Earn More, Get More Done Plus Get More Free Time By Hiring a Virtual Assistant with Luanna Rodham

Welcome to this edition of the Real Fast Results!  The special
guest today is Luanna Rodham.  She is going to share her
secrets for how you can earn more and get more done, plus have more
free time, by hiring a virtual assistant.  Let's see what
Luanna has to say... Today's Promise By the end of this episode,
today, you will know whether you are ready to hire a virtual
assistant, if you can afford a virtual assistant, how having a
virtual assistant can help you to make more money in your business,
and where to find  a good one.   Commonly Asked Questions
About Hiring a Virtual Assistant I'm going to do my steps
as questions because I get a lot of questions about
VAs.  So these are the questions that we will
answer.  There are four of them: What is a virtual assistant
(VA)? Do I have enough money to hire a VA? Can a virtual
assistant actually help me make more money? What can I actually
outsource? How do I go about finding a good, reliable VA? Question
1: What is a Virtual Assistant (VA)? A virtual assistant is
obviously someone who works virtually.  You don't have to live
in the same place as they do, and they come with all of their own
equipment.  They have their own businesses.  They have
their own computers, their own microphones, their own printers,
their own software, etc.  They are not your employee. 
You're not paying them employee taxes or anything like that.
 I think that's very important to know.  As a virtual
assistant, it is their own business.  Their business
is helping you succeed in your business. There are
different types of Virtual Assistants.  You have VAs that
might do just transcribing, or editing, or data entry.  You
have VAs that just help with social media.  You have
administrative virtual assistants to help you make plane
reservations, making phone calls, making hotel reservations,
etc.  There are so many different types of virtual
assistants.  A lot of VAs have varying
backgrounds.  Mine is in education.  I was a
special education teacher, so I do very well helping organize
people.  They'll say, "I want to do this, and this, and this,"
and then I can break it down in steps and say, "Well, the first
thing you have to do is you have to open a Pinterest account, and
you have to start making pins, and open boards..."  So,I
really help with organizing and social media. You have VAs
that  have tech backgrounds.  You have VAs that were in
the corporate world. There are all different kinds virtual
assistants to help with your specific needs in your
business.  Essentially, these are indpendent
contractors that you are bringing in to do defined tasks, based on
what experience they have. Question 2: Do I Have Enough
Money to Hire a Virtual Assistant? I get this question all the
time, and this is what I recommend when I get asked that. 
How frazzled are you in your business?  Are
you spending all of your time checking emails, trying to do social
media, trying to make sure the websites working right, trying to
find people's login information for your membership site, and so
on?  If you're spending all of your time doing that, and you
are not able to create, or coach, or whatever it is that you truly
got into business for, then yeah, you probably can afford a
VA.  You can afford a VA, and you need a VA. I recommend that
you sit down and you look at what is making you so frazzled. 
And, what would it be worth if you had a $200 marketing budget?
 And, you could just take $200 a month and put that towards
giving some of these tasks to someone else so that you could
actually create. just say $200.  If you're at
that point where you can spend $200 and consider it a business
expense, or a marketing budget, you will be amazed by how putting
forth that $200 will help you have enough time to create and
make products.  Can a Virtual Assistant
Help Me Make More Money? If you're not spending
all of your time attending to those menial tasks, that have to
be done in order to run a business, then you have more time to
build product funnels, make membership sites, create new products,
and coach clients.  And so, yes, definitely, having a
VA will help make you more money.  I do recommend that you not
start out putting tons of money into it in the beginning, unless
you absolutely know what the tasks are that you want completed.
This all comes down to defining for yourself what are the highest
and best uses of your time, your energy, your mental
bandwidth.  In other words, look at those things that
truly make you money in your business and focus on those things,
and essentially, try to give as much of those "other" tasks to a
virtual assistant.  Even if you are really good at
those sorts of things, there's going to come a point where you are
out of gas.  You don't have any more to give emotionally,
physically, or you're just out of time.  That is one of the
biggest benefits to bringing on a VA. You need to be
looking at outsourcing as much of those things that are not the
highest and best use of your time.  The more you do
that, the more money you could potentially make, in most
instances.  This frees you up to direct your attention and
energy into those things that you know that you're talented
at.  You can, essentially, pass off those things that need to
be done, where you're not as gifted, to the VA or VAs that you
have.  In this way, you will likely be able to see more time
for yourself and your family, and more money because you're really
practicing your gifts, whatever those gifts happen to be.  The
key is to find someone who has their own set of gifts that are
complimentary to your business and your business goals. Question 3:
What Can I Actually Outsource? One of the things that I find people
get the most overwhelmed with is their email or their support
desk.  When you have to switch from a task, like, let's say
that you are creating a product or writing your book; and, you have
to switch to go check on the customer support desk, where people
aren't happy or they're upset that something isn't working, it
takes about 20 minutes to get back on task after you have done
that.  If you're not having to mess with the menial
day to day tasks, outsourcing is going to really help you stay on
task and create. There are many things that you can
outsource to a VA.  Daniel Hall and I have a course about
this, and in that course, we list a bunch of things that you can
outsource.  What I recommend you do is sit down and make a
list of what is stressing you out the most.  What is
causing you to become frazzled the most?  Or, make a list of
what's keeping you from creating. For example:

