How I’m Using Virtual Assistants to Help Write My New Book

book writing delegationThis month I stumbled into a new book project — and already have a good chunk of it written.

Even though I’ve been through this process a handful of times, it’s still a daunting and intimidating task to be sitting on a blank Page 1 with a blinking cursor and think of everything that has to get done to make the book a success.

The good news is there are plenty of opportunities to delegate some of the tasks along the way.

Research and Writing

First up for me is the research phase. I’ve been leaning on my dedicated assistant from OkayRelax to help parse through mountains of information and pull out the most relevant examples.

($75 per month and available for other tasks as well.)

As that comes together and I complete my outline, it’s on me to write the first draft.

(I actually tried to outsource the writing portion of a book project a few years ago. The draft produced by the “native English speaker” I hired on Elance was a disaster. Lesson learned!)

One tactic I’ve seen other authors use to speed up the writing process is actually speaking their book with speech-to-text software like Dragon Dictation, or just recording it on their phone or laptop and handing the file off to a transcription service like Rev. After all, you can probably talk much faster than you can type.

(Typical rate: $1 per audio minute.)

Editing

Next, it’s usually a worthwhile investment to hire an editor to proofread and critique your rough draft. In the past I’ve used Elance (now Upwork) to find editors, but for this project I have a couple people in mind through personal networks.

(Typical rate: $100 per 10,000 words.)

Formatting

Formatting for paperback, Kindle, and other devices can be a big headache, but thankfully there are specialists on sites like Fiverr who do this all day long.

(Typical rate: $5-100 depending on length/complexity.)

Book Cover

And while I’ve used Fiverr for book covers in the past, I think this time around I’ll give DesignCrowd a shot. Their crowdsourced marketplace lets you tap into the creative energy of several designers competing for your business, instead of just one.

(Typical rate: $99-$269)

Audiobook Narration

To create an audiobook, you can actually get this done for free at ACX.com, the Audiobook Creation Exchange owned by Amazon.

Narrators produce your book for free in exchange for a share of future audiobook royalties. I’m actually testing out this service this month for the Virtual Assistant Assistant book.

(You can also pay someone upfront to produce it and keep all the royalties yourself.)

(Typical rate: free to $800 depending on length.)

Marketing

One area of this project I probably won’t outsource is the marketing. To be sure, there are tons of specialty PR services that try to get you and your book in front of a wide audience.

But as someone who’s often on the receiving end of those pitches, I can tell you they usually come off as impersonal and irrelevant.

I once had a PR company pitch me a book about the power of personal connections on behalf of the author. If he truly practiced what he preached, he wouldn’t have hired them to do the “connecting” for him!

Still, I probably will have my VA find some marketing channels to share the book on, because there is a lot that goes into orchestrating a successful launch.

I’ve seen other authors create professionally-produced book trailer videos, media kits, slide decks, back-end courses, and more. That stuff might not happen this time, but there are always options.

And whether you’re writing a book or not, the main facets of any project are the same.

I have to break down the big picture goal into all the steps that have to get done first. And many of those steps have delegation opportunities.

If I have any big wins or spectacular outsourcing mis-steps along the way, I’ll be sure to let you know!

Your Turn

What do you think?

Any glaring VA opportunities I’m missing as I get started with this project?

Read More

My Business Assistant

My Business Assistant is an outsourcing company aimed at helping small to medium sized businesses streamline their processes. The theory goes that if business can free up time, money, and resources spent on non-core processes, it usually makes sense to do that. And that’s where My Business Assistant comes in.

my business assistant reviewWhere most virtual assistant and outsourcing companies focus on serving the needs of busy professionals or solo entrepreneurs, My Business Assistant wants to help small companies take their business to the next level.

What’s unique about My Business Assistant vs. other VA companies, is that they have two working locations; one in the United States in Frederick, Maryland, and the other overseas in India. They call this the “Right Shore” approach, and assign tasks to the location best-suited to provide the most effective results.

My Business Assistant co-founder and CEO Gourab Nanda created a video on Tips for Successful Outsourcing. It’s nine minutes long, but definitely worth the time if you are seriously considering investing in a virtual assistant solution.

The services of My Business Assistant may be above and beyond the scope of what a “typical” virtual assistant company provides. Instead, they are a solution for a full-scale virtual workforce, for outsourcing entire aspects of your operation.

