Trusting a VA to run a large part of your business

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mpbiz

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Apr 29, 2010
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I need to hire a VA to send lots of detailed and personalized emails to clients every day, they need to be able to speak/type fluent english and hold an actual conversation and not just send a one shot email, and I need to be able to trust them enough to login to my ebay and amazon accounts and fill orders.

As much as I know I have no other choice but to hire someone to do this, I have a nagging fear in my head that a VA would learn how my business runs and operates and just screw me over and copy everything. I run an info product business btw so it would be very easy for them to steal everything.

So my main question is how many of you have been able to find reliable and trustworthy VA's that are smart enough to run a large part of your business?

Have you had better luck with certain countries? I'm just going to look on elance and odesk and I know there are a ton of terrible VA's you have to sift through to find the hidden gems.

Any help is greatly appreciated.
 


Why not just automate the order part?

Most VA's are pretty stupid and won't be able to copy your business. I personally wouldn't want them talking to clients unless you don't care about the relationship after the sale.
 
Depending on how much you're making and if you have an office you might want to hire someone full time and have them sign a non disclosure and non compete.

Another way like will suggested is to just create like 20 main templates that cover 90+% of your interaction with clients and use that instead of writing personalized emails every single time.

When I was running an info product a few years ago I noticed that over time only a small percentage of support questions I got were truly unique everything else was repeat questions, so I had a file with questions they asked and answers I gave for probably 50 top repeat questions and all I had to do is copy/paste my old long ass emails and change their name in it.
 
JoseArmando said:
Depending on how much you're making and if you have an office you might want to hire someone full time and have them sign a non disclosure and non compete.

Another way like will suggested is to just create like 20 main templates that cover 90+% of your interaction with clients and use that instead of writing personalized emails every single time.

When I was running an info product a few years ago I noticed that over time only a small percentage of support questions I got were truly unique everything else was repeat questions, so I had a file with questions they asked and answers I gave for probably 50 top repeat questions and all I had to do is copy/paste my old long ass emails and change their name in it.
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I'm not making enough to have an office or hire a full time employee.

I guess I already plan to go the route you suggested and have a bunch of canned responses to the usual questions I get, and then I could just have the VA edit the names inside.

Just to make sure I understand correctly, you still answered the questions yourself or you had a VA answer the questions and copy/pase the responses?

As much as I could do this I'd really like to let a VA handle 90% of this part of my business and just have them send me a bi-weekly checkup/report or something and chat with them on skype an hour every week.

Have any of you guys been able to do the above?
 
My issue was I hated support but I understood just how delicate my dealings with my clients were, so instead of having a VA to free that 1 hour a day I used to spend answering clients I streamlined the whole process and after that it took about 15 minutes a day to answer all emails.

Even if I had a VA I'd probably need to train that person which at that point I wasn't prepared to do since it'd take a couple weeks to explain everything.
 
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JoseArmando said:
My issue was I hated support but I understood just how delicate my dealings with my clients were, so instead of having a VA to free that 1 hour a day I used to spend answering clients I streamlined the whole process and after that it took about 15 minutes a day to answer all emails.
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After reading over your first response and thinking about it I'm just going to bite the bullet and spend the 1 hour every day responding to the emails.

At least until I am doing enough volume and can afford to hire someone to do it that physically lives near me.

Thanks for the help.
 
As others have said, most responses will end up being similar or the same week after week. Setup a FAQ section or page on the site, and have it linked to in your E-mail signature as well. This way it gives them something to check proactively (assuming they will actually read it).

In addition, I suggest you setup a streamlined and categorized "Contact" section on the website so that E-mails can easily be filtered based on headings in your E-mail client or System based on common topics.

This way you don't have to sit through and read the annoying "Hey", "Question", "Issue", etc. subject type E-mails that clients just love to label subjects that waste so much time in finding and sorting then and later when you need to reference. So you'd have something like "Category 1: Their subject" as the message subject, and the E-mail filters toss it into that category's folder.
 
I guess I should have been more specific. When I said "detailed and personalized emails to clients every day" I meant it. They aren't just support type questions. The questions are actually a part of the info product package.

They get to ask me whatever they have questions on. Think of it like a bizopp where the person is auto enrolled into a "coaching" program. It's a major part of the actual product.
 
