If I had a nickel for every so-called “marketing expert” who shout the same phrases over and over again – “you must outsource everything and hire a virtual assistant”, I’d have a hell of a lot of nickels.
It sounds great in theory, but here’s the reality.
Most of these experts (and I use that term very loosely) never actually hired a virtual assistant when THEY got started.
You think I’m lying? Just ask them.
When I got started building my online business – I was working full-time in a Children’s hospital making 26k per year. I didn’t have the resources to hire anyone to “run” my business – so what did I do?
I DID IT ALL MYSELF.
That’s right.
Before I started making any significant income, I did everything. And I mean everything.
I created my site in Frontpage (old school baby!), handled customer service, billing questions, refunds, product creation, and fulfillment.
Yes, I marched my ass over to staples and bought blank CDs, and Neato CD labels and spent hours stamping those annoying labels onto CDs. I even had my wife and parents helping out when the orders starting coming in faster.
It was about 3 years later that I finally had the balls to “hire” my first virtual assistant. I was scared shitless. I had always been an employee but never an employer. Big difference.
I found her on Elance and she started with transcriptions. Her name is Demetria and she’s still with me a decade later.
Even now, millions of dollars in revenue later – I keep things lean and mean with 2 virtual assistants, Demetria and Shirley. They know my business and my products inside and out. But most importantly, they are incredibly caring people who support my mission.
The bottom line is if you’re just starting out, conserve your cash as much as possible.
That might mean working harder at first (I know, I know – what a crazy concept!), but it will payoff.
What gets me crazy is seeing someone hire an employee before they are ready for it. And they start losing money quickly.
Do you really need to pay someone $10 an hour to “help you with email”, when you get about 7 emails a day?
SET A GOAL – THEN HIRE
If you are just getting started, give yourself a specific financial goal before you start to hire an assistant.
Maybe it’s $3k per month or $5k per month. Just have a number in mind before you can afford to hire.
RESOURCES
When you are ready, there are dozens of places to hire virtual assistants.
Here are just a few…
RUN
Be careful when you start taking advice online.
If an “expert”, in their $10 ebook, tells you to start building a large team of assistants from day one – run away as fast as possible.
It’s a dead giveaway they never actually built their own business from scratch and they’re just regurgitating theories they read about.
Grow smartly. Be frugal. And you’ll stick around for a long, long time.
Comments or questions? Resources to share?
Post it below!
P.S. Want the real scoop on starting an online biz from scratch. Read my book. It will be the best 29 bucks you ever spend.
So glad that someone out in cyberspace can say it as it is. I also fell for the “Guru’s” and I also spend 100′s of dollars on their ebooks, courses and training to e told to OUTSOURCE.
I found that every single website I’ve developed took at least 2-3 months before everything were running smoothly. In the beginning you have to stay on top of things, change some pages and flows. And only when you feel confided that the site is operating at it’s best then you can start thinking of hiring and outsourcing
Very true, Ryan.
I am 3rd generation owner of a family business.
I’m just starting to outsource some stuff now LOL.
Of course this, helps me as I launch my new online marketing business.
I’ve been through the trial and error. You have to be frugal in the beginning AND year to year. Just remember, every penny you save in expenses magically falls to your bottom line net profits.
Jacques,
It’s always a dead giveaway they have never built a real online business when the FIRST thing they say is to hire a virtual assistant.
You can eventually hire – just do it smartly.
Ryan
Thanks for having the balls to write this post Ryan. I think it’s great advice to make a financial goal before you hire am assistant to do things for you. I’ve worked for 3 start ups (brick & mortar) and watched the founders do everything they could to save money before they spent money on hiring. That truly is the way to go and I appreciate your willingness to say it.
Yes Ryan you are absolutely right and I learned the hard way, I do outsource now but believe it or not my secret weapon for outsourcing is – wait for it Fiverr.com. believe it or not you can get some great outsourcing done there for 5 bucks, all you need to do is check they have had plenty of gigs and at least a 97% positive feedback. anyway enough of that – great article again.
All The Best
John Robbins
As Usual
A virtual ‘Bite in the Butt!’
Thanks Ryan, you never fail to astonish me with your honesty
Keep em comin babe!
