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by Mike Vestil 

How to Easily Hire Your First Virtual Assistant

Do yourself a favor and get a virtual assistant.

It will change your life. Seriously.

Earlier on in my business, I had the attitude that I was the smartest person in the world and that if I wanted something done then I would have to do it myself.

And guess what happened?

The “freedom business” that I made for myself turned into a dreary 16 hour a day job.

I would wake up, turn on netflix, and binge watch episode after episode while analyzing my Facebook ads, doing product research, and creating content.

Not as sexy as these internet marketing gurus make it look huh.

But then something changed.

I realized that me being the smartest person in my business was the worst thing possible. Because then I would never actually have the free time to do the things that I wanted to do.

That is when I made it a goal to go out and find virtual assistants that were smarter than me. And to create a team of badasses that will help me take over the world.

My business ended up EXPLODING.

And the crazy thing is..

I ENDED UP WORKING LESS.

Find out exactly how I hired my team of virtual assistants that help me run my digital empire in today’s video.

[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIP-dY0fvog[/embedyt]

(View on YouTube)

Newbie Entrepreneur? Learn The Simple Tactic I Used To Make an Extra $1K Per Day While Traveling the World

FULL TRANSCRIPT

For most people that have businesses that entirely focuses on an online platform, believe me when I say you cannot afford to take 10 hours out of your business to have fun!

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Now that’s where a virtual assistant comes in.

What you guys gotta understand is YOU ONLY HAVE 24 HOURS IN A DAY.

However, what most people do not understand is if you want to keep on scaling, there’s only so many hours in a day that you could work effectively.

What really helps is when you leverage other people’s 24 hours in a day in a team of virtual assistants to actually get to where you want to go in your business.

I, for example, have a lot of different tasks that I myself have to do in my online business platforms like dropshipping stores, Facebook ads and stuff like that.

Given that space, I cannot divide all my time and attention in all of the aspects that run my businesses.

But here’s what I can do…

I can hire somebody who can LEAD and DEVOTE a good portion of their 24 hours of their day on specific tasks who could do even a lot better than me.

A lot of my virtual assistants are actually way smarter than me.

They are better writers, Facebook ads administrators, and even way better at product research than I am.

But in order to get there, I will I need to make sure that I have to FIND THE RIGHT ONES ONLINE.

That’s exactly what this content is all about.

You will learn exactly how to leverage your TIME to actually WIN IT BACK so you could start focusing on the things that are way important than anything else. Perhaps, living your life and maybe hanging out with elephants like I do in the video above.

You’re in a position where you’re heading towards a long-term vision for your business. Perhaps part of this vision is defining where you see your business 10 years down the road.

Winning your time back as an entrepreneur is very important which is why hiring the right virtual assistants is very essential.

Make sure you take note as we go over with the ultimate guide on how you can hire your first virtual assistant.

Step #1: GO TO UPWORK.COM

What a lot of people don’t know is it’s a place where you could literally hire people to work for you.

The coolest thing about this platform is you can start leveraging the US dollar or the Euro that you’re earning and paying somebody in places like the Philippines where a dollar goes a lot further.

Step #2: CREATE A JOB LISTING

Once you have created your profile in Upwork.com, the next thing that I want you to do is create a job listing.

Given that you’re on this online marketing space, you will definitely need general virtual assistants. .  Someone that’s able to do a bunch of various tasks.

They have to be very FLEXIBLE but ultimately has the WILLINGNESS TO LEARN.

Most of the people that get into owning businesses for some reason, the favorite country to choose your virtual assistant is in my home country, the Philippines

Majority of them are English speaking people and on top of that, their work ethic is amazing!

The US dollar really goes so much further in that country, like you can literally pay them $500 to $700 a month and that’s a full-time salary for some of these people.

Now in the job listing, what I want you to do is I want you to fill in the detail the most specific thing that you want them to do.

Let’s say you want them to first do product research, so you need to literally tell them what it is you’re looking for in a general virtual assistant.

On top of that, include by stating that he or she has to be willing to learn new things.

I always add the following set of questions in every single job posting that I do. This is so I can better understand who I’m actually hiring. Here they are:

  • Why do you think you are a good fit for this particular project?
  • Have you taken any Upwork tests and done well on them that you think are relevant to this job?
  • How long have you been a virtual assistant?
  • What are some previous training or experience you have?
  • What is your preferred work schedule?
  • Do you like working when it is morning in the USA or do you like working when it is night time in the USA?

From their answers, you can already sense their level of competence and commitment when they’re already a part your team.

Once your listing has been posted, people will literally start finding your job post. It’s crazy because there are millions of people that are looking for jobs on a daily basis!

And they are just waiting for you to hire them!

The moment this happens, what I want you to do is step number three. .

Step #3: BEGIN HIRING

Focus on hiring maybe 3 to 5 people initially. It’s because every single person isn’t going to be your best winner.

What you want to do is to hire slowly and fire fast.