For example, if you run a small e-commerce website, you can hire My Business Assistant to manage all your phone orders, customer service, and live chat queries. The rates are higher than what you’ll find at AskSunday and other virtual assistant companies, but the level of service is greater as well. A US-based virtual assistant ranges from $24 to $32 an hour, depending on how many hours you need, and an India-based virtual assistant ranges from $9 to $12 an hour.

As you can imagine, this requires dedicated assistance, training, and customizable service plans, all of which My Business Assistant does. However, all this specialization comes at a price. If you need specific content written, such as an article for a website, it will run between $30 and $40. For the sake of comparison, I have purchased article writing on Fiverr.com for just $5, and have been happy with the results.

That said, plans are flexible, and you don’t have any long-term commitments. My Business Assistant is a BBB accredited business, and offers several customer testimonials on their website. For certain services, a free trial period is available, so it might be worthwhile to give them a test drive.

UPDATE: My Business Assistant has taken to posting spam comments on this site. If you plan to hire them for SEO, my advice would be not to. In the past few months they’ve posted the following generic and irrelevant comments under the names “Phone Customer Support” and “Outsource Customer Support”:

  • I just wanted to take a minute to tell you that you have a great site! Keep up the good work.
  • The theme of your blog is very beautiful and the article is written very well, I will continue to focus on your article.
  • Thanks for sharing these thoughts. This has been very helpful to me. Looking forward to read more informative topic.

These tactics are considered extremely low value and can really hurt your brand!

If you’ve had any experience with My Business Assistant, positive or negative, please share it here.

Read More

SEO Checklist by SEO Buddy

SEO Buddy is an SEO company that provides a number of do-it-yourself and SEO frameworks that help users generate more organic traffic to their websites.

They do not provide any services or staffing. All of SEO Buddy’s products are digital downloads that take you through easy-to-understand step-by-step checklists.

VAA Exclusive! Use coupon VAAssistant for 25% off!

About SEO Checklist by SEO Buddy

The company started operations in 2020 and is headed up by founder and long-time web entrepreneur Romain Brabant.

Romain has worked in SEO and been involved in other web entrepreneur ventures for the past 20 years. He has amassed a lot of SEO knowledge in that time and decided to create the SEO frameworks he’s selling through SEO Buddy to help others.

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is one of the most important aspects of building an online presence. It’s through SEO that you can generate organic traffic, grow your audience, and of course, make more money.

Yet, it’s one of the biggest struggles most webmasters face. This is because there are two main challenges;

  • Understanding SEO on a deep level takes a lot of time (and patience)
  • Hiring an SEO consultant or agency is a way to fast-track it, but that typically comes with a high price tag

If either of these things is holding you back, SEO Buddy is going to be the solution.

Romain has created a number of comprehensive step-by-step checklists. This enables you to check off every on-page, off-page, and website optimization point that will make a difference to how well your site ranks in Google and other search engines by yourself.

How SEO Checklist by SEO Buddy Works

SEO Buddy sells a number of SEO frameworks, SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures), eBooks, and other digital downloads.

All you need to do is visit one of their landing pages and click ‘‘Buy Now’’. You’ll be sent the products you’ve chosen as an email attachment.

The attachments are in Google Doc and Sheet formats and contain detailed step-by-step information on how to perfect your site’s SEO, build links, etc.

SEO Checklist by SEO Buddy Services

SEO Buddy has a number of digital products, many of which are included in bundles (there is a very good bundle discount going on at the time of publishing this).

VAA Exclusive! Use coupon VAAssistant for 25% off!

Their main flagship products are:

  1. SEO Checklist – This is a comprehensive 100+ point SEO checklist. You get a Google Sheet to work through, and you can check off each point when you’ve completed it. Included:
    – The 102-Point SEO Checklist (Google Sheet + Web App)
    – 42 Step-by-Step Process Docs (detailed standard operating procedures)
    – The 62 Page eBook (PDF)
    – A 52-WEEK Content Planning Calendar Method (PDF)
    – The 50-Point Content Distribution Checklist (Google Sheet)

 

2. SOP Collection – This is a collection of more than 60 standard operating procedures. You can use these SOPs to train virtual assistants and other staff members to optimize your site or your client’s websites.

 

3. Link Chest – Backlinks are typically time-consuming to get, but play a huge part in a website’s over SEO as they increase authority. Link Chest gives you a library of more than 120 easy-to-get backlink opportunities to chase down.