Gilly
Funny. The whole story of burning CDs, stamping them, all that…. EXACTLY the same here. :-) My first product was on a CD, and I sat there and burned the CD-R’s myself, printed all the labels, stomped them on (hate it when they got mis-aligned), packed the envelopes, licked the stamps, and drove them to the post office.
Memories. :-)
Spot on as usual bro. You have to have the position clearly defined. If you don’t keep those virtual assistants busy they’ll find work somewhere else. What I love about this post is it’s keeping entrepreneurs from hiring for the sake of hiring. I always tell people not to outsource until they have a good grasp on the job itself. Otherwise when you outsource it, you won’t know what a ‘job well done’ looks like.
Ryan,
I really like your information, and your Presentation Domination is a work of art. It has been a life-saver for us. So… thanks. But one more thing… I am really put off by your foul language. Maybe think about it. No one will be put off if you don’t use it. Not everyone talks that way in public, and especially when you get away from the Northeast Coast (New York, Jersey and Philly) and many more than you think are put off. I hope you’ll give it some thought. It won’t hurt, and it might help, to tone down the blue vocabulary. I tolerate it because of the value of what you offer, but I don’t recommend you to others for that reason. I’d be embarrassed for others to think I condone the language. Thanks for all you do.
Ryan, thanks for the honesty. I would think at first that you would want to automate as much as possible and deal with customer service on your own until enough money is coming in on a regular basis.
Also, as you have pointed out previously, Fivver may be a place for outsourcing.
Cheers!
Mike
Great post! I just open my book here in Panama, Central America (So I had to pay $10 + for shipping) But I do not care because I know it is a good investment.
Thanks for telling the truth! Though I´m in the spanish market (in ministers of the gospel niche). I know I will succed with your help. And if you visit Panama, you have a home here.
Did I mentioned “Panama” means abundance…
Thanks a thousand!!!
P.D. I´m really enjoying the reading of your book
Hi Ryan
Interesting blog post, but surely the important point is that people should learn to differentiate between useful and non essential outsourcing?
I mean, sure, there’s no point hiring a VA to read your emails if you’re just starting out but it might make sense to hire a VA to do back linking say.
I know my business started to take off when I stopped doing stuff like web design or fan pages and instead outsourced those tasks and focused on finding more clients.
Enjoying your blog (and btw, happy owner of nano continuity, it rocks!).
TJ
Ryan,
As always you are informative and amusing at the same time!
Hire someone from the beginning? Perhaps not. But hire someone quickly (as you and I have done): absolutely.
You can’t earn $20/hr or $100 or $1000/hr if you are stuck on $10/hr jobs. There are only so many hours in a day. And unlike anything else I can think of, once we use an hour, we can never get it back.
So we have a writing assistant, a research and video-syndication assistant, and a video editing assistant. Only the research and video syndication assistant (he syndicates all of our videos and works for some of our clients too, those who don’t do as much video work as we do) works every week for us – we started him at 10 hours a week and keep him really busy. The other two work for us on an as-needed basis.
MOST people we advise, who start out with NO assistants, usually tell us later than they wished they had started earlier with their assistants.
And go get ‘em with your TV show: video is vital to our growth and I’m sure it will be for you too. Your sales videos are always good – hope your same flare and honest approach shines through here too!
Charlie Seymour Jr
http://CreateYourOwnLegendNow.com
Brian – It definitely pays to be frugal :)
Ryan
Ryan,
Great post. I’m one of those people who were duped into buying a $1,000 Philippines outsourcing system from a pretty well know outsourcing guru.
I was brand new on the internet and the allure of hiring someone to work for you full-time for $300-$500 was more than I could resist. I have to say, his sale funnel was very effective:)
It quickly became clear to me that I had made a huge mistake since I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no product, no ideas, no solid foundation. I didn’t know anything. How did I really expect to provide direction to my outsourced labor when there was nothing to provide direction on?
Going for outsourcing as the first thing I did was a huge mistake.
I now understand that it is important, at least to me, to learn my business from the inside out. With that knowledge, I should be able to better handle outsourced labor, when I’m ready for it.
I can definitely see a use for outsourcing, but now I have a better idea how to capitalize on it. Your article is spot on. Thanks for that.
Now that’s honest. Fresh air! And, with all your success… it still seems you’re very “hands-on” with your operation. That’s passion! GREAT POST!
