How to Find the Right Virtual Assistant to Outsource Your Work

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How good would it be to have someone who you could delegate the tasks that you don’t like doing or don’t know how to do? Whether it’s blogging, social media or finding a personal assistant to help you with the daily tasks.

Let’s get to the details on where to find a virtual assistant, how to pick the right candidate, and how to work with the person.

In this episode, Liam Martin shares how to find the right virtual assistant to outsource part of your work.

Liam is the co-founder and CMO of TimeDoctor.com and Staff.com. After graduating with a masters in Sociology from McGill University, Liam opened a small tutoring company which grew to over 100 employees, and looked to solve a problem with remote employees not reporting accurate work data which turned into Staff.com. He consults on outsourcing and process design and is passionate about how to gain insights into the inner workings of how people work.

In this episode, we will cover:

[00:22] About the episode and Liam Martin
[02:03] Liam shares how he wanted to become a professor, which didn’t work out but turned to the tutoring business
[04:21] As he was looking for the way to track the remote workers that time he started a few online services
[05:45] If you want to hire a virtual assistant look for the one who will be able to make the right decisions without much of your control
[06:06] An example of how to test a graphic designer before you hire him or her
[09:27] The tasks that are done by one of Liam’s assistant as an example of what to look for in a right personal virtual assistant
[11:43] What to pay attention to when you delegate the tasks to a virtual assistant
[14:06] Where to find the right virtual assistant
[16:23] Liam has a rule in a team to have minimum 100 virtual assistant applicants before they pick a candidate for a position
[17:53] A virtual assistant with the passion but fewer skills at the beginning, can be better at work later than the one who has a fantastic resume
[20:05] Make sure that people understand the work they need to do before you hire them. Lime focuses on getting people to quit before he hires someone
[24:09] An example of Liam’s team workflow for blogging and content marketing where you would want to get if you want to delegate blogging
[29:47] An order of which virtual assistant to hire if you don’t want to hire a big team for content marketing right now, starting with the SEO manager
[32:54] Liam has the contract and NDA with every virtual assistant
[33:23] How much to pay to a good virtual assistant
[36:44] Get one regular virtual assistant and then hire someone who is amazing at what he does for a few hours so the first assistant can learn from the pro
[37:58] How to set up a workflow with a virtual assistant
[39:24] Sometimes you should delegate even the work you like doing when it doesn’t worth your time
[40:44] Where to find Liam online
[41:25] For the show notes go to marinabarayeva.com and subscribe to the Marketing for Creatives show

4 Steps to Delegate Your Work to a Virtual Assistant

Step 1: Delegate your top three time sucks of the day
Step 2: More likely at the beginning your virtual assistant with fail with those tasks. Find out why he/she fail and improve the workflow
Step 3: Once the first three tasks set, find more time sucks of your day and delegate them too
Step 4: Repeat the process until you work only on the tasks that you are passionate about

'Find out who is going to align to your vision and your mission as a company' ~ Liam MartinClick To Tweet

'If people are passionate about learning a particular subject, then that's someone you want to keep' ~ Liam MartinClick To Tweet

'Sometimes you should also delegate the work that you like doing but is not worth your time' ~ Liam MartinClick To Tweet

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Resources from this interview:

Learn more about Liam Martin on timedoctor.com, stuff.com
The places where you can look for the virtual assistant remote.co, upwork.com, flexjobs.com, weworkremotely.com
Look for a web designer on 99designs.com
Search for the sites that would be interested in linking back to your blog post at ahrefs.com
Check the tool for social media outreach buzzstream.com
Participate in the Running Remote conference

Connect with Marina Barayeva:

Marina Barayeva

Marina Barayeva is an international speaker and coach who helps women entrepreneurs become recognized experts and confidently sell their services. She is also a TEDx speaker, has presented to audiences in Asia and North America, and has been featured in such media as ArtPeople, CCTV, China Radio International, and others.