SEO Checklist by SEO Buddy Pricing

SEO Buddy prices their individual products at the following price points:

  1. SOP Collection – $149
    – The 102-Point SEO Checklist (Google Sheet + Web App)
    – 42 Step-by-Step Process Docs (detailed standard operating procedures)
    – The 62 Page eBook (PDF)
    – A 52-WEEK Content Planning Calendar Method (PDF)
    – The 50-Point Content Distribution Checklist (Google Sheet)
  2. SEO Checklist – $99
  3. Link Chest – $98

VAA Exclusive! Use coupon VAAssistant for 25% off!

At the time of publishing SEO Buddy was running a special offer. They’re bundling up their Checklist and SOP Collection along with some other downloads like a checklist ebook and a content planner all for $97.

This is less than paying for either the SEO Checklist or SOP Collection individually, so it’s a no-brainer if this offer is still running when you’re reading this.

Keep in mind that the Link Chest isn’t included in this bundle. If you do buy the Link Chest, you also have the option to pay an additional $139 to have SEO Buddy’s team build the 120+ links for you.

SEO Checklist by SEO Buddy Alternatives

In terms of alternative digital downloads, I recommend checking out the SEO services sellers on Fiverr and seeing what you can find.

If you still don’t want to do your own SEO tweaks, you should contact a virtual assistant company. You’ll be able to hire an experienced SEO assistant and pay them by the hour to optimize your site for you.

Your Turn

Have you used any of SEO Buddy’s SEO frameworks? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

Read More

Top Virtual Assistant

Top Virtual Assistant is a Canada-based virtual assistant company specializing in providing virtual assistants to individuals and small to medium-sized businesses all over the globe.

The company is headquartered in Canada, their assistants work remotely from all over the world, primarily India.

About Top Virtual Assistant

Top Virtual Assistant has over 10 years of experience and states that they have served over “300 happy clients”. Top Virtual Assistant is owned by Ajay Seth. Ajay has a background in IT and leading large teams of employees. He decided to start Top Virtual Assistant to, “help businesses prosper with unmatched additional services at minimal costs.”

Top Virtual Assistant says their assistants work remotely all over the world, with most of them being based in India.

When you sign up for a monthly plan, you’ll be assigned a dedicated assistant. Top Virtual Assistant says their assistants have excellent English and communication skills, and they have the skills to handle any business tasks that can be completed remotely.

Top Virtual Assistant also offer a free 10 hour free trial so you can try their services before making a commitment!

How Top Virtual Assistant Works

Top Virtual Assistant likes to start client relationships with a video call. You can of course reach out by email or phone, too. Whichever form of communication works best for you, they’re happy to accommodate.

During the call, they will get to know more about you, your business, and what your requirements are from a virtual assistant.

A member of Top Virtual Assistant’s team will then find the best-suited assistant from their team, and get back to you to introduce them.

Once you’re happy to start assigning tasks to your assistant, you can communicate via Skype, Slack, video call, and most other channels you already use.

They can help you with:

Most of their assistants work within US business hours. However, there is some flexibility as they’re based in India if you want them to work in a different time zone.

Top Virtual Assistant Services

Top Virtual Assistant’s VAs are skilled and equipped to handle a complete range of virtual assistant tasks. This means you can outsource just about any task that can be completed remotely.

To give a better idea, here are the categories they list as areas they specialize in:

Top Virtual Assistant Plans and Pricing

Top Virtual Assistant currently has three pricing plans to choose from. Rates start as low as $10/hr, and the minimum monthly cost is $390.

A complete list of their pricing plans at the time of publishing is:

  1. Select – $720 per month for 60 hours ($12/hr)
  2. Prime – $1,600 per month for 160 hours ($10/hr)
  3. Custom – Starting at $390 per month for 30 hours

All of their plans come with a 15-day money-back guarantee and you can cancel at any time.

They also offer a free 10 hour free trial so you can try their services before making a commitment!

Top Virtual Assistant Alternatives

Their direct competition in the US is ClearDesk and Time Etc. For alternative virtual assistant companies offering VAs based in India, we recommend checking out My Tasker.

MyTasker is a highly rated company that offer a similar range of services and pricing. If you really can’t decide, both of these companies offer free trials.

Your Turn

Have you worked with Top Virtual Assistant? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

Read More

TecMonks

TecMonks is an India-based virtual assistant company that provides virtual assistants to entrepreneurs and small business owners all over the world.

