Outsourcing Things Done

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, Philippines Virtual Assistants, Virtual Employees

Outsourcing Things Done is a virtual assistant company in the Philippines. Founded in 2009, the company has positioned themselves as a premium entry in the market.

Outsourcing Things Done VAs are available in a few different areas of expertise including general administrative skills, customer service, and real estate. In fact, the parent company of Outsourcing Things Done specializes in creating websites for real estate agents so it makes sense they would have virtual assistants familiar with business.

Another company that focuses on real estate virtual assistants is My OutDesk.

One thing that sets OTD apart from the competition is that their VAs work from a professional office environment rather than from their homes. The downside, as you might expect, is this increases the cost substantially. (But it looks like a very nice office based on the video below!)

Services

Outsourcing Things Done offers three levels of VA service, imaginatively called Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. There’s not much information I could find on what exactly these three levels mean, but they get more expensive the higher you go so I’ll assume it pertains to the VA’s experience and expertise.

Outsourcing Things Done Intro Video

Plans and Pricing

The rates start at $1200 a month and go up from there, which is definitely on the high side for virtual assistant companies in the Philippines. Every plan is a for a full-time virtual employee; there doesn’t appear to be any on-demand or part-time options available.

This is also known as a “staff leasing” business model. Based on your job description, the company will actively recruit a team member that fits your needs. They rely heavily on videos, both from you and the candidates, to ensure a good professional fit.

Beyond the monthly fee, OTD charges a $995 set up fee. There are a few companies charging these kinds of fees but not many.

If your VA requires special software — even Microsoft Office — there’s an additional charge for that. Do you need them to print and scan documents? There’s an extra charge for that. Do you need them to work during US business hours? There’s an extra charge for that.

I understand every business has certain costs and needs to make a profit but reading through their pricing menu just seems like a nickle-and-dime upcharge frenzy.

To help you monitor productivity, Outsourcing Things Done has installed special seat and screen cams. This will help you verify your virtual assistant is present and working when they say they are.

Outsourcing Things Done Alternatives

Take a look at VA Staffer or Prialto as potential considerations in addition to OTD.

Your Turn

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

dailyPA

Posted by Mica Harvey / Task-Based Virtual Assistants, UK/Europe Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies

DailyPA is a task-based virtual assistant company serving the UK and European markets. The business was founded in London in 2012, and utilizes an all-UK staff of professionally trained virtual assistants.

When you lead a busy life as most people do, dailyPA.co.uk can help with the things on your to-do list. The DailyPA team has a wealth of administrative, business, and technical experience. They specialize in tasks like reservations, events, scheduling, diary management, entertainment bookings, client research and more.

DailyPA is a monthly subscription service that starts at £89 pounds per month for 3 hours worth of tasks. A 9 hour plan is £259 a month, while the “Pro” plan clocks in at £499 for 18 hours. The mid-tier, “Exec” plan is the most popular.

A general guideline is that the tasks should take around 15 minutes, but dailyPA does afford you the flexibility to offload more in-depth tasks. The time will simply be accrued and charged against your total for the month.

At these rates, dailyPA is quite expensive relative to other services on the market. If you want to go overseas, Efficise currently offers 30 tasks for $45, and in the US, Fancy Hands will do 15 for $45. For that reason, their rates seem pretty high. On an hourly basis, they’re charging approximately £30 an hour across all plans (roughly $48/hour at today’s exchange rate!).

In the UK, the nearest alternative would be Time etc, although they operate more on a “virtual employee” model rather than this team-based by-the-task model.

The site is beautifully designed and they make sure to tout the UK regulations they abide by when it comes to privacy and data security. From an employer’s perspective, you’re not liable for any additional payroll tax burden or paperwork when you contract with dailyPA.

With dailyPA.co.uk you can cancel your agreement with them any time you want. There are no joining fees, commitment fees and no long term contracts. Plus, they guarantee the quality of each task that they complete for you, and if you feel they could have done a better job, they will address the issue free of charge.

Each plan comes with a dedicated point of contact. Clients delegate tasks to dailyPA via telephone, email, text, or Skype.

Have you worked with dailyPA? If so, please leave a quick review below to help others with their decision.

My Biggest Outsourcing “Wins” of the Year

Posted by Mica Harvey / News

Happy New Year!

