How To Hire A Virtual Assistant

Somewhere in cyberspace (or maybe through a friend's recommendation) you stumbled upon the term Virtual Assistant.  It sounded intriguing so you did a little research.  The more you read, the more you realized that this could be a fabulous solution for you.  You decide it's time for you to hire a Virtual Assistant.  Then you get stuck.

How do you find one?  What kind of VA do you need?  How much is this gonna cost?  How do we communicate?  How does this all work?

Well let's start at the beginning. Before you even begin the process of hiring a Virtual Assistant there are a few things that need to be worked out first.

1. What kinds of tasks do you want them to take on? Write it out with as much detail and structure as you possible can.
2. Are you comfortable with working with someone virtually?  Can you handle not being able to see someone fact to face?
3. How many hours do you think you'll need them for each week/month?
4. How much can you afford to budget for this?  Take into account how much more productive you will be during those hours that your Virtual Assistant will be freeing you up.  For example, if your hourly rate is $200, at $50 per hour for a Virtual Assistant, for that same $200 you can  free up 4 hours, opening your availability to make an additional $800.

Once you've worked these things out, it's time to find your candidates.  You could probably Google Virtual Assistant + whatever niche or specialty you're looking for and then try contacting them one by one but this would be incredibly time consuming and not the best solution.  There are a number of different Virtual Assistant Networking sites and Associations that not only maintain directories of Virtual Assistants by specialty, but also allow you to post an RFP, a request for proposal.

An RFP allows you to take all of your answers from the questions above and put them out there on these sites so that the Virtual Assistants with the proper qualifications can contact you and take some of the legwork out of the process.

Some of the most popular sites are:

• IVAA or  International Virtual Assistants Association
• VANetworking.com
• Virtual Assistant Forums
• A Clayton's Secretary
• Find Virtual
• Home Secretarial Services
• Virtual Assistance Chamber of Commerce

Once you've posted your RFP, just sit back and relax.  You'll get an influx of proposals from qualified, professional Virtual Assistants ready to partner with you.  From there it's just a matter of connecting with them and discerning which one you feel the most comfortable with.