The company is headquartered in Kolkata, India. Their support staff and most of their virtual assistants work out of their offices at this location.

About TecMonks

The company started operations in April 2020. TecMonks was founded by Rahul and his partner, and both have a long history working in the Virtual Assistant space before started TecMonks

When I asked about how they serve their clients, TecMonks told me their first priority is learning about their clients’ needs and finding the best possible solution for them.

They explained that they are willing to take on literally any tasks that can be completed virtually. So, whatever your business tasks are, it’s worth reaching out to TecMonks to find out how they can help.

TecMonks will supply a dedicated assistant if you sign up for 50 hours per month or more. This gives you the chance to develop a better working relationship with your assistant over time if that’s what you prefer.

How TecMonks Works

To get started working with TecMonks you need to either sign up for one of their pricing plans, or reach out to their team and make contact.

After a call to discuss your requirements, TecMonks will find the best-suited assistant from their pool of talent and introduce you to them.

You can ‘interview’ them to make sure you’re happy they’re a good fit, then start sending them tasks as soon as you like.

They’re open to using whatever form of communication works for you. This means you can use phone, email, online chat, or ask them to download whatever communication platform you prefer.

TecMonks assigns every client a relationship manager as a point of contact if they run into any issues. They also create SOPs and backups of the work they’re doing, just as an extra safeguard if a Virtual Assistant has to take some time off.

TecMonks Services

TecMonks told me they provide “all kinds of virtual assistance services”. Adding that they’ve seen a large increase in demand for tech support setting up and managing virtual conferencing software due to the pandemic.

To give you a better idea of the services they offer, they list the following as their main areas of expertise:

  • General virtual assistant – Scheduling appointments, calendar management, data entry, ad hoc tasks.
  • Digital marketing – Website marketing, SEO, content management, social media marketing, and more.
  • Graphic design – Designing books, magazines, etc., product packaging, shirts and appeal designs, and more.
  • Content analysis Content writing, SEO content, proofreading and editing, website copy, and more.
  • Social media management – Creating social media accounts, running promotions, scheduling posts, replying to messages, and more.
  • Website development – Website design, adding e-commerce functionality, database integration, general website maintenance, and more.

TecMonks Plans and Pricing

TecMonks offer a good deal of flexibility with their pricing plans. They have eight tiered pricing plans based on the number of hours you want, as well as a flat full-time plan.

Being based in India, they’re able to offer very competitive rates. You can work with a full-time assistant for just $5.11/hr, and their hourly rates top out at $10/hr.

A complete list of their pricing plans at the time of publishing was:

  • 10 hours – $100/mo ($10/hr)
  • 20 hours – $200/mo ($10/hr)
  • 30 hours – $300/mo ($10/hr)
  • 40 hours – $400/mo ($10/hr)
  • 50 hours – $450/mo ($9/hr)
  • 60 hours – $520/mo ($8.66/hr)
  • 70 hours – $600/mo ($8.57/hr)
  • 80 hours – $650/mo ($8.12/hr)
  • Full-time (176 hours) – $900/mo ($5.11/hr)

TecMonks also offers a “Combo pack” for $1,000. This is a bundle that includes 12 blog posts, an email campaign, social media management, and some SEO services.

TecMonks Alternatives

For alternative Virtual Assistant companies based in India or using Indian assistants, I recommend checking out ClearDesk or My Tasker.

ClearDesk has the higher pricing of the two but specializes in fields like legal and real estate. My Tasker operates on a similar model with similar pricing as TecMonks.

Your Turn

Have you worked with TecMonks? If so, please share a quick review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

Read More

Milanote

Milanote is a web-based tool that enables you to organize all of your ideas and projects onto visual boards. You can create moodboards, brainstorm ideas with visuals, sticky notes, plan your calendar, and loads more.

The company is headquartered in Melbourne, Australia.

About Milanote

The company started operations in 2017. Milanote is based on the idea that behind every great piece of creative work, there is a lot of research and ideas that led to that final piece.

You can moodboards, brainstorm ideas, jot down notes, visually plan projects, create storyboards, plan out mind maps… and visually arrange just about anything that involves various digital materials.

It’s also just a really handy tool for anyone that is a little disorganized and has sticky notes or bits of paper with important bits of information all over their desks.

Milanote gives you a digital place to store, arrange, and work with all your notes and images. This way, if you’re disorganized you’ll never lose any important information. For creatives, it makes arranging boards and other visuals quick and easy.

