Opp Biz Dev

Virtual Asistants--Some Feedback

Been meaning to do a post on this virtual assistant phenomenon lately.  If you don't know what I mean, there are firms offshore (and individuals in the States) now that will let you have an assistant for 20 or 40 hours a week, let's say, at a very affordable rate.  They are committed to your business for the contracted period.

Typically these are MBA-quality people in the case of those in India.  They are adept at research, digesting information, preparing it for presentation (powerpoints, etc.) and that sort of work which would not require their physical presence.  If you consider it for a moment, this could be an awful lot of things which traditionally can get in the typical executives hair and distract them from income-producing activities, such as:

• Travel arrangements
• Copywriting
• Various creative services
• Legal work
• Administrative duties of almost any shape and size
• etc.

This is a growing profession and according to Wikipedia, has between 5,000-8,000 members (VAs) in the States.

A business partner and friend recently used an offshore VA for a month.  I was dying to know how it went since I had just read a book about VAs and it seemed very innovative as a way to get more done without having to take on a lot of salary.  Greg, my friend, said you can get a VA overseas for about $1,000 for 40 hours of work, if I'm not mistaken.

We caught up today and had a quick Skype chat where I asked him how it went. Here's what he had to say...

Disconnected

As a self-confessed e-mail addict, I found this to be an interesting story.

Link: Disconnected.

I was in a cab last Thursday talking on my BlackBerry and hoping to catch my flight home to Boston. As I approached the airport, I got off the phone and prepared to make the usual dash to catch my flight. "Ahhhh", I remember feeling. I made it just as they shut the doors. As I settled into my seat, I heard the safety announcement informing all passengers to turn off their electrical devices. I reached into my briefcase to turn off my BlackBerry and IT WASN'T THERE!

Instantly I had this bad, sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. I actually started to sweat as I thought of all the calls I needed to make on my drive time later that evening and the next day.

At that point, I realized I was in a state of panic because I was disconnected.

Market Research: Getting Answers

Information isn't of much use if you can't find a way to locate it, so any tools which make that easier are certainly worth knowing about.

One of my favorite market research tools is Google Answers.  This is an online forum in which people of all walks of life can ask questions in an open format that anyone can see.  The poster of each question includes the $ amount they are willing to pay for the answer to their question.  Then, a designated Google Researcher will take on your question and see it through to a completed answer.   Google gives the researcher 75% of the fee you're willing to pay for your answer.

Getting it done

People never do "nothing", you know.  They just do the wrong things (some more often than others).  This can be true whether we're talking about personal stuff (watching the game instead of building that home business) or employment issues (employees going to hotchix.com instead of confronting all that backlogged filing).

Let's face it, there's a lot going on in life and it's pretty darn easy to get distracted in this age o' information.  So any tool that helps us focus is worth it's weight in gold, I figure.

Basecamp is such a project management tool.