Maryellen,
Cashflow is everything – and I’ve seen too many wanna-be entrepreneurs burn all their cash.
Ryan
John,
I have also used fiverr – with some mixed results. There are definitely some good finds there.
Ryan
Hi Ryan,
I have to wholeheartedly agree with this! I read several pieces of advice about outsourcing, even got as far as registering on an outsourcing site and checking out a few virtual assistants, but then decided I should go it alone for now. I thought it might be easier to get someone else to work on setting up social media for me as I am struggling to understand it all – and I was a computer programmer in a previous life! – but decided I am better off to go through the learnng curve.
I enjoy your newsletters – great stuff!
Suesie
Ryan my best advice, you better off doing the stuff yourself. VA give you more headaches than its worth. Yes maybe for the mundance maintenace around the office like data capturing is great but my goodness. 5 elance company. Many many pravins, naidoo and raj’s later and still no success.
Anything revolving anything technically can be done, in fact you can ask them to build you amazon in one week… Until u accpt the job.
Anyways let me get back to my online elance arbitration case [ no jokes ]
Your is patients and hair loss
Sean
Gilly,
Just call me the ass kicker!
Ryan
David,
I remember those days well. And I make sure I NEVER forget them either. Gotta always stay grounded!
The worst was when the cd label would get a crease – and I’d have to throw it out. That was around $.50 cents down the drain!
Ryan
John,
GREAT point about know what a “good job” looks like.
Nice!
Ryan
Hey Max,
Thanks for your feedback.
RE: My language. When I get emotional, I tend to use some stronger language. It’s just me – and I just gotta be me :)
If it turns people away, that’s ok. I learned very long ago that you can’t please everybody. I just gotta be true to myself and let me emotion flow. This definitely ain’t the Disney channel.
To be fair, I only used the F-bomb in one post.
You can take the guy outta New York – but you can never take the New York outta the guy :)
Ryan
Ah, Ryan we are cut from the same cloth. I did everything myself for the first years I started as well.
What really scares me is when people hire outsourcers to do profit generating activities like seo. All our workers do internal stuff like customer support.
I can’t imagine managing them to do profit generating activities, especially when you’re starting out yourself and aren’t even an expert in the topic you want them to go make money on for you!
Ryan,
Good point.
The costs of VA can get out of control at the start.
Plus start building your systems while you are still doing doing. For example, how you check mail and how you do your FB page.
Take care.
Rick Kaselj of http://ExercisesForInjuries.com
.
Ryan,
I like your blunt advise. I just went through a lot of trouble trying to hire a Philipino VA that did not work out. It takes time training and supervising someone who lives on the other side of the world. There’s a lot that can go wrong. It seems most of us are drawn to VA’s by the “low” cost. But in the end it may be more expensive, if you consider all the time that’s wasted.
I appreciate that you actually read the comments and respond.
Kurt
This is a two edged sword Ryan.
1. You should NEVER outsource until you have a solid business model in place that is MAKING MONEY and you have your processes clearly defined and recorded in a training module.
2. On the other hand, I think most people don’t outsource or get an assistant fast enough because they are scared of spending money (that was me).
If you have done #1, then it’s time to OUTSOURCE!
If not, you need to get to #1.
David Frey
Mike,
You definitely want to AUTOMATE as much as humanly possible. Absolutely.
Autoresponders, FAQ pages, automated webinars, etc. all fit into that category.
Ryan
Hector,
Gracias, mi amigo!
It’s funny how you can tell just from one blog comment how big your heart is.
Best,
Ryan
Charlie,
I think there are 2 different things going on…
1. Outsourcing to create a site/project. That makes sense – especially if you have zero programming/writing skills.
2. Hiring an ASSISTANT to help run the business. This is where people jump in too quickly.
Ryan
Hi Ryan:
Great post. I AM the assistant to my husband as his business is in full swing. BUT- his days are numbered with me because I’m working on my own projects and one day, when I’ve paid my dues as he has and you have, I’ll have my OWN assistant! Success is such a cool thing.
Good reminder to be patient and spend only when the time is right.
Thanks, Michelle
Curt,
Yes, learn your business inside and out first.
I took a tour of Zappos and they make EVERYONE go through 2 weeks of answering all the customer support phones. CEOs, techies, marketing, etc.