How Milanote Works

To get started with Milanote, you need to either log in with your Google account or sign up via email.

Once you have an account, you can log in and start using the web app on your desktop, download their mobile app, and install their web clipper extension.

You’re presented with a blank canvas/board when you first log in. But don’t worry, it’s super easy to get started. Most elements are drag-and-drop, and Milanote provides loads of templates to help you get started.

There is a wide range of different boards you can create. Once you select the type of board you want to create, Milanote does a great job of guiding you through building out a smooth, professional-looking board.

Once you’ve finished a board, or even if you haven’t, you can publish it for anyone to see. You can also share your work with others and give them access to make changes and collaborate with you.

Milanote Services

Milanote is used to create a wide range of creative boards, the main ones are:

  • Moodboarding
  • Brainstorming
  • Visual note taking
  • Storyboarding
  • Design collaboration
  • Creative briefs
  • Mind mapping
  • Project management

You can create boards on your own, or by collaborating with others.

Milanote Plans and Pricing

Milanote has a fairly generous free plan, and three monthly paid plans based on how many users you want.

Their pricing plans at the time of publishing were:

  • Free – You can use up to 100 notes, images, or links, 10 file uploads, and unlimited shared boards.
  • $9.99 per mo – This is a license for one person, and enables unlimited notes, images, links, and file uploads.
  • $49 per mo – This enables up to 10 user accounts with full access to all features.
  • $99 per mo – This enables up to 50 user accounts with full access to all features.

Milanote Alternatives

There aren’t a lot of creative tools that do as much as Milanote does, and in a similar way. Evernote is one of the best tools for arranging ideas, so I recommend checking it out if that’s your goal.

For team collaborations, I recommend checking out Monday.com, which  is a project management-based tool.

Check out our tools/resources page for more inspiration!

Your Turn

Have you used Milanote? If so, please leave a review below to help others with their decision.

Read More

SavvyCal

SavvyCal is a calendar scheduling app that makes scheduling meetings easy for both parties by populating an interactive calendar and generating scheduling links.

The company is headquartered in Minneapolis, MN.

VAA Exclusive: Get $12 off your first month by clicking here!

About SavvyCal

SavvyCal was developed by Derrick Reimer. Derrick is a serial entrepreneur and has been involved in successful projects such as Drip, Codetree, Level, and StaticKit.

When creating SavvyCal, Derrick was well aware that there were a lot of scheduling tools on the market. He felt like they were all lacking something in the same area, however – they were not convenient enough for the person receiving the scheduling link.

Derrick himself says he frequently used to go back and forth up to 10 times with people trying to mutually agree on a meeting time.

I’m sure this is something that resonates with a lot of people reading this!

So, he designed SavvyCal to be as simple and efficient for the other person to agree to a meeting time as possible.

He did this by making it easy for people to see your calendar, and choose a meeting time that works for them. As well as generating custom links they just have to click once, and offering flexibility around the date and time someone can select.

How SavvyCal Works

SavvyCal is an app that you can access via logging in through a portal on the SavvyCal website.

You can get started for free, all you need to is sign in via your Google or Microsoft credentials, or create an account.

Then you can download and access the SavvyCal calendar. You can now select which days and times you’re available, and leave those time slots open for people to book a meeting time with you.

You can also schedule meetings yourself, and generate a link to send to the other attendees. All they have to do is click the link, and it’ll populate their information in both your calendar and theirs.

If you want to see how easy it is to select and book a timeslot on a calendar powered by SavvyCal, you can use their test calendar on the homepage of their website.

SavvyCal Services

SavvyCal is a calendar scheduling tool, some of the standout features are:

  • Generating and sending out personalized links to meeting attendees.
  • Allowing recipients to overlay their calendar on top of yours.
  • Offering multiple meeting durations to help recipients book a time slot that works for them.
  • Providing a 1-click experience so it’s quick and easy for attendees to schedule a meeting with you.

SavvyCal Plans and Pricing

You can try SavvyCal for free for 7 days. The best part is, there is no cost for setting up the product, and your 7-day trial only starts when you start sharing your meeting links.

When your 7 days are up (and you love the tool) SavvyCal has two monthly pricing plans as follows:

  1. Basic Plan – $12/mo per user – This plan enables you to schedule unlimited links, calendars, and events.
  2. Premium Plan – $20/mo per user – This plan includes everything in the Basic Plan, plus it lets you remove all the SavvyCal branding attached to your links and calendar.

