienced as that is going to cost more money than a Virtual Assistant from India; they may be 5 -15 times more expensive, charging anything in the range of $35 to $100 an hour

If you or your business is already cash rich then it might be worth hiring someone from the US or UK who can work like this for you.

Most business owners though cannot afford this luxury and if the truth be known would be quite happy to be earning that sort of money themself.

If the tasks that make up your business are well documented and systematised then hiring an assistant at over $50 an hour is an unnecessary luxury when there is a plentiful supply of VA’s who will work for around $10 an hour.

If you’re able to systematise the tasks there is no reason why a $10 an hour VA can’t do as good a job as a $100 an hour VA.

I’m interested to hear your views would you hire a virtual Assistant at $30 plus an hour?

Topics: outsourcing, Personal Outsourcing, Virtual Assistant | 4 Comments »

It’s been a long time since I’ve written a proper message about what’s been happening

To be honest I’ve taken my eye off the ball.

My main focus needs to be on income generation and systemisation so the company and I are earning enough and I’m not getting in the way of a smooth running machine.

Part of my problem has been a chicken and egg scenario.

I’ve been wanting to service more clients but needing to organise my own ‘working life’ better so that the business runs more smoothly.

What comes first the clients or the systems?

We’ve got some very good VA’s already but they are totally booked up working with existing clients.

Anyway I made the decision a couple of weeks ago that the next new member of staff that showed some leadership potential was going to be ‘commandeered’ for my exclusive use.

I’ve spent the time waiting by mapping all the tasks that I need doing you can download the mind map here.
We’re working through the list as he completes each task I’m having him create a process map of what needs to be done so that we can use it as we build Outsource Success and our clients can benefit too.

Lots more to share over the next few weeks, expect to see regular blog posts from now on.

Gavin

Topics: outsourcing | 3 Comments »

This is especially important if you are providing research assignments. You might ask the VA to identify celebrities based in London and e-mail their agents. If you think about you could easily spend a whole day doing that and get a big list, however if you have 10 hours a week allocated you might only want to spend 1-2 hours doing this because you have other tasks that are more important. If that is the case you need to communicate this to your VA.

Have a list of projects that are some day or on the back burner so that if for some reason you are particularly busy, you are ill or you go away on holiday you can keep your VA gainfully employed.

Topics: outsourcing, Virtual Assistant | Give Your Two Cents »

Time is money. Correct?
Well time is our most valuable currency and if you are serious about living the four hour work week then it’s vital that you trim down the interactions that you have with the outsourcers you work with.

There is a fine line between asking pertinent strategic questions and being needy and seeking approval too often.

Topics: outsourcing, services, Virtual Assistant, Internet Marketing | 1 Comment »

Why would you want to have a high touch relationship with an outsourcer?

Some benefits could be:

• Loyalty
• Improved response to your requests
• May add more value to your business, coming up with ideas for you to implement
• May be prepared to be more flexible with you.
• Generate ideas that can improve efficiency

Downsides:

• Invest time in getting to know someone and they end up leaving
• Can spend a lot of time getting to know someone, that takes time and there is an opportunity cost associated with that.

Do you really need more friends?

It might be better to distinguish between High Touch and Low Touch Tasks rather than the relationships themselves?

Topics: outsourcing, Personal Outsourcing, Virtual Assistant | 1 Comment »

Topics: tutorials, Internet Marketing | 1 Comment »