That’s a really valuable lesson :)
Ryan
Hi Ryan,
DON’T MAKE THESE MISTAKES!
Thought I would share a little personal case study with your readers where I went really wroing with outsourcing.
I went down the heavily promoted route of hiring people in the Philippines.
Now I am used to building and running teams but not in the internet marketing space or outsourcing to a more remote location.
I won’t go in to some of the technical & internet issues I encountered.
Also, at the time, I was starting to build revenue for my business.
I was prety rigorous on working out the skills sets required and vetting people for the role. In fact I did not expect nearly such a high response rate to my letters.
But here’s where it all goes horribly wrong…
I thought I could be very clever and hire people who had already undertaken the tasks I needed to hire people for. Great
Problem was, these people all want to get jobs and will say they can do all sorts of things, when in fact their experience and knowledge is second rate at best.
Despite hiring people with ‘good command of English’ this turned out to be well off the mark.
Other than my web & graphics guy…it started to go really wrong because I had not spend the time and effort to learn all the mechanics of the systems I wanted my outsourcers to perform.
Simply I had not really got to know and develop very clera processes. I was trying to cut corners by hoping they would know how to implement the pieces I was asking for through using the tools and software apps they claimed to have experience in.
This was a huge tactical blunder. Not only did they not know & understand the processes (because I hadn’t put it together step by step myself) but I spend huge amounts of my time telling them how to actually do it.
Plus having discovered many of the errors, I had to go back and do the work again or tell them exactly what they needed to do to correct this.
I found this very frustrating, time consuming & expensive.
Tasks were now taking longer to get done.
Moral of the story (& the bad news) – spend time getting to know and understand the software tools you want to implement. Work out the best ways to use. Develop a clear step by step process or blueprint & then make videos or whatever & get them to implement exactly as you describe.
Don’t take on too many outsourcers at the same time – be clear about roles. Ideally train one really well and get them to teach others. (Although you do have to be careful if you go down this route)
Have an effective system in place to manage them and track their work.
This unfortunately means you have to do a lot of the early grunt work yourself…but testing syastems and methods is a key part of our jobs.
Once you have it in place be very careful about finding the right people for the tasks you want to outsource.
In the longer run, this will save you a huge amount of time & effort.
And Ryan, if like Demetria, they saty for 10yrs…then a very small price to pay.
Hope that helps.
Ron
Hi Ryan,
Awesome advice! Don’t spend money on things unless you are fairly certain you will get a return on your investment.
Thanks Ryan!
Jeremiah
Hi Ryan,
I leave a link to outsource in Spanish: http://www.trabajofreelance.com/. Very good article on your blog. Greetings from Spain.
Gustavo
Excellent post! The entire Internet Marketing Community is filled gurus pushing a concept they have never actually done before. Only follow those that are in the trenches actually doing what they teach and I only about 4 of them out of all the names out there who are the real deal. Ryan is 1 of the 4.
What I’m doing as I do the everything myself is keep in mind that this won’t always be the case so I ask myself while I’m doing everything, “What systems and documentation do I need to put in place now while I’m the one doing everything that will help me transition to giving this piece over to someone else when my business is big enough?” That keeps me thinking more like a CEO, even though I’m still the administrative assistant/bookkeeper/salesperson/etc.
Then, when I am big enough, I’ll have already laid the ground work for handing things over to people who can probably do those pieces better than I could.
Lisa
Great post Ryan and I completely agree! I did EVERYTHING too when i got started and I am soooooo halpy that I did. I personally don’t believe that you can effectively outsource anything if you don’t have an intimate understanding of how that sub process should work properly.
Thanks Ryan,
I was just thinking about this this morning. I was thinking of hiring; but don’t feel I’m far enough along yet. I was on teetering on the edge, but now I think I’ve had a little push to keep working and wait a bit longer for an assistant.
It’s always best to know how to do things yourself before hiring someone to do it. Maybe not things like html, but normal processes of business.
Jay
Amen on doing everything yourself first.
I like to make sure I know how the jobs will run first and how much time it takes before I hire anyone. Then, I hire jobs done on Freelancer.com according to my budget.
I tried Odesk, but didn’t have good luck. I went through 5 people on Odesk and they all tried to rip me off.
Freelancer has a pretty good system and I highly recommend them. I’ve hired roughly 15 people on Freelancer so far since December and had great luck with all of them.