VAA Exclusive: Get $12 off your first month by clicking here!

SavvyCal Alternatives

Some of the other popular calendar scheduling tools worth checking out are SimplyBook.me, Calendly, and X.ai.

Each of these tools offers a free trial, so you can test them out before committing to a plan and get a feel for which is the best fit for you.

Your Turn

Have you used SavvyCal’s scheduling tools? If so, please share a quick review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

Read More

Moosend

Moosend is an email marketing platform with a wide range of powerful marketing and automation features to help you manage and engage with your email subscribers.

The company is headquartered in the UK, and they also have offices in Greece.

About Moosend

Moosend started operations in 2011 and was co-founded by co-founders Yannis Psarras and Panos Melissaropoulos.

Thousands of individuals and companies use Moosend to manage their email lists. From entrepreneurs and startups to huge global brands like Domino’s, Vogue, and WWF, Moosend has plans that scale with businesses of any size.

The core of Moosend’s platform is email marketing. This means they provide all the tools you need to send out emails to your list of email subscribers.

Their list of features runs a lot deeper than just emailing your list, however. Moosend leverages intelligent marketing automation and website tracking to help you exceed your marketing goals and increase your conversion rates.

For a lot of businesses, an email list is a huge asset and accounts for a large portion of their revenue. Being able to increase open rates, upsell, set email automation sequences, and track engagement all helps to increase the amount of revenue you’re bringing in from your list.

How Moosend Works

To get started with Moosend, all you have to do is sign up for an account and you can start using their platform and tools for free.

You’re limited to emailing 2,000 subscribers with their free plan. But this is more than enough to test out their features and see what you think of Moosend.

If you have a list much larger than 2,000, just segment out a small number of your subscribers. Or, you can even just run some test email batches.

Moosend has support on hand if you have any questions. It’s a self-serving platform for the most part though, you can manage your list and send out as many campaigns as you wish.

Moosend Services

Moosend is a complete email marketing platform. From email templates and newsletter editors to creating landing pages, A/B split testing, and powerful reporting and analytics on the backend. It does it all.

Some of their key services and features include:

  • Email Marketing
  • Marketing Automation
  • Landing Page Builder
  • Subscription Form Builder
  • Campaign Management
  • Reporting and Analytics
  • Tracking

Moosend Plans and Pricing

Moosend currently has three pricing plans to choose from. A free plan, so you can test their platform before committing to a monthly subscription. A monthly plan starting at $8 per month based on the number of email subscribers you have, and a custom plan for large users.

At the time of publishing, their plans looked like this:

  1. Free – You can use all of their core features free forever, with the limitation being 1,000 subscribers.
  2. Pro – Moosend’s Pro plan starts at $8 per month for up to 2,000 subscribers. The price then scales up as you add more subscribers up to a cap of 200,000 which costs $608 per month.
  3. Enterprise – If you have a subscriber list of more than 200,000 emails, Moosend’s customer support team will work out a custom plan that best suits your expected usage.

Moosend Alternatives

Two of the biggest alternative email marketing campaign platforms to Moosend are MailChimp and ActiveCampaign. Both of which also offer free trials if you want to test each platform.

Your Turn

Have you used Moosend for your email campaigns? If so, please share a quick review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

Read More

9 Things We Outsource Without Even Thinking About It

reading with dadLast week was our 4-month old son’s first day of daycare.

(He took the drop-off much better than mom and dad.)

Even though I work from home, we never really questioned that we’d have to have someone else watch him during the day. Otherwise I wouldn’t get anything done!

But it hit me that daycare is one of those outsourced services we hire without a second thought.

(Of course, there was plenty of debate as to which daycare service to join!)

We are expert outsourcers in our personal lives, and I believe it’s because certain services are deeply ingrained and highly specialized to serve a wide population.

In addition to daycare, here are a few more examples of things you probably outsource without thinking too much about it:

Education – unless you homeschool your kids.

Taxes – most people use an accountant service or a software tool to get these done instead of calculating them by hand.

Farming – how much of your food did you grow yourself?

While I love the idea of gardening, I’m horrible at it, as evidenced by the 2 sad tomatoes we got after months of watering. It makes more sense to leave it to the pros.

Dry Cleaning – I’ll admit I don’t even know how dry cleaning works.

Shelter – did you build your own house?

Clothing – did you sew your own clothes?