This is a weird time of year for me.

On the one hand, I know New Year’s Resolutions are dumb. I mean, if something is worth changing, it’s worth changing now — not waiting for some arbitrary flip of the calendar, right?

But it’s hard not to get caught up in all the “fresh start” talk, and at the very least reflect on what went well for the last 12 months and where you might have opportunities for improvement.

In that spirit, I want to share few things that went well for me last year outsourcing-wise, and a few areas I’m still struggling with.

First up, the wins.

My dedicated assistant Karla from OkayRelax has been doing a great job with the research, data entry, and even website updating tasks I send her way.

One example was when the Virtual Assistant Assistant site switched over from http to https last year, I had to go through and update all of the images to https. It wasn’t the most difficult task in the world, but it was time-consuming, and she nailed it.

Another company that helped during that transition was Zen WP, which offers 24/7 WordPress maintenance and support. They also helped clean up a lot of the pesky little bugs that had been floating around the site.

My freelance writer has been a huge help this year, producing content for this site, summarizing my podcast episodes, and now even writing the accompanying blog posts for those episodes.

And while I still go through and do my own final round of edits, I think the PodcastFasttrack podcast editing service I’ve been working with has still been a net time saver.

For my book project last fall, I used the crowdsourced design service DesignCrowd.com. To be fair, some of the designs were pretty awful, but I really liked the end result.

And finally, I’ve been loving the results and automation behind the robo-investing service called Betterment.

It’s not direct business outsourcing in the traditional sense, but with each dollar I invest, I’m essentially “hiring” thousands of workers — and getting to share in the fruits of their labor.

So what flopped? And what’s next?

There were a couple things that didn’t go so well. For example, I wanted to hire a freelance marketing specialist to help me drive more traffic to my sites, but haven’t heard from him in months. Back to the drawing board on that one.

On the horizon, I have some more website technical stuff I could use help with, and perhaps some graphic design, video creation, and even advertising sales as well.

But mostly I’m the bottleneck. There are a ton of projects I’d love to tackle but am stuck in “maintenance mode” and have a hard time finding time for “growth mode.”

For the new year, I haven’t set any resolutions or 12-month goals. Instead, I’m trying to focus on shorter-term “sprint” goals and mini-habits.

For example, a shorter term goal I have is to add a subnavigation menu to one of my sites to make it easier to access relevant archive content.

An example of a mini-habit would be doing at least one proactive thing in my business before checking email or social media.

Another mini-habit I like is doing 1 push-up. It’s super easy to check the box, and once you’re down on the floor, you’ll probably do a few more.

Your Turn

What about you? What worked well last year?

What’s on the top of your list to delegate this year?

Cheers to working ON your business rather than IN it in 2017!

Team Double-Click

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, US Virtual Assistants

Team Double-Click is a remote staffing agency, specializing in American “cloud-based” virtual assistants. The Colorado-based company was founded by Jim and Gayle Buske way back in 2000. (I believe “cloud-based” is the new preferred way to say the VAs work from their homes, rather than from a centralized office.)

Your virtual administrative assistant is an off-site resource for your business. He or she can help with a broad range of computer-related tasks such as proofreading, bookkeeping, article writing, and data entry. Team Double-Click VAs also can make travel arrangements, assist with real estate transactions, prepare newsletters, and help with your customer service.

Team Double-Click offers two levels of service: Hourly Hire and Direct Placement.

With Hourly Hire, you contract with Team Double-Click on an on-demand hourly basis. They help monitor and manage your virtual assistant for you. In theory it makes sense to leverage their expertise in this way, but my guess is you’ll end up paying a higher rate and possibly have an extra layer of complexity in your relationship with your VA.

With Direct Placement, the company matches you up with one of their virtual assistants for free. Maybe the VAs are the ones paying for this matchmaking service?

Either way, this arrangement works similar to Virtual Staff Finder and some of the other recruiting services, except for US virtual assistants. From a network of nearly 100,000 VAs, they pre-screen the candidates and present a short list for you to interview. Then you select the winner and begin working with them and paying them directly as an independent contractor.

If you want to learn more about Team Double-Click, be sure to mention referral code VAA247 to take advantage of any special offers that might be available.

The only mention of pricing I could find gives only a range of $15 to $75 an hour. Quite a spread!

