As you may know I’ve struggled finding constant work for my VA. I’ve got a few brothers that are in varied businesses and we often help one another out with advice and projects. I’ve offered up my VA to do basic level tasks (research, data entry, etc.) for them whenever they need it.
Well, one of my brothers finally took me up on the offer. He needs to locate the company info (CEO name, company contact info, etc.) for about 100 companies. In almost all cases the info is available on the websites… we just need someone to visit the sites and compile the information. What a perfect project for my service provider! I asked him if he had a budget for the project and he said that as long as I provide him with samples of the work as we progress then he’s fine with whatever it takes to get the job done.
I asked my brother to send me a layout of what he wanted in an excel sheet along with a row already filled out as an example. I took the sheet, refined it (based on my experiences so far communicating with outsourcing providers) and added as much detail on how to proceed.
The bad news… my provider is out on a scheduled vacation so I’ll need to wait a while until she’s back to begin work. Fortunately the task isn’t super time sensitive, but I’m pretty impatient about the opportunity to give my brother a taste of person to person outsourcing.
Has anybody else outsourced their assistants to someone else? If so, did you do it:
- Indirectly like I’m doing – Basically my brother knows I’m outsourcing and is providing almost all the info, I’m just lightly managing and sending the project along
- Directly – For example: VA, meet my brother… brother, meet my VA.
Oddly, it sounds a bit like you’re talking about indentured servants to me, rather than Virtual Assistants.
And maybe those people sitting in call centers in third world countries are happy for you to pass them around–as long as they get their pay. After all, they are employees, paid to do whatever you ask them to do.
I absolutely prefer working with VAs who own their own businesses, have their own standards, know their own value, and work only with people they’ve hand-chosen for themselves. My own VA has worked with me for ten years. I can honestly say it would never occur to me to even *try* to farm her out to anyone. But I do routinely sing her praises and refer high-quality clients to her. Why? Because she’s not an indentured servant, but a professional in her own right and is absolutely deserving of my highest respect and admiration. For me to treat her elsewise would be criminal, IMO.