How you start this is by getting these 3 to 5 people on a Skype interview so you can better know them in person. Because it’s one thing to write the resume, and it’s another thing to actually experience them and if you can get along with them. .

Or if they’re someone whom you have a sense of trust after you have a conversation with them.

Now I also want you to write these questions down because this is what you’re going to ask them on Skype interview.

You asked some questions for just the job listing interview, but then you want to go and ask them certain questions so you can better gauge where they are in their virtual assistant life.

Step #4: ASK THE RIGHT INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

Once you’re on Skype, you want to ask them certain questions, for example:

  • What are your strengths?
  • What are your weaknesses?
  • Say the Internet goes out and you have a deadline for a project, how would you react in this situation? (as this happens in Asia so you want to make sure they are reliable)
  • What experience do you have?
  • How do you communicate with your previous employer?
  • Why did you end up leaving?
  • How do you manage difficult coworkers?

Now how that really helps is, now you’re kind of dictating their leadership.

Especially if you want to start having more virtual assistants, you don’t want to be the one that manages all of them.

You want to talk to just one and that one person talks to all of them.

Like what I mentioned earlier, this is now how you can have more of your time back.

Just remember that when you’re on this interview, don’t worry about hiring somebody that has already worked this job.

Most likely, most of the people that you’re hiring has never worked like a type of job that you’re looking for in their entire life. And that’s actually good because what you’re looking for is their ability to learn long.

If they have an ability to learn, I would hire them on the spot!

That’s actually the number one trait that I look for when I’m actually running these Skype interviews.

For example, my very first virtual assistant had to actually do eBay listing. From there, she ended up learning how to optimize the titles and how to do customer service. Then from there, she actually learned how to do Facebook ads.

And guess what? I even ended up hiring her husband and her friends.

Now, she manages all of her friends and her husband on all the different tasks that my business needs on a daily basis.

After you’ve interviewed maybe 3 to 5 people, I want you to hire the one or two that you think is the best fit for the vision of your company.

Step #5: GIVE THEM A SMALL TASK

The fifth thing that I would want you to do is assign them a small task.

Just starting off the bat, you want to start gauging whether their skill level was right.

Perhaps after those small tasks, you want to see if you want to keep them and retain them for a long time.

One of the things that I like doing is giving them like a short tight little task. For example, I’ll ask them to research the top five scholarships in Kansas and do the pros and cons.

I’ll then have them send it to me in the next 24 hours on Google doc spreadsheet.

The biggest thing here is then, I could see how they face it when it comes to a deadline. I had to gauge if they’re actually reliable in getting the work done.

The next thing that you’ll do is show them their ability to do a task that they’re unfamiliar with yet. This approach will give you the hint to see the quality of information they could gather and how they utilize their thought process when they do the pros and cons.

Step #6: FIRE THE ONES THAT SUCK

Now once you give them this small task, I definitely want you to start firing the ones that did a poor job and start keeping the ones that actually did a good job.

Remember that in your business, you want to find the winners and expel the people that will literally drag your business down.

Step #7: SLOWLY GIVE THEM MORE RESPONSIBILITY

The key here is to SLOWLY give them ADDITIONAL responsibility.

I wouldn’t recommend giving them all your personal information right then and there.

I, for example, would just let them do a little bit of product research, put it on spreadsheet and submit it to me.

You could let them do that task for a couple of weeks or months. That way, you can see where they are in the process.

By the time you begin to get more trust, you can then start outsourcing customer service or other additional responsibilities.

Step #8: BUILDING TRUST TAKES TIME

Building trust takes time.

You’re not gonna let them run your entire business and live the 4-hour work week within 24 hours.

As for me, I’ve been with my virtual assistants for a really long time! That’s why they know everything about me.

Now I wouldn’t recommend having them know your credit card information. I probably would not do that starting off the bat.

However, as you get to know them and you get to meet them in person, you can start building up trust.

Step #9: EXPAND BY HIRING THROUGH THEIR NETWORK

When you want to expand, what I would actually recommend instead of going back to upwork.com. .

Is once you find that one winner and you fired all the people that suck, start hiring the friends or family of that one winner.

This approach decreases your workload when you actually have to hire the next generation of people that will work for you.

On top of that, everyone you’ll hire will be located in the same city. So that when you actually visit them to build the camaraderie, it’s definitely a lot simpler.

So that’s the biggest thing that I personally experienced.

You guys gotta understand that a JOB and a BUSINESS are different. When you work on a job, you are the person who’s working ALL THE TIME!

But with the business, it requires a team. . . And if you want to get your first six figures or seven figures, if you want to keep on scaling..

YOU CANNOT DO IT ALONE.

You need help, and certainly you need a team of winners and create that family environment that could cultivate your company in the exact position where you need it to be to go to next level.

So hopefully that helps guys! If you have any other questions about virtual assistants, let me know in the comments below.

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About the author 

Mike Vestil

Mike Vestil is an author, investor, and speaker known for building a business from zero to $1.5 million in 12 months while traveling the world.

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