As a busy small business owner, I’ve always relied on having a great assistant to coordinate my day and handle all the numerous tasks that build up each day that I simply don’t have time to get to. When the recession hit, I had to make the tough and sad decision let go of my assistant Sandy who was such a critical part of my life. At first it felt like I was lost at sea, having to learn how to manage my calendar and a bunch of new computer applications I had previously not had to touch. The worst part was having my daily task list literally double, and I never felt that I was giving my customers and my business the needed attention to run a truly top quality organization.
This is when I heard about using a virtual assistant. Apparently I’m one of the last business owners on earth to here about these, but it seems that so many busy business owners and execs are hiring remote assistants who handle your daiiy needs virtually. Your assistant may live across the globe in the Philippines or in India, but he or she will be in constant contact with you and always available via email or chat to handle whatever tasks you need them to.
Since I was so used to having my assistant being someone I knew and could see everyday, I was skeptical at first, but decided to give it a try. The tough part was determining how to find a good assistant. I had heard of a site called Odesk which is a search engine for remote professionals, and you can search for virtual private assistants there. However, I was most comfortable with using Craigslist to find all sorts of service professionals, so I decided to give it a try first (plus its free).
In a nutshell - Craigslist was a huge timesink and the results were poor. I searched for people advertising virtual private assistant services and contacted 4 candidates. I exchanged emails, then conducted phone interviews. Immediately 3 of the 4 did not make the cut - they were clearly not professional and 2 of them missed the phone call altogether. One candidate was decent, but after getting some writing samples from her she was clearly not cut out for the job.
So after 3 days spent on Craigslist I tried out Odesk. Odesk was surprisingly simple to get started with. There’s no sign up fee, you can simply post a job listing, and you then can browse the people who respond, checking out their backgrounds and work samples and previous work ratings - giving you a feel for who they are. (check out the latest virtual personal assistant listings here) I found a few good candidates and after interviewing 2, I found Meera who was clearly very qualified, articulate, and organized. I hired her 2 months ago and things have been going very well. I’ve been surprised at how well Meera can manage my daily tasks remotely - I hardly notice the fact that she’s not local. Odesk does charge a fee of 10% of each paycheck I send her - but this hardly seems to be an issue given the quality of her work and the fact that I can rely on the Odesk system to find additional professionals whenever I need.
> This link applies a 20% discount coupon for an Odesk subscription
So this skeptic has become a believer in using remote assistants, and am happy to report that I’ve found a reliable and efficient way to find them on Odesk. Try it out - see today’s virtual personal assistant listings.
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