Your email

Posting on social media every day

Making pins for Pinterest

Uploading your books to different sites

Editing/Proofing

Finding pictures

Whatever it might be, make a list of things that
you're spending your time on that's making you nervous and
stressing you out.  After you do that, look at that
and say, "Okay, my email is really making me stressed.  Do I
really want somebody in my email, or can I set up a customer
support desk and have somebody do that?  And, can this VA set
up a support desk?"  He or she probably can. Make this list
and just start looking at it. "Is that something that I really have
to do?  Do I have to post to Pinterest every day?"  Well,
you want to do that for your business, but do you personally have
to do that? No, you don't. Do you personally have to go in and load
up your Hootsuite, or whatever you're doing?  Do you
personally have to find all of the tweets, and post to your blogs,
and find all of the keywords for your blogs, and all of those kinds
of things?  No, you don't.  You don't personally need to
do that.  Yes, you want to write the content, but you can have
somebody else re purpose it and put it on the Internet for
you.  So, that's what I recommend, is..."What can I outsource
to a VA?"  Just write down things that you are
frustrated with.  If you have a shopping cart
system, loading products in the shopping cart, loading the
auto-responders, and the follow-up sequence, and all of those types
of things are something that you can give to a VA to do. Question
4: How Do I Go About Finding a Good, Reliable Virtual Assistant?
There are three ways that I recommend finding a VA.  And it
may sound silly because I know that you think of a virtual
assistant as, you know, virtual... maybe somebody that you don't
meet.  However, I think that the best way to
find a virtual assistant is to meet them face-to-face. I
like meeting people face-to-face because then you know if your
personality is going to gel or not, and that is very, very
important when working with a VA.  You may find one that you
work with, and your personalities just don't work alike.  And,
that's okay, but if you meet them face-to-face, you have more of a
chance of finding out if you're going to be able to work with that
person. A great way to meet a virtual assistant is
face-to-face at networking events.  And, when I say
that, I mean meet-ups or anything like that you may have in your
area.  The thing about networking events is there are virtual
assistants there.  People think that there's not, but there
are.  Everywhere you go in the online/small business
world, you're going to find VAs.  You just need to
talk to people and find out who they are.  So first, you know,
"How do I find a virtual assistant?"  The first way, if you
can do it, is by going and meeting them at a live networking event.
The second way is word of mouth.  I think
this is a really important one.  You may say, "Daniel,
who's your virtual assistant?  Do you know a virtual
assistant?"  Talk to people that you know, that you
really trust and you respect.  If you like how their business
is running, more than likely, they have a virtual
assistant.  Find out if their virtual assistant has
openings, or if their virtual assistant knows someone.  Word
of mouth is a great way.  That's how I meet my clients. 
It's been at networking events or word of mouth.  I've never
really had one pop up from my website, and I kind of like that
because I want to meet them face to  face to see if we
can gel. When you are thinking of people that you can
ask, check out your Facebook groups.  Ask them too,
"Who is a virtual assistant that you use," or, "Is there a company
that you recommend?"  You can ask anyone that you feel like
you know pretty well.  That's a good way to go. The
third way is, there are sites that you can go on to look for
virtual assistants.  There's Freelance.com. 
There's Upwork.com.  I know a lady who owns a VA company
called VAnetworking.com.  Some of you know Nichole Dean and
her business partner Melissa Ingold. They have a site called
CoachGlue. Well, Melissa has her own Contractors List. I would
definitely recommend checking out that list.  So, those are
people that you can go online, and kind of meet them online, and
tell them what your project is. How Long Do I Want to Work with A
Virtual Assistant? Now, one thing that I want to bring up
is that you need to be thinking, "Do I want a VA for just a
short-term project, or am I going to want one that I have a
