#177 – How to Hire, Assess, and Manage Full-Time, Global, Virtual Assistants

Do you want to save time?  Be more focused on what's most important?  But you have too much to do and not enough budget to hire a full-time assistant?  I (David) was in that position a year ago.  We decided to try a virtual assistant working in another country.  It worked!  I now have more time to serve clients and work on our strategic initiatives.  The key is the company who provides the person, who you hire, and how you manage the person.    In this podcast, I interview Andrew Cohen  the CEO and Co-Founder of Work Better Now.  His company supports small businesses and entrepreneurs with affordable virtual assistants from Central and South America.  Andrew has owned a number of businesses, and this led him into a consulting position with both the Small Business Development Center and the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Business Program.   His company now manages about 200 virtual assistants ("VA") globally.  His company interviews VA candidates carefully and stays involved with the VA to help keep them focused after they start working for a Work Better Now client.  Their company mantra is, "A happy VA is a happy client."  Therefore, they follow proven processes to regularly communicate with both their clients and virtual assistants.  Andrew and I discuss the pros and cons of virtual assistants, how to hire them, and how to work with them.  How do you make it work for the VA?  How do you keep them focused?  What do you do if they are not performing as well as you like?  Do you need to worry about any security concerns, depending on the company that provides the virtual assistant?  You need more time in your day.  Ideally, you could hire someone to work with you in your office.  That works for some roles and we want to support our community.  However, a lower cost alternative is a virtual assistant working from another country.  Join this podcast to consider whether a VA could help you have more time to focus on what you believe is most important.  -------   This Manage 2 Win Podcast episode is brought to you by Habitly.  I (David) review Habitly best practices regularly, and teach these essential people skills to clients weekly.  This advice has changed my life, and made millions for our clients.  I started developing Habitly content in 2004.  Habitly's powerful best practices have now been taught to thousands of people worldwide.  For instance, you can learn how to Create time in your day;  Get more from meetings;  Stay calm;  Achieve significant targets;  and Become a great leader.  Simply study and apply the expert knowledge provided in Habitly courses and micro-learning episodes.   Whether you're just out of college, or someone with over 20 years work experience, learn the habits of highly successful people on Habitly.    Test drive Habitly for 7 days on us!  This includes full access to the entire Habitly knowledgebase – www.habitly.com.