I’m generally not a fan of having to download, print, sign, fax/scan any pdf document, but that appears to be the only way to sign up for the service. They also want to collect your credit card information from the very onset.

In the Hourly Hire agreement pdf, a rate table is included. An entry level VA is quoted at $29.81 an hour, which definitely puts them on the higher end of the spectrum globally, but on par with other US-based virtual assistant companies.

As an alternative, you might try your hand at finding a freelance VA to meet your needs.

Have you worked with Team Double-Click? If so, please share your experience below and help others make with their research.

Workaholics4Hire

Posted by Mica Harvey / Freelance Virtual Assistants, Project-Based Virtual Assistants

Workaholics4Hire is a private outsourcing marketplace, “staffed” by more than 25,000 work-from-home freelancers. The Ottawa, Canada company was founded by Sylvie Fortin in 1999. Any business that’s been around that long must be doing something right.

Fortin explains that the site began as a way to connect small businesses who needed to outsource work with qualified telecommuting contractors. The work-from-home space was filled with scam artists, so there was a unique opportunity to build a network for legitimate home-based freelance work.

And the name? I guess if you had to choose between a lazy freelancer and a workaholic one, you’d probably choose the workaholic, right?

Outsourcing with Workaholics4Hire.com could be a little more straightforward. The company offers three levels of service:

Self Serve
Project Management
Full Service

Self Serve

Self Serve is similar to what you would find on other freelance sites such as oDesk or Elance. You post your job, get bids, interview candidates and select the winner. The difference is that Workaholics4Hire charges $50 per ad, where the other sites are free.

Project Management

With the Project Management service, a Workaholics4Hire Project Facilitator acts as a manager and liaison between you and your outsourced workers.

This is a more hands-off solution, and could be a good alternative for first-time outsourcers. You get a Facilitator who helps plan your projects, recruit the best talent, and manage the process start to finish.

For this service Workaholics4Hire charges a monthly fee, ranging from $500 a month to $3500 a month on top of whatever contractor fees are incurred, depending on how many hours a day you need your Project Manager to work. Again, it’s not cheap, but it relieves you from having to perform these duties (although now you’ll have to manage the Project Manager), and it’s definitely more affordable than bringing someone in in-house to do the same job.

Full Service

Workaholics4Hire “Full Service” option is the consulting arm of the business. For $500 you get an hour long strategy session with Fortin, a recording of the session, and a detailed written action plan report.

Customer Support

They also offer outsourced customer support, where they essentially become your customer service department for a flat monthly fee. It can be a cost-effective solution when compared with an in-house team, and certainly cheaper in the long run than neglecting customer service altogether.

Conclusions

I’m a bit of a cheapskate and a control-freak, so the pricing models and the idea of adding another layer of management don’t really appeal to me. But then again, I’ve been outsourcing for many years and have developed a certain comfort with it. I can definitely see where Workaholics4Hire’s services would be valuable for first-timers, especially larger companies with larger budgets.

What do you think? If you have worked with Workaholics4Hire, please share a quick review of your experience here and help others with their decision.

Virtual Assistant Talent

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, Philippines Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies, Virtual Employees

Virtual Assistant Talent is well-known virtual assistant company in the Philippines. The firm was founded in 2010 by John Davern, Jr., a human resources professional and real estate investor.

The company specializes in helping busy entrepreneurs maximize their time with affordable overseas virtual assistants. Virtual Assistant Talent VAs can take care of a wide variety of tasks, including accounting, customer service, marketing, graphic design, and more.

Two basic services are offered: Virtual Assistant Staffing Service Subscription (say that 3 times fast!) and Virtual Assistant Recruitment Service.

With the Service Subscription set-up, Virtual Assistant Talent advertises your position based on your detailed job description, and narrows down the applicant pool to the top 2 or 3 candidates. From there, you interview them just like you would an in-house employee, and choose which one you want to work with.

The rates for this service are very competitive — even for the VA companies in the Philippines — starting at just $4.20 an hour. They have a range of different packages available based on how many hours you need, and you can get a full-time VA for just $672 a month. The prices go up depending on experience and technical skill required to complete your job.

These virtual employees will be based out of their home-office, but managed by a local HR supervisor. Virtual Assistant Talent handles all the payroll processing and other requirements. They charge a one-time $99 set-up fee to get you started with your Subscription VA.

