Paying As You Go (The VA Advantage)

I’ve wanted to crack the code on how to work with VA’s since reading the book “4 Hour Work Week” by Tim Ferris. At the time of reading the book I was in my first couple years of working professionally as I had just graduated from Chico State. At the time, I wasn’t making any money at all. I was in sales and I was building my book of business. The last thing I could do was hire a VA.

But, then something happened… I had an epiphany. I realized what the meaning behind the saying “you have to spend money to make money”.

Leap of Faith

The leap of faith is something all entrepreneurs are familiar with. At some point in your career you had to take a leap of faith and usually it happens far more often than just once. Hiring your first employee is a perfect example of taking a leap of faith.

If a new hire doesn’t work out for a small business owner it could sink your business. The time, resources, money AND mental strain of a new hire gone wrong will make any business owner shiver. We’ve all been there.

Luckily, VA’s are not employees. Luckily, VA’s work as an extension of your team but aren’t tied to you like an employee would be. Think of VA’s as your long time significant other rather than getting married. You’re serious, but you’re not bound to each other legally in the way that you would be if you’re married. The point is you can recover so much easier with a hire gone wrong from working with VA’s versus working with employees.

How to Hire So it Doesn’t Go Wrong.

I don’t look for things to go wrong, in fact I do everything I can to ensure that I set my team up for success from the beginning.

In future posts we’ll discuss how to write Job Descriptions, set KPI’s and the concept of Tiny Tasks leading to BIG Projects. For now, let’s just touch on Tiny Tasks.

When I hire a new VA, I usually hire 3. I give each of my new hires the same task and I’m evaluating their work based on timeliness, quality of work, and communication style (sometimes other things too).

From there, I give the extended version of the project to the VA that worked with my style best. I’ve used this method and have had the same 3 core members of my team for 3 years and another 2 members for about 2 years now. This method works.

The best part? VA’s don’t have minimums!

What does no Minimums Actually Mean?

Usually when you hire an employee, you are committing to pay said employee for a specific amount of time. Usually that amount of time is somewhere around 40 hours.

Well, as a small business owner you realize that business is sometimes faster and other times slower. Doesn’t matter to your employee though - you pay them the same amount regardless.

So, as business owners this is when we find tasks for our employees to do that are outside of their wheelhouse. 

Here are 2 reasons why this is a TERRIBLE thing we do as business owners.

ONE: They aren’t an expert at the task so either you are paying them to learn how to do it and/or their quality of work will not be sufficient.

TWO: If you had a VA team rather than just one employee, then you are able to “clone” your team. You could literally pay for enough VA’s to do specific tasks that probably won’t even add up to the amount of hours your employee is logging.

This is because VA’s typically don’t have a minimum amount of hours they need to bill you for… You pay as you go.

In fact, I set hourly weekly limits for my VA’s so that they do not extend any amount of time worked in a given week. This also makes it easy from a cash flow point of view because I always know how much I’m paying VA’s at the most for any given week.

If cash flow becomes a problem (because let’s be real), then I can simply lower the amount of hours my VA’s can work in a given period. VA’s are used to this. It’s totally normal in this world.

So, I ask you… why haven’t you hired a VA yet?

How to Get Started

I know it can be overwhelming when hiring VA. I know it seems counterintuitive to hire a VA when money is tight. I realize that you want more time, but you don’t have the time to recruit, train and manage a VA right now … 

Well, what if I had a way to show you the exact path I took to find success with VA’s? Would you be willing to put a little extra money and time into hiring your first VA now so that future you can be in your happy place later in life? (later in life can be a year or less… it all depends on how efficiently you take action … if you follow my system you’ll be moving quickly).

If you want to learn more (and I know you do), then check out this FREE gift I have for you to get you started on the path to working ON your business and not IN it.

To Taking the Leap,
Sam AKA SwagSam

P.S. If you’re ready to take your VA training to the next level, then learn more about my upcoming workshop where I’m going to walk you step-by-step from start to finish the exact steps I’ve taken to work less than 4 hours a day! (click here for more info).