Archive for November, 2009

One of the most important parts of becoming involved with a virtual assistant is making sure that the final offers are clear.  This means that all of the contract work and forms should be understood and signed by both sides.  This will prevent any problems from occurring later on, and will help to define all of the terms of services that you need.

There are a variety of forms that a virtual assistant may decide to use, all which will make a difference in the type of services that are negotiated between you and the virtual assistant.  The first of these that you may see is a retainer agreement.  Basically, this will let you know what the work is and will define what the important aspects of the work will be, whether long term or just with a project.

If you are only working with the virtual assistant with one project, you may be looking at different forms.  Most likely, a per-project agreement will be looked at, which will define the terms and conditions of the project.  Most likely, this will be signed once a year, and will be used if you are only using the virtual assistant occasionally.

From this point, you may also be signing other alternative agreements.  Confidentiality agreements may be important to consider if you have the virtual assistant working with paperwork in your office.  Non-solicitation and non-competition agreements can also be looked over with a virtual assistant.  This will ensure that a virtual assistant that only works with you every once in a while won’t go and tell someone else what your business is doing, causing you to be in conflict with competition.

Depending on the type of work you will need from the virtual assistant, you will want to make sure that you have the proper forms to sign.  Having the agreements clear and legal between you and the virtual assistant will help you to make sure that everything is done correctly from the beginning to the assistance that you need.

If you are a smart business owner, you know the questions that are important to ask before you get involved in anything. One of the common questions that you have probably grown familiar to asking is “how much will this cost me?” Knowing how much each service will cost with a virtual assistant can help you to define what you want and need done and what isn’t essential to get done.

Most virtual assistants will price their services by the hour. The only exception to this is if it is only one project that has a standard pricing, such as websites. The hourly charge that a virtual assistant will provide will most likely be in relation to the type of services they offer, the going rate of virtual assistants and the materials that will need to be provided for the services.

For basic services from a virtual assistant, you can expect to pay an average of $30 per hour. This is standard from the Virtual Assistant Chamber of Commerce. However, if the services are more advanced, such as event planning, you can expect to pay up to $75 per hour. Even though this is more than a hired administrative assistant, you can expect to save money with these prices.

The reason why the pricing is set like this is because of the work that is done for you. Most likely, a virtual assistant will not be working for you eight hours a day. They also will not be working consistently throughout the week. When you factor this into how much work you need, you will be paying less than part-time assistance with the pricings. Included in the pricings are also things such as phone lines, supplies and other needs that the virtual assistant may have.

If you want to make sure that you get the best price for a virtual assistant, then you only have to see what types of services are included in the pricing. By knowing the standard pricings, and defining whether you will save money or loose money, you can determine the best way to save your pennies, while getting the quality work that you will need.

Have you pinged your blog today?

It’s a good idea to “ping” your blog whenever you add a new post. “Pinging” is a way of letting the search engines know that you have added content to your blog.

Pinging is very simple just go to a pinging site such as www.feedburner.com or www.pingomatic.com and fill in the details of your blog. Then when you add posts to your blog, just go to their site and click the ping button.

This will get your blog post added to their news feed much faster than waiting for the search engines to find it.