The other offering is the Recruitment Service. The benefit of the recruitment service is that the ongoing rates are lower, ranging from $2-4 an hour, which could add up to some long-term cost savings.

Under this set-up, they do the legwork of finding top-tier candidates for your position, and you can interview them to decide on the winner. After that, your relationship with Virtual Assistant Talent is over aside from the 30-day satisfaction guarantee. Your VA will work directly for you as a remote contractor and you’ll pay them directly.

The downside? The Recruitment Service costs $995 upfront. Ouch! This is a rate much higher than what Virtual Staff Finder and Remote Staff Recruit charge for the same service.

Have you worked with Virtual Assistant Talent? If so, please share your experience below and help others with their decision.

Guru.com

Posted by Mica Harvey / Freelance Virtual Assistants, Project-Based Virtual Assistants

Guru.com is a marketplace to find freelance talent in whatever specialty you’re looking for. The Pittsburgh-based company is one of the original freelance sites, having been founded way back in 1997.

They claim to be the world’s largest online marketplace for freelancers. For what it’s worth, you should know that Elance, oDesk, and Freelancer.com all make similar claims. Regardless, Guru boasts 400,000 freelancers, or “gurus”, on their platform, so there should be plenty of selection for any job you need done.

I have a warm place in my heart for Guru.com, as it was my first introduction to outsourcing in 2005. I posted a web development project without really having any idea what the cost might be. I got several bids, and one was from a developer just a half hour away. We agreed to meet in person to discuss the details. Seven years later, we’re still working together!

Since then, Guru.com has of course made many improvements to their business. One interesting addition is called Guru Recommend, which is designed to make your hiring process faster, easier, and more successful. The system utilizes objective performance data like earnings, repeat customers, and the ratio of jobs bid to jobs won (a batting average, of sorts), in order to assign freelancers a rank order. I think it might be difficult to accurately assess a range of workers on such an objective basis, but it’s definitely better than nothing at all.

The company’s SafePay system is their secure way of transferring money to your workers. Like the escrow systems on other freelance sites, you only release the funds after you approve the work.

Guru also includes a robust user dashboard and project management system built into their site. This is helpful to organize all the documents, communications, and milestones to track progress, especially for larger projects. Of course, other freelance sites have their own similar systems as well.

One thing that separates Guru apart from industry giants Elance and oDesk is their reward program. Every dollar you spend in their system (via preferred payment methods) earns Guru Loyalty Dollars, which can then be applied to future Guru projects.

Have you worked with Guru.com? If so, please share a quick review of your experience below.

Witmart

Posted by Mica Harvey / Graphic and Web Design Services

Witmart might be the biggest crowdsourcing platform I’d never heard of. The company is apparently huge in China, and counts their large Chinese userbase in their advertised 6-million service providers. The US-operation is based out of the Houston, TX suburb of Sugar Land. Witmart offers a marketplace for both oDesk-like contract work and 99designs-like design contests.

For contract-based work, Witmark works similarly to other freelance sites. You post the job requirements you have, and receive bids from freelancers. You can then choose the provider that best meets your needs based on their rate and work experience. You only pay when the job is completed to your satisfaction. This type of work is best suited for tasks like website development projects, writing, and other tasks without an immediate deliverable.

For instant gratification projects, like logo design, web design, and other creative tasks, Witmart has a contest option. In this case, you would describe the work you need done, specify how much you want to pay, and receive contest entries from providers around the world. You choose the best and reward them the money. If you don’t get any submissions that meet your needs, you can get a full refund.

Logo design contests start at just $99, which is less than you might find on crowdSPRING or 99designs.

Witmart’s marketplace includes a feedback and rating system for providers so you have an extra level of confidence when choosing a freelancer. Looking at the experience of past employers can be helpful, especially if you’re signing on for a long-term project.

One thing that stands out is Witmart’s twitter page is a disaster. At the time of this writing, their custom background is filled with typos.

They spell “providers” with a U instead of a V. They write “Fine Freelance Jobs” instead of “Find Freelance Jobs.” Even their vanity phone number is incorrectly listed as 1-877-Wit-Mmart (if you dial both “m’s” you won’t reach the company). These little things may not be enough to prevent me from trying out their service, but they do make them look unprofessional and reduce the confidence of potential new employers. They’ve since corrected several of these mistakes, which is a positive sign.