Health / Dental / Veterinary Care – while you take personal responsibility for our health, you likely seek expert help occasionally.

Cooking – I outsource my cooking at least once a week by eating in restaurants.

So what makes business outsourcing so different and so much harder?

For one, every business is different. The standard operating procedures to grow a tomato or dry clean a shirt don’t vary much customer to customer.

We have challenges letting go of control in our business, but we willingly relinquish it in other areas of our lives.

I mean, I just dropped off my baby with almost a total stranger!

It all comes down to trust. We trust the restaurant isn’t going to poison us, we trust the accountant to get our taxes done right, and I trust that daycare isn’t going to scar my offspring for life.

But trust takes time, and that’s why I believe for business outsourcing, it makes sense to start with some non-mission-critical tasks to ease into the practice of delegating.

Give the trust time to build, work with established companies or service providers, and grow together.

Your Turn

What do you think?

What else do you outsource automatically? Do you think there’s a way to eventually apply that same level of comfort to your virtual assistant delegation?

Read More

ShoreAgents

ShoreAgents is a virtual assistant company specializing in providing virtual assistants to businesses in the real estate industry.

The company is headquartered in the Philippines and all of their staff work out of their offices in the same location.

About ShoreAgents

The company started operations in 2017 and is run by Stephen Atcheler, CEO, and Oliver Paget, COO.

Stephen Atcheler started ShoreAgents on the back of his own successful Real Estate business. Stephen was utilizing virtual assistants himself based in the Philippines and saw firsthand how outsourcing overseas can help a business grow.

With expertise in the real estate industry, Stephen decided to focus on providing Virtual Assistants trained in the real estate industry only.

This means, if you’re working in real estate you can be sure that ShoreAgents’ VAs are skilled in the industry and understand the unique challenges you face.

If you’re new to outsourcing overseas, you’ll notice that ShoreAgents are able to offer competitive rates. This is because the cost of living is lower in the Philippines.

However, the workforce in the Philippines is typically well educated, experienced, they speak very good English, and understand the U.S. culture well.

ShoreAgents’ Virtual Assistants are also available to work 24/7. So, if you decide to work with them, your assistant will be able to work your business hours.

For the most part, apart from not seeing them in person, you’ll barely notice your assistant is thousands of miles away!

How ShoreAgents Works

ShoreAgents says that while they’re “not your typical service provider”, the fundamentals of how they operate are very similar to other visual assistant providers.

How ShoreAgents works works:

  • Tell them what you’re looking for – You explain how your business works, the tasks you’re looking to outsource, what skills you’d like in a Virtual Assistant and any other information or tasks needed.
  • They find candidates – ShoreAgents will then see if they have a Virtual Assistant within their pool of talent that lines up with what you’re looking for. If they don’t, they’ll source someone that’s a fit.
  • Interviews – The next stage is to interview the candidates they’ve found. You’re in complete control over how you conduct the interview and who you choose to work with.
  • Start outsourcing! – All that’s left to do is to start sending them tasks to work on. You communicate directly with your dedicated Virtual Assistant. If you run into any problems, you can always reach out to your relationship manager.

ShoreAgents Services

ShoreAgents’ VAs can fill any role within a real estate company. To give you a better idea, some of their most popular services are:

  • Property management administrator
  • Sales administrator
  • Real estate accountant
  • Transaction coordinator
  • Contract coordinator
  • Interior design administrator

ShoreAgents Plans and Pricing

ShoreAgents have different pricing depending on the role your assistant is going to fill.

To give you an idea, a few of their roles and monthly prices are:

  1. Sales admin – $1,105 per month
  2. Property management – $1,199 per month
  3. Customer service – $1,130 per month

As you can see, a full-time VA is going to cost you somewhere in the $1,100-$1,500/mo ballpark for most roles.

There is also a one-off setup fee of $720 to take into account, as well as paying one month’s fees upfront as a security deposit. You’ll get that deposit back when you cease working with ShoreAgents.

ShoreAgents Alternatives

There are very few Virtual Assistant companies that specialize only in Real Estate, but MyOutDesk is a great U.S based alternative.

For alternatives, however, I recommend checking out some of the larger VA companies in the Philippines like OnlineJobs.ph and FreeUp. There is a good chance they will be able to supply VAs with real estate experience.

Your Turn

Have you worked with ShoreAgents? If so, please share a quick review of your experience below to help others with their decision.

Read More