C. "Marlon's Secrets of Hiring Your First Virtual Assistant



Full Or Part Time -- Secrets From Years Of Experience"

Save this for reference and use it as a checklist to the

"success formula"

By Marlon Sanders

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

I'll never forget, actually.

My phone rang off the hook all day long. All night long.

The fax churned with manual orders.

I had more customer service emails than I knew what to

do with.

I couldn't get tables on my web pages to center right or

the background to look good.

I had ebooks with typos and sales letters with the same.

Money poured in. But how to handle all the mundane WORK?

I realized quickly that by doing my own customer service, I'd

soon lose all the customers I had!

I tried hiring a girl at the gym to run errands and help

out. That went absolutely nowhere.

I hired another girl to come in and help with customer service

and orders. That didn't really turn out so good.

I needed REAL talent. And real help.

But I didn't know if I could afford someone full time or not.

Still, things were starting to tear apart at the seams. In

a moment of desperation, I posed on Anthony Blake's forum

at ablake.com/forum that I was looking for a virtual assistant.

I'll never forget that Michel Fortin emailed me and said he

worked with IMC (Internet Marketing Challenge). But when

the late, great Corey Rudl bought the company, he let go

of their customer service person.

He thought she was awesome and I should contact her.

Her name was Lisa Edwardsen. And Lisa worked with me for

7 or 8 years, doing everything under the sun. I was scared

to death I couldn't afford her.

But the cool thing is, she lived in Canada. And for 3 or 4 years,

I got her at half price because of the exchange rate. Later,

when that rate turned against me, I had to pay more and more

for her services while she netted the same amount.

So it wasn't all a bed of roses.

I'll never forget, though. I just didn't know for sure if

I could afford to hire Lisa. But I knew I had to have help.

Corey told me the hardest person you'll ever hire is your

first.

How right he was.

A talented person will treat your bank account very well.

Now, not all my hires have been good. Usually, if the person

is great the first week, they'll be great 2 years later. If

you aren't sure about them the first week, you probably will

still feel the same way two years later.

Danny does my graphic design now.

I brought him in on a freelance assignment from Craig's List.

He hit a home run on that project. And he's been a great help

ever since.

Here are my best secrets for hiring your first virtual assistant

full or part time.

1. What are you doing that someone else could do for you?

Your time is the single most valuable thing you have. What are

you doing that someone else could do?

2. Your time is best spent coming up with new product ideas

and promotions.

If you're doing a lot of things that aren't about coming up

with new product ideas or promotions, look at getting a virtual

assistant to help out.

3. Look for exchange rates that are in your favor

While the exchange rate between U.S. and Canada eventually turned

against me, for 3 or 4 years, it worked in my favor.

Look at countries where one of your dollars is worth two or more

of theirs. This way, you get talent at a bargain price. But your

talent still feels well paid.

4. Hire people who are smarter or more talented than you

I've always felt you need to hire people who are smarter than you,

faster than you and more talented than you.

This is the only way you'll feel confident delegating tasks to them.

Now, with Lisa I was lucky. I originally hired her just for

customer service. But to my surprise and luck, she had terrific

graphic design talents!

That's what you call a triple jackpot bonus.

5. Let your people grow

I've never wanted to hold my people back. I've always made it my

goal to let them grow as much as far as their talents and motivation

will take them.

When Matt worked for me, I let him do jinglesongs.com because he

loved music. I let him create vblogsecrets.com because he loved

mucking with audio and video.

Lisa had this amazing ability for graphic design. So I let her move

into that area as much as I could. That's why we did Design

Dashboard.

I wanted to give her a chance to showcase her amazing talents.

6. Give your people a bit of training

Lisa had an art background. I decided to let her pick out and buy

a book on Photoshop. She bought one bought. She went through it.

Thirty days later she blew me away with what she could do.

That's what happens when talent meets opportunity.

At the same time, if you give someone training and they need more

and more training to get mediocre results, that's not a good sign.

7. Graph your revenue

After you hire the person, watch your revenue. Does it go up or not?

If it doesn't, then that tells you all you need to know.

A talented person should have a very quick impact on your bottom

line.

8. Know the downsides of hiring virtual help

The good news about virtual assistants is if you hire them in another

country, you don't have to worry about employment taxes.

The bad news is that there's a good chance the person won't take the

position as serious. So you're in the middle of a product launch

and your assistant has an appointment they have to keep for a teeth

cleaning at the dentist.

Or their Internet "goes down" and you have no way to know if it's

true or not.

Or they schedule doctor's appointments during work hours.

Or their mom needs to go to the grocery store during work hours.

There are TONS of things that can come up. Set the rules as much as

you can upfront. But know that they'll probably never take the

position as serious as an employee at an office.

9. Once trust is violated, cut ties immediately.

I'm the kind of person who likes to give people a second chance.

Don't.

Really. If your assistant lies, steals, cheats or misrepresents,

cut ties.

10. Keep your focus where it belongs

Your focus should be on getting products out the door and promoting

those products. Your assistant should handle other things. Their

job is to handle details and make you look good.

By the way, if you want to see all the systems I originally created

for Lisa to follow, we documented all of them at:

http://www.operateyourbiz.com

Some of the systems are outdated. But you can see EXACTLY how we

documented her systems and work flow originally.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Marlon Sanders is the author of "The Amazing Formula That

Sells Products Like Crazy."

(SIGN UP AS A RESELLER, put YOUR reseller URL and ID where

the above link is, post this on your web site and make some

dough for spreading a killer guide everyone will want to

read.)

//////////////////////

REPRINT RIGHTS: You have permission to use the above

article without omission and including the resource box.

You have the right to insert your reseller URL for any

products I mention.

Get YOUR Audio Postcard