For design work it might be worthwhile to test out their contest model because of the lower price points, but for contract work I’d probably stick to oDesk.

Have you worked with Witmart? If so, please share your experience below and help others with their decision.

Talent Gurus

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, India Virtual Assistants, Virtual Assistant Companies

Talent Gurus is an outsourcing company in Hyderabad, India. The firm is a subsidiary of Sai People Solutions, Inc., a business with more than 20 years of experience in offshore staffing. Where Sai was focused on Fortune 500 companies and other large clients, Talent Gurus launched in 2005 to address the emerging demand for personal and small business outsourcing.

Aside from virtual assistant and administrative work, Talent Gurus specializes in customer service, search engine optimization, accounting, web design and development, and even telemarketing.

Their professional VAs are well-trained and work from the company’s modern and managed facility in India. By running multiple shifts, Talent Gurus can offer 24-hour a day support for your business.

Many customers use Talent Gurus as an extension of their marketing department. You virtual assistant can help set up and manage social media accounts, do keyword research and pay-per-click marketing, and create unique content for users and search engines to pick up.

You’ll have to contact Talent Gurus for a personalized quote as specific prices aren’t given. For virtual assistants, the company says rates range from $4-10/hour, but vary depending on your requirements.

The company is not forthcoming with the different hourly plans available, if any, but they do mention you will be assigned a dedicated virtual assistant. Their homepage offers a 2-day free trial so you can test out their services risk-free.

If you’re considering a virtual assistant in India, you might also consider 24/7 Virtual Assistant or My Tasker, both of which have collected strong reviews from customers.

Have you worked with Talent Gurus? If so, please take a moment to share a quick review of your experience below and help others with their decision.

E-Virtual Services

Posted by Mica Harvey / Dedicated Virtual Assistants, India Virtual Assistants

E-Virtual Services is a virtual assistant and outsourcing company based in New Dehli, with a US sales office in Minneapolis. Founded in 2006, they were an early mover in the world of personal and small business outsourcing.

With a staff of over 250 professional workers, E-Virtual Services is a full-service shop for pretty much anything that can be accomplished with a computer.

Services

Some of the more popular services include bookkeeping, appointment setting, online research and data analysis, 24/7 call center support, transcription, and email and live chat customer service. Aside from these and other virtual assistant-type tasks, the company also specializes in software development, IT support, SEO, and even web design and development.

Did you find their website a little busy and confusing? I had a hard time telling up from down after a while. Virtual assistant services are quoted at $5 an hour on the About Us page, $6 an hour on the Home page, and “Administrative and Personal Assistant” start at just $7 an hour on the Virtual Employee page.

Basically nothing is set in stone and E-Virtual will provide a personalized quote based on the job requirements you present them.

E-Virtual Services Intro Video

Virtual Assistant Assistant Exclusive: Mention E-Virtual Services discount code EVS4422 for 5% off your first month of service!

It’s hard for me to be critical of E-Virtual’s web design chops when this site clearly isn’t the most beautiful thing on the web, but take a look at their portfolio to see if their work matches your taste. It seems like several of the sites they’ve built are owned by the same company that runs E-Virtual, based solely on the identical “contact us” phone number.

As with other outsourcing companies in India, you might run into some communication challenges and language barrier issues. I don’t think you’ll have any trouble getting your point across, but if you’re looking for perfect grammar for articles or other web copy or customer interaction, it’s something to be aware of. I’m basing this off the numerous phrases on the E-Virtual Services website that just sound a bit off to a native English speaker. “To View more Price Submit the Inquiry”, for example.

But hey, if their customers are happy what difference does it make? With E-Virtual Services, you can get a dedicated assistant at a competitive price. They can usually be up and running in a few days without any start-up fees or long-term commitment. Plus if you have any trouble, the company is BBB Accredited.

Have you worked with E-Virtual Services? Please share your experience below and help others with their search.

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Virtual Assistant Blog

Services

Outsourcing Things Done Intro Video

Plans and Pricing

Outsourcing Things Done Alternatives

Your Turn

First up, the wins.

So what flopped? And what’s next?

Your Turn

Services

E-Virtual Services Intro Video