I have one recommendation when hiring programmers from India. You have to be patient with them. They do great work, but in their own time, as it’s been with my experience. So, expect to have your job done in twice the time, but perfectly.
So Ryan, I have a question: Was that really you that called or someone impersonating you? You sounded sort of subdued on the phone and not like the normal Ryan I’m used to seeing in the videos.
Dave
Ryan, I’ve been checking out your advice for awhile now, and have to say I’m impressed with your open, sound view and can relate in many ways to your past. We’ve been in R&D for some time, and are now starting to bring our products to market. Too much business at this point could be potentially harmful actually, so we need to throttle our sales efforts a bit until we’re confident in our product performance. Then, look out! Keep up the good work!
I have to agree with Max about the language. I too find it offensive, but keep watching for content. I know a lot of “New Yorkers” who don’t use foul language, and they earn respect from more people than they would otherwise. What’s wrong with even more success!
Make today a great day!
Thanks Ryan. I didn’t realize these guys said get one from the very beginning, that seems ludicrous, and anyone in business knows you gotta work your tail off for years….as you did, as any of us have done. Thanks for the VA list…priceless!
That’s exactly where I am right now Ryan. With my site still in infancy stage (This Nov 5 will be 1 year.) I do the support, payment processing, etc… exactly as you did. I’m glad to know I’ve done it right and do look forward to the day I can outsource.
Thanks for making my day!
Maurice
There is an opposite side to this, Ryan. Better to start out with Virtual Assistants instead of “real” employees. Payroll is a killer. Figuring out benefits will eat you alive. Tax issues Federal, State and Local are too complex and steal an entrepreneurs energy.
I went from 10+ US employees to only virtual and love life so much more.
If you think you are ready for an employee to help you, go virtual instead and stay lean.
I completely agree! I ended up losing lots of money on courses and virtual assistants that I didn’t even need at the time! I learned the hard way that you can always hire as your business grows!
sound advise
to this day i create my own im software tools
i create my own sales page
videos
copy
payment
etc…
i beilve in doing it myself gives knowledge and power
nitin
Hey Art!
Yep – still really hands on with my business. There’s no other way if you really want to know the pulse of your clients.
Ryan
Hey Ryan, great advice. I like poeple that talk from the trenches and not the benches if you get what I mean. Here is a great resource I found through a blog regarding phone services: http://www.grasshopper.com. I hera that that this virtual phone system is AWESOME! Looks that way too. Check it out!
Great advice coming from a fitness background like you i know about do it yourself in the beginnig and only work with someone who understand your product. ive tried elance .com they are really great.
Hey Ryan, Greetings from Colombia, i´ve got almost 3 years in the Internet Marketing, and i´m still doing everything, even the photoshop images. so i think your advice is very very clever. I still scare shitless to hire someone to manage my email or make my websites or something else.
Regards Ryan Thanks a lot
Ryan,
I agree with maybe 50% of what you say here.
The biggest challenge for busy/new people is getting locked into learning instead of implementation.
They think they gotta learn everything about a subject before they “do it”
And then they go to the next shiny toy and feel the need to learn it too, before doing it.
Then the next,
The next
The next…
You get the idea, and learning becomes the pattern instead of doing.
If people did things on their own and took action and implemented, for sure they’d see fruits and rewards.
What I do is have my VAs do the learning for me too.
I have them take the courses, learn the content and summarize/brain storm back with me, saving me time the main points.
Kinda like reading books in Cliff’s notes :).
I do think people need to learn a bunch of stuff and apply stuff when they first get going, but I also know how much better it can be with staff working for you, doing the simple things that take time, like Submitting articles, press releases, videos, backlinks and the like for you, while you do other things like create ideas and products. That stuff is boring and simple.
Entrepreneurs don’t have to do the stuff that can be done by people at $5 to $10 per hour.
You are worth way more than that with your time. Start and do the things that make you $50 to $250 per hour. Outsource the rest.
Yes, you used and are using virtual teams now, and you have a couple people.
So do I.
So by having them, you are endorsing outsourcing, if it’s right for people’s business model.
I have 8 VAs working for my different companies, four of which work exclusively for me, just as you have.
The rest run and do the work in my SEO company, which is needed!
