Monthly : November 2015

Ichecked in with my buddy Alec to see how things were going with his new Virtual Assistant.

“Seriously?  Yeah sure, I am no longer managing my life.  I’m now managing my crappy VA.  I consider it a net loss in time.  And a net gain in angst.”

I wasn’t surprised.  His story, and far far worse, are all too common.

“It can’t be that bad … What could possibly go wrong?”

I have a few VA horror stories to relay on that front.  48 hours of misery on an airport terminal floor … A 200,000 friend MySpace account ghosted (when MySpace mattered) … I thought I’d experienced it all.

It turns out I got off light.

I later learned identity theft and even kidnapping (yikes) happen all the time.  This really shouldn’t be too surprising if you think about it.  You’re giving critical access to someone you’ve never met face to face.  Are you sure you can trust them?

And if you can, are they actually competent?  The damage an incompetent VA can cause goes far beyond the psychological and temporal.  Given the fingernail’s grip on sanity most frazzled entrepreneurs have, the constant micro-incompetence of unqualified VAs can be just enough to put you out of business for good.

This is a real shame for two reasons.  First, a good VA can, in fact, totally change your life for the better (you just need to make an informed selection – see below).  Second, a career as a VA is a great opportunity for folks in the 3rd world who want to earn an honest living (especially the veritable army of single-moms in these countries).  It only takes a few bad apples to ruin it for everyone.

We Put the 50 Biggest Firms to the Test with Actual Tasks

I was delighted when my team presented this idea.  We’d compile a list of the biggest firms and actually hire them to do the same 3 tasks to compare their performance.  We’d first perform the same 3 tasks ourselves to establish a baseline.

“It seemed a straightforward task. It wasn’t. We thought it would be easy. It wasn’t. If we had been searching for a virtual assistant for real, we would have been tempted to give up by day 2.”

To narrow the list down, we eliminated companies that didn’t offer a free trial.  We figured right off the bat this would reduce the potential risk considerably.  We were left with 21 firms.  Of those, we eliminated 11 more who didn’t respond promptly … had bait-and-switch trials … etc

We then gave the same 3 tasks to the 10 who survived the initial culling.

• Prepare a travel budget
• Conduct research for a gift
• Make a call to reschedule an appointment

We were left with one clear winner, a few recommendations, and several critical lessons learned.  One of the biggest shockers?  The company with the best performance was 1/5 the cost of the most expensive firm.

We compiled all of this into a detailed report with examples of their work, recordings of the calls, and more.  You can grab it, and many other things crucial to your quest for delegation-heaven, right here …

Special Report:  The Top 50 VA Firms Put to the Test! <— free PDF download

• Which firm offered the best service at 1/5 the price?
• Learn how to get 12 hours of VA Service 100% free
• 5 steps to finding the perfect freelance assistant
• The correct way to identify top performers in an interview
• Much more …