This is the battle cry for many experts to entrepreneurs looking to outsource, save time and focus their business activities.   The classic model has been to hire someone in the Philippines to do stuff for you.  The ideal virtual assistant writes content for your blog, finds and sizes images, and makes appointments. They also check and cleans your email, keeps your wordpress site up to date, handles your bookkeeping, remembers your wife’s birthday and anniversary, keeps you on the front page of Google, and does all of this for about $5 an hour.  This is the oversold dream of the virtual assistant.  So what does reality really look like?

One size does not fit all

While it would be wonderful to have a Jack (or Jill) of all trades that can do everything you need, this is rarely the case.  10 years ago, this was what people where pushing in the market, but the reality is that most people aren’t good at everything a small business might need help with.   For most entrepreneurs who went down that one size fits all virtual assistant path, either they refined the responsibilities over time, or found someone else, or both.  For people like me who wasn’t big enough to support a full-time VA in any capacity, I started looking at solutions that fit my needs.  It’s more of a collage of services, but it works for me.

What does it cost?

Virtual assistants will run anywhere from $1-100/hr depending on where they are, experience, and what they are doing.  Most entrepreneurs starting out might be able to work with someone under $10/hr.  Typical experienced VAs are going to be $13-30/hr.

Note that in the Philippines, there is an assumption that if someone works for you for a year, there is actually a 13th month that is to be paid.  So if you have someone full time, it would be a 13th payment comparable to the monthly rate.  The same would be true if you have someone part time.  Higher end VAs may be experts in copywriting, proof reading, programming or SEO.  They are not likely to do generic assistance task.  This is where you may start segmenting VA responsibilities.

How much time do you need?

Virtual assistants come in basically 4 flavors in terms of how you pay for them:

  • Full Time – as the name implies, this is your 160 hours per month full time worker.  (Plus an extra monthly payment annually if they are in the Philippines.)  It’s up to you to train them on your processes and practices, make sure they do what they need to, and make sure that you fill their time.  They are still billing you if they are waiting on you.  This is usually the least expensive per hour, but you need to make sure you have enough work for them to stay busy.
  • Part Time – this is usually x number of hours per month.  You might be able to get down to 20 hours per month, but most part time VAs will want a minimum of 40 hours per month.  Less than that it may not be practical for the general administrative VA.  For specialized virtual assistants (SEO, Payroll, etc.), a couple hours a week may be all that is needed.   These are usually somewhat higher in cost per hour than a full time VA, but you should grow into a full time arrangement if you aren’t sure.  Starting there and trying to cut back, can be problematic.
  • Hourly – these are your pay as you go virtual assistants.  They may bid on specific projects, or they may simply bill you based on how long things take.  A lot will depend on your experience working with the VA.  Hourly VAs are great for special projects, or recurring tasks with specific skill sets.  Rates are going to be higher than full or part time, but they are typically doing things you don’t need done all the time.
  • Fixed Price – this is a little different because sometimes you won’t have access to the same person all the time for fixed price tasks.  This works well for things like house cleaning, lawn mowing, etc.  For traditional virtual assistant tasks, there are services like Fancy Hands which allow you to get anything in their skill set done in 15 minute chunks.   I buy a block of “tasks” each month, and if I don’t use them, they roll over to the next month.  It doesn’t work for all things, but it is nice if you don’t have a fixed list of tasks for a virtual assistant to work on.

Offshore / Nearshore

There are arguments for outsourcing that you are improving the life of someone in a developing country even if you are only paying them a fraction of U.S. wages.  Some people think that outsourcing is stealing U.S. jobs.  The reality is that we are one planet, and borders don’t mean as much as they used to.  Regardless of what your thoughts are on the subject, there are actually options for everyone.

I have outsourced to many parts of the world and had mixed results.  I have a graphic designer in South America that I will go back to on a regular basis because he is flexible, has good design sense, and he offers good value.  Most of the outsourcing I do is actually to U.S. college students.  They are smart, need to work crazy hours because of school, reasonably priced and they speak and write in American English.

So the bottom line is that there is a virtual assistant option for almost any entrepreneur in need of outsourcing.