I have two people building niche wordpress blogs
1 person who does all my customer support and billing
and 1 person who does all my JVs and Affiliate relationship building.
I love training people on how to outsource effectively, so they really get it from the start and get the best advice and training.
When someone tells someone to “Go find a virtual assistant from the Philippines” no one hasa clue how to do that if they have never done it before.
So, most go without a net and fail right away, with no coaching or training.
Or they do nothing cause they don’t have a simple plan or blueprint.
I love outsourcing. I love teaching people how to do it right, as a matter of fact – let’s do a webinar sometime Ryan. (hint hint)
I know it works, so do you.
I’ll help anyone who wants to learn more, just let me know what I can do for you if you have questions.
Obviously, you cannot outsource everything, but there’s definitely a way to make it work, with the proper training and education.
Jeff Mills
Ryan,
You make some really excellent points here. One should always examine their readiness to work with a virtual assistant rather than just follow advice from some well known ‘guru’ who may or may not have real life experience working with VA’s.
As a virtual professional myself I do have a few things I’d like to point out that aren’t included in your post.
First, you don’t hire a virtual assistant, you collaborate with them. They are independent contractors (thus the huge benefit of not paying taxes & benefits) and as such you need to lose the employer mentality when you decide you need some help. If you’re treating your virtual assistant the way you would an employee it could spell trouble. The best virtual assistants are the ones who are successful business people in their own right. They don’t look at your projects as just a job, it’s their product and as such they will work hard to make sure it’s done well.
Which leads me to the second thing I wanted to highlight. The places you mention for finding a virtual assistant, while definitely giving you a large pool of virtual assistants to choose from, are risky if you are looking for someone highly skilled and experienced as a virtual professional. Sure, the virtual assistants there will be less expensive but you also risk the possibility of your projects not being done correctly, problems with communication and other unsatisfactory results.
For simple administrative tasks you may not mind taking that risk, but when you are dealing with contact with your customers/clients or projects that need a high level of expertise you’re better off staying away from those ‘virtual assistant mills’.
In the long run, it tends to save you money and headaches if you find a dedicated virtual assistant in the first place rather than risking it.
He’s right. And I own a VA firm. I did it all myself too when I started. Wore all the hats and still do sometimes when launching something new.
It’s why I always do the following for my start-up clients:
1. Tell me clients they are not ready for ___ and I’ll let them know when they are ready to graduate to a bigger software or package.
2. Use Open Source solutions for them as much as possible
3. Invented a way to AUTOMATE their social status updates on FB, twitter, linked etc so I don’t have to charge them our premium hourly rate to sit there and manage it.
Build a team when you’ve maxed yourself out SUCCESSFULLY. Outsource the OVERFLOW as you scale responsibly. Slow and steady wins the race.
~Jennifer Goodwin
Jennifer Goodwin is right. She is hot and smart. She said two important things worth mentioning again.
WHEN you are successful….
Slow and steady…
You wouldn’t want an assistant to help you do more failing.
Hiring a VA for me was a huge trial and error exercise. So take your time and it’s not over night. (I am still trying)
Thanks Ryan
Stan
One of the main reasons why people are hiring virtual assistant is to help them manage their time. If you are drowning with tasks and you don’t know what to do to keep up with all of your tasks, a virtual assistant is the answer to your problems. These way clients can spend more time on more important tasks. You can let virtual assistant do other things for you that will save you time, double your productivity and improve workflow. Virtual assistant can be hire in different freelancing sites like Odesk and Freelancer. You can also check this blog regarding hiring a virtual assistant.( http://www.staff.com/blog/hiring-a-virtual-assistant/ ) This will give you more information about hiring a virtual assistant.
Hey Ryan, great advice right there. However i find it crazy wearing all the different hats! Outsourcing has been very good to me lol. I started working with virtual assistants and I found out that those from the Philippines are really good, very hard working and skilled. I mean most of them have had training already. So I co-founded a VA company not just to help fellow entrepreneurs but also to help Filipinos in getting more opportunities.
great points altogether, you just gained a brand new reader.
What would you suggest in regards to your post that you made some days ago?
Any positive?
Hey there, I think your site might be having browser compatibility issues.
When I look at
your website in Chrome, it looks fine but when opening in Internet Explorer, it
has some overlapping. I just wanted to give you a quick heads up!
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