What is a Virtual Assistant
Found this article in the business section and thought you would find it useful. The article basically discusses the economics of outsourcing your mundane chores. I have summarized the important points.
Did you think only celebrities and really wealthy people can afford personal assistants? Think again. There are many websites out there that can assist you with a wide variety of tasks ranging from writing thank you notes to following up on lost luggage.
One woman uses a site called AskSunday.com to deal with lost luggage, security issues with credit cards and reservations problems. When asked how she justifies the cost she said it costs about the same price as cable tv and eliminates so many of the headaches in her life, that it is totally worth it.
Prices and packages vary from site to site: On AskSunday.com users can pay 29.00 per month for 15 “requests” while the site GetFriday.com offers pay-as-you-go and monthly plans, in increments of 10 to 15 minutes. The monthly plans start at $120.00 a month for 10 hours.
Tim Ferriss, author of The Four-Hour Workweek, uses what he calls a “small army” of virtual assistants for everything from checking his e-mail to screening his phone calls and sending gifts to family and friends. He also uses a virtual assistant to find and schedule dates for him where he can promote his product. Ferriss says if you make more than $30,000.00 a year, you can afford to outsource some of your more routine tasks.
A marketing consultant uses Elance.com to find graphic designers for his website, find vegetarian-friendly restaurants, organize his Netflix account, plan a baby shower and bid for items on e-Bay.
Security issues are always a concern and Ferriss says that he has never had any problems. He does suggest though using trusted sites like PayPal.com when possible and using credit instead of debit cards to minimize potential damage.
Some sites, like AskSunday.com keep logins and passwords in a secured database so that its employees can use certain accounts but cannot see login or password information.
The article ends with a quote from the author of The Four-Hour Work Week which I thought summed it up well. “Ultimately, time is the most valuable, nonrenewable resource that we have.”
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