long-term relationship with?"  If you want just a
short-term project, a good place to go is Fiverr.com.  They do
a lot of short-term stuff, or any of these, Freelance.com,
Upwork.com, etc.  Those will do for one-time projects. 
If you need a logo, if you need something with your website, if you
need something edited, or whatever, these sites work pretty well
for finding someone.  But if  you want a virtual
assistant that you work long-term with, I would really recommend
the first two things: live networking events and asking
around. Virtual Assistant Tips from Daniel If it's
a short-term, large job, like having an index made for your book or
some special research project, one thing that you can do is put a
local ad on Craigslist, explaining what the project is all
about.  You can find some pretty good folks this way,
and if you do it in your local area, you can meet them at the
library, or Denny's, or whatever, so that you can get face-to-face,
and you can figure out if they are someone you want to work with,
or not.  I mean, you can kind of interview them. When you find
someone you think you could work with, you will want to send them
some sort of small project before you hire him/her. 
It should be something that takes some thought on their
part because one thing that's really crucial is that you've got to
have an assistant that will follow your directions. 
Ultimately, you want someone that can handle you asking, "Hey, can
you do this," and they are able to figure out the rest.  Now,
when you are first starting out, this approach doesn't work, most
of the time.  You will have to be very specific about what you
want and tell them exactly how to go about doing it.  At the
same time, a big part of this is finding someone that can follow
your directions well. If you start communicating with someone and
they don't follow your directions well from the very start, you
really shouldn't bother hiring them.  You can check
this out beforehand by giving them something to do during the
hiring process.  You might set up a WordPress site
and have them make one post to that site.  In any case, you'll
want to give them a task and see if they do it according to your
directions.  If they don't, you really shouldn't bother hiring
them.  Otherwise, it's just going to be a big waste of time
for you and the other person. Hiring a Virtual Assistant It's also
a good idea to have a trial period.  If you talk
to your potential assistant on the phone, and you think they sound
great, offer to give them work for a month or two. 
That way, either one of you has time to back out of the
arrangement, if need be, without there being any hurt
feelings.  Virtual assistants, that's what we do.  We
help you in your business, and we should be able to follow
directions, and whatever else that you need. Make sure that
you are clear, that you're doing this for a trial
period.  That way, you can see if the person can
follow through with everything they are asked to do, and if they
can keep up with what you ask of them.  It's good for the VA
too, because they may get into a situation where they think, "I
don't have enough time.  This is more than I thought it was
going to be," or, "We just don't work well together..." The last
thing that I wanted to bring up was, in our course, I specifically
talk about the qualities that you want to look for in a virtual
assistant.  You know, are you a micro manager? Do you want
someone that you tell every detail to?  Or, do you eventually
want to be able to just tell them, "Go set this up," and they do
it.  Some people can follow instructions well, but
aren't necessarily good at figuring things out on their own, and
others would rather be given a task and left to their own
devices.  Of course, you want to pick a personality
that works well with your personality, and vice versa. Daniel and
Luanna's VA Course It is on Udemy.com. It's called: Easy Steps: How
To Hire A Virtual Assistant (VA). And if you act now, you can get
it for half price by visiting RealFastResults.com/VA.  If
you're interested in it, it's very well-reviewed by the other
students in it.  And, if you're thinking about hiring a
virtual assistant, it's definitely a good idea to go check this
course out. Resources: Easy Steps: How To Hire A Virtual Assistant
(VA) Upwork.com Freelance.com VAnetworking.com Fiverr.com Melissa
Ingold's Contractors List CoachGlue Real Fast Results
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