The Secret To Hassle-Free Outsourcing-Using A Virtual Assistant

When you first start doing Internet marketing, you should do everything possible yourself.  It takes quite a bit of learning, but you’ll develop solid strategies that will work time and time again.

But certainly for me,  you quickly get to the stage were for one reason or another you simply cannot keep up, and for us once you get behind it’s a real struggler to get back up to speed hence using outsourcers – we do all the time and believe me it works!

It’s exciting to learn this stuff, but pretty soon you end up with a whole list of daily tasks that are mundane and anybody could do.  If you’ve got some money coming in now, it’s time to start outsourcing.  Outsourcing can be tough at first, but I’ve found a way to make it really easy.

What To Outsource And What Not To Outsource

First of all, I just want to mention that there are a few things you should outsource from the beginning.  If there’s any task that you absolutely can’t do yourself, or that would take you a year to master, outsource it to somebody from Elance (www.elance.com) or another bidding site.  An example of this would be website creation.  If it’s going to hold you back, just get someone else to do it.

For other stuff that you can do, you shouldn’t outsource it from the beginning.  The reason is that you need to know exactly how to do it yourself.  If you don’t, you won’t know if your virtual assistant is doing it right or not.

Document Your Systems

Here’s a simple step that makes outsourcing incredibly easy.  Get a video production software program that records the screen as you work.  My personal favourite is Camtasia (www.camtasia.com).  It’s a high quality program with lots of great features.  Other good ones are Jing (www.techsmith.com/jing.html) and CamStudio (camstudio.org/).

Go through each process and record it.  For example, submitting an eBook to an eBook directory.  Show them every single step, including all the tags you include and whatever else you do.  Explain it as you go.  Now, you’ve got a simple training video that you can use when you outsource.  You don’t have to teach them how to do it; just give them a link to the video.

Hire Virtual Help

Now, all you’ve got to do is find the help.  Freelance sites are always good.  You should also give Fiverr (www.fiverr.com) a try, especially for simple tasks.  There you can hire someone to complete a task for $5.  The only trouble is that the help you find cheaply at these sites isn’t always the best.

There are also sites that specialize in finding virtual assistants and they offer higher quality and longer term help.  Just google it and you’ll come across loads.

One more way to find a good VA is to just blab about it.  Talk about it on forums or your social media sites, and there’s bound to be someone looking for a job who’ll hear you.

This method has worked great for me because it cuts down on having to train new help.  Once you get to the point where you’re outsourcing, make files of all your daily tasks.

Tony

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