Who Would Work for $3 an Hour?

Many of you may have contemplated hiring a virtual assistant. If so, now is apparently the time to get one.

There is a plethora of websites that job seekers and job posters can use to either find work or find employees. Some of these websites are free and others charge a minimal monthly service fee. One such website is called oDesk. I was surprised how little some virtual assistants will accept for an hourly rate.

This job, for example, very clearly states that the starting pay is $1.00 an hour, "but will earn more later on via bonuses and promotions if you are good, hard-working and honest." How honest can the employer be if he or she values someone else's time so little?

Surprisingly, thirty-eight people applied for this job. It does not seem possible that so many people would work for so little. If you are thinking about hiring one of these assistants, do your research first. Here are some areas to look at when selecting a VA:

1. Portfolio
2. Consistency
3. Reliability
4. Reviews
5. Native language skills
6. Lack of exploitation

One of my clients used one of these inexpensive assistants for a couple of projects. He then had to turn around and pay me to either completely re-do or to fix the work of the employee. In the end, he paid out more for the projects than he would have if I would have just done them to start!

Do your research, hire Polaris Administrative Concepts, and remember that there is no such thing as luck!

Working Weekends?

How many of you work on the weekends? Are you so grateful for your clients that you work all hours of the night and day in order to keep them happy?

I was doing this until I realized that I didn't have to work on Saturday night. My clients may not even be expecting me to work on the weekend. I usually now reply to a client's request for work by saying I can get to it first thing on Monday.

Where do you draw the line? Do you charge a special fee for work outside of "regular" business hours? I would love to read your comments!

Remember, there's no such thing as luck!

Should Blogging be Delegated?

This week I have been researching more virtual assistance projects for my company. Many businesses are looking for writers to compose for their company blogs. I was a little surprised by this, as it had never occurred to me to do have someone else post.

This idea poses many questions. In a small company, who should write the bog posts? Should it be one person or many? Should it be the president or the lowest person on the totem pole?

Ultimately, the president is responsible for information and opinions found on the company website and blog. With that responsibility comes the decision-making power. He or she can decide whether or not to give away some of that power.

I thoroughly enjoyed Susan Solomon's article titled "Whose Blog is it Anyway?" because she outlines the risks of having a blog author from different levels within the company. Solomon also gives the reader points to consider when decided who the author should be. Check it out!

Polaris Administrative Concepts is such a small company, that I, as president, do the blogging. We will have to see in the future if I would feel comfortable passing that responsibility on. That would be a risk that would remind me that there is no such thing as luck!

Does Blogging Really Work?

Experts seem to agree that blogging is a great way to bring exposure to the writer's product or services. I have readily agreed with that because it seems logical. Now, I want to experiment with this theory.

I will post daily for the remainder of the month and monitor this blog's stats. I am curious to see what the result will be. Will there be a bunch of "pageviews" only? Or will those pageviews turn into new clients and/or projects?

What is an experiment without a hypothesis? So, here it goes:

"Navigating Your Success," the official blog for Polaris Administrative Concepts, will triple its number of pageviews this month. This will result in the addition of one client for the company.

Let's see if we can prove that there is no such thing as luck!