Over the years I’ve used a variety of virtual assistance, and different programs, and i really hadn’t seen anything new in a while. Recently, I was approached by iworker, which I hadn’t heard of before so I started looking into it. They are a different type of virtual assistant service focus primarily on disadvantaged countries.
Unlike some of the larger outsourcing destinations such as the Philippines or India these are individual relationships. You aren’t dealing with a large corporate structure built around outsourcing. This has some advantages in personalization and you can find individual virtual assistants that meet your need. You don’t get assigned a VA that has the same skills as their 40 other co-workers.
The founder is from Venezuela so most of the workers are from there. I’ve used virtual assistants from Venezuela in the past and had very good luck with this, so I was definitely intrigued.
Getting Started with iworker
I begin a dialogue with their staff to see what their model was and I was very pleased with how they set things up. They are very flexible in terms of time commitments. Unlike other VA services where you need to commit to full time or half time, they had various arrangements that you can basically negotiate with the potential virtual assistant. They provided a selection of resumes on numerous virtual assistants that they thought would meet my specific needs. We went back and forth with three or four different emails until I found one that I thought would be a good fit. She happens to be in Africa.
The signup was very easy. There’s a small deposit to get started. And the rates are very reasonable. So far I am impressed. I did sign up as an affiliate (full disclosure) but I typically don’t do that for just any program. I encourage you to check out iworker, and see if it’s a good fit for you.
