“For years I’ve had the pleasure of helping small and medium-sized business owners enjoy their businesses again by introducing them to virtual assistants.”
For Dean Soto of FreedomInFiveMinutes.com, outsourcing is a way of business and of life. He shared a bit with us about his business, his hiring secrets, and how he’s living the dream by outsourcing…
“I run a consulting agency that helps growing brick and mortar companies scale. We take a company’s current business processes, documenting each of them step-by-step, and then put people in place to take over those processes so the business owner can step away from the day-to-day operations and enjoy their life.
I’m currently living the 4-hour workweek lifestyle and help my clients do the same. I have seven kids and a beautiful wife (and a stubborn dog). We live on 20 acres in California and the nearest large city is about 45 minutes away. This was our dream and [outsourcing] is the vehicle that brought us there.
I started [hiring Filipino VAs] to set up affiliate websites for myself and that eventually transformed into doing websites for other clients. Over time, I started having my virtual assistants create documentation for all of the different tasks and processes we were doing in our business. As more and more documents were created, the less and less I had to work.
One of my clients (who was actually one of my financial advisors) was floored at how much money I was making and also how clear my schedule was. I told him how I found people in the Philippines…and he was also hooked on virtual assistants from then on.
How we use Onlinejobs.ph to find VAs
Over time, I’ve found several things that have made finding top quality candidates much easier on the platform.
First, in order to save time, we create job postings and have candidates come to us. We make sure that the titles in the job posting are flashy and detail the benefits of working with us. For example, rather than a title that says “PHP Developer Needed” we would use something a little bit more eye-catching such as “**=== Detail Oriented PHP Developer Needed / Great Benefits / 2 Weeks Vacation Every Year ===**”. Most candidates will only look at the title so you want to make your title as catchy as possible.
We also have a premium account so if we ever have an urgent need and need to spend more time finding a VA we are able to reach out personally to over 700 virtual assistants a month. This helps out a lot when we need candidates fast, but it’s time-consuming.
Second, we have several tiers of testing but the most important is the very first test that you give your applicants. Once somebody has applied for our job posting, we send them to a Google form that asks several questions. We ask for their full name, email, LinkedIn profile, and Facebook profile. We also have them take a typing test as well as an Internet speed test. If anything looks out of the ordinary with any of these then we immediately cut the person. Often this will take care of 75% of applicants who are not right for the job.
Third, we have several tests for those who passed the initial questionnaire. Those tests are graded based on several indicators that we feel are important. If passed, then they go into in-person interviews and so on.
Tools for training and managing workers
If a candidate passes all tests and interviews then we have them work for us on a trial basis for 40 hours. We then set them up with the tools our company uses.
The first tool is Asana. This is a great project management application that is free for the most part and helps you to keep track of all of the tasks that your virtual assistant is doing.
Slack is a communication tool that allows real-time chat with all of our virtual assistants. It’s great because you can create channels and groups and quickly solve issues when they pop up.
Google Business Suite is a great all-around software as a service that lets you have a company email. But more importantly, it is a great repository for process documentation. A lot of our customers use Google Docs already so we have them create folder structures to easily organize their process documentation.
Mistakes we’ve made
I think that the biggest mistakes that I’ve made in the last eight years when it comes to being successful with a virtual assistant is not having a thorough hiring process.
One of the benefits of OnlineJobs.ph (that you don’t get anywhere else) are the ID checks as well as the background checks when you have a premium account. Even with the normal account the ID checks as well as all of the testing that each of the candidate can put into the profile gives you a great picture of who they are and how much work they actually put into themselves which translates to how much work they will put into your business.
Ultimately, having a good filtering process and giving actual tests to the individuals will help out tremendously when weeding out those who look good on paper but are not good for your business.
I could go on and on but the bottom line is that OnlineJobs.ph is by far the number one place to find the best of the best virtual assistants in the world. There is nothing else like it and it just keeps getting better and better every year.”
Learn more about how to hire and train Filipino VAs from fellow entrepreneurs like Evan, Warren, and Catherine. Get started today and create more time and freedom in your life.
About Shelane
Shelane Tuttle is a full-time mother and part-time writer. She loves music and reading, is a terrible cook, and thrives on learning/teaching others about new things, like outsourcing.
If you liked this you’ll probably also like reading
– Create More Time to Scale Your Business – Miles Beckler on Hiring Filipino VAs
– Case Study – Onlinejobs.ph Review – Good or Bad?
May I know your programs and how much
Thanks for the information
Rosie Clemente.
November 15 1995
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