My vent: I have clients, YES CLIENTS, that I partner with (performance marketing) who can't handle basic email exchanges. I just cringe at every email exchange I read anymore.

These are "college" educated people.

Pick your people CAREFULLY. Vet them. If they say they went to college, call the college registrar. I wish I had.

India has a lot of good schools. Get someone who claims to be educated, and then make effing sure that they are.
 
I would hire a family member who I am close to and take JoseArmando's advice of having them sign a non-disclosure and non-compete just in case. You don't have any nieces or nephews that could use the extra money by being your VA?
 
I'd hire someone local someone with not a lot of money then I would get a lawyer to draw up some non-disclosure, non-compete documents for him to sign before giving them the job, once they sign they can have the job.

The importance of hiring someone without a lot of money is if they break the non-disclosure, non-compete agreements they won't have the money to run from the big ass law suit your going to fill against them to sue them for every penny they made plus more.

P.S. If you hire someone rich you can probably get more out of the law suit but its riskier because they have more means to fight it back, I'd say hit up the middle class is probably your safe bet.
 
mpbiz said:
I run an info product business btw so it would be very easy for them to steal everything.
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Anyone could rip you off if you or your branding aren't essential to your business model.

I think you're going about this with a scarcity mentality instead of an abundance mentality.

I know someone who is looking for an opportunity to learn and work in IM, but I can't refer them to a person who might end up treating them like shit, or putting them at risk of being sued for trying to work for them.
 
ericchristopher said:
My vent: I have clients, YES CLIENTS, that I partner with (performance marketing) who can't handle basic email exchanges. I just cringe at every email exchange I read anymore.

These are "college" educated people.

Pick your people CAREFULLY. Vet them. If they say they went to college, call the college registrar. I wish I had.

India has a lot of good schools. Get someone who claims to be educated, and then make effing sure that they are.
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This. I am continually amazed at how attrocius some of the emails I get from people are. College educated people. How in the world did they graduate?
 
CharliBaltimore said:
I would hire a family member who I am close to and take JoseArmando's advice of having them sign a non-disclosure and non-compete just in case. You don't have any nieces or nephews that could use the extra money by being your VA?
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Exactly this. Include a family member in the fun. Only people you can really trust (or should be able to).
 
I read a blog post about a guy who used his virtual assistant like you would a company PA - booking flights, hotels, liaising with suppliers and other shit that requires a credit card. Trusting someone who works in your physical office with your CC is one thing, but giving your credit card details to some guy in the Philippines to book flights for you? Seems like if your VA went crazy and decided to bill ya in Manilla, Amex would just be like "Well, you're screwed". Right?
 
If you are really going for a VA go to odesk and find filipino VA's there are lots of fluent speaking and writing filipinos to choose from.
 
mpbiz said:
They get to ask me whatever they have questions on. Think of it like a bizopp where the person is auto enrolled into a "coaching" program. It's a major part of the actual product.
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This concerns me. If they are paying for "1 on 1" coaching with you then you should probably handle these emails yourself. You don't want your VA giving them bad/poor advice and then have your customers turn around and bad mouth you all over the web.

First you said was that revenue wasn't enough to justify hiring a local employee. Now you are saying the support/coaching emails will be coming in such high volumes that you can't answer them yourself?

Something is not adding up here.

My advice is to suck it up and handle all the communication. You will atleast need to do it for a short while to gain a better understanding of what people are asking and how to answer them quickly and efficiently. This first-hand experience will be crucial for developing your scripts and email templates to pass onto your VA or local employee down the line.
 
It is a tough question, but Aequitas had the best answer here.

How much money are you making? Enough to hire a local mom-at-home type for say $13/hr, or are you limited to some person overseas at $4/hr?

There are huge benefits to working with someone in the states. They probably have a cell phone, speak English well, and are subject to the laws in the states - which is where Aequitas's advice comes in - get a lawyer to write something up.

Also, beyond what you are ABLE to spend, I can't tell you how many hours of my time, which is infinitely more valuable, I wasted trying to train a VA to do such a simple task to try and save 50 dollars a week. If YOUR time is really valuable, then don't waste it training some idiot, hire someone who is capable and at least somewhat trustworthy.
 
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