Hiring virtual assistants is a big step for business owners as it might well be the first time you've ever outsourced parts of your business to someone.
Whether or not you're a new entrepreneur or an established business, this article is going to be your ultimate short guide.
My goal in writing this is to dispel many virtual assistant myths, extinguish the flames of hyperbole that gurus often tout, and show you how a virtual assistant can have a significant impact on your business if done the right way.
You are going to learn in this article:
- How to determine the best virtual assistants for your needs?
- How much to pay a virtual assistant?
- What are the different types of virtual assistants?
- Difference between a virtual assistant and a freelancer
- How entrepreneurs and virtual assistants benefit each other
- Why hire virtual assistants in the Philippines?
- Where to find and hire a virtual assistant
How to determine the best Virtual Assistant for your needs?
Hiring a virtual assistant is not a one size fits all solution. The key to hiring the best virtual Assistant is determining what you need your VA to be skilled and proficient at.
Firstly, my advice is to list 3-4 core skills that your virtual Assistant absolutely must have as the minimum requirement.
Here's a good example:
You're "Joe" or "Joanna," and you are a real estate agent, and you want to free up your time from admin and other time-consuming stuff while at the same time growing your business, selling more houses, and getting more stuff done.
So you decide you need to hire a real estate virtual assistant to help you achieve that.
Naturally, you've done your research, and you realize that hiring an overseas virtual assistant, probably a Filipino VA, will produce better results for you.
Skills you might need the VA to have could include:
- Data entry (familiar with excel and spreadsheets)
- Live chat/email/social media. You might want them to send out mail lists, interact with social media, and do other such stuff.
- Inbound calls. They take calls for you from initial inquiries. In this case, you might well want them with a minimum of 12 months of experience working with clients on the telephone.
This is just an example, and what skills you need your virtual Assistant to have will depend on you and your business needs.
HOW MUCH TO PAY A VIRTUAL ASSISTANT?
This can vary depending on the skills and experience you require your virtual Assistant to have.
On the VirtualStaff.ph platform, you can expect to hire virtual assistants from anywhere between $360-1300 per month, with the average rate likely falling somewhere between $500 to $800 per month.
The different types of virtual assistants:
I'm a strong advocate of saying that if you want to hire a specialist in a field, such as a video editor, bookkeeper, graphic designer, SEO specialist, etc., you don't want to hire a virtual assistant.
Instead, you want to post a job and advertise to hire a graphic designer or an SEO specialist, not a "VA" or virtual Assistant.
Because a lot of people often think that anybody they hire when outsourcing to the Philippines is a variation of a virtual assistant, I'm going to, for this article, list the positions below under the title of a virtual assistant.
Virtual Assistant (general VA)
What is a virtual assistant?
A virtual assistant or a VA is someone hired by a business part-time or full-time to complete admin tasks, basic social media, follow-ups, and other related things.
How much do virtual assistants cost?
A virtual assistant typically costs between $360 to $600 per month to hire in the Philippines, depending on the persons' experience and skillset.
I'd generally advise not paying below $450 per month to ensure you hire the best virtual assistants and don't compromise quality for the sake of trying to save an extra few bucks.
Digital marketing virtual assistant
What is a digital marketing virtual assistant?
A digital marketing virtual assistant is a remote assistant that handles aspects of your digital marketing, including content, basic SEO, emails, social media, and other related things.
How much do digital marketing virtual assistants cost?
It usually costs between $400 -$1000 per month to hire an experienced digital marketing virtual assistant.
You might be able to find a junior or entry-level digital marketing virtual assistant for as low as $350 per month; however, you may find that it's best to pay some extra dollars to hire better quality digital marketing VAs.
SEO Virtual Assistant
What is an SEO virtual assistant?
An SEO virtual assistant is a remote person who works for you either part-time or full-time, and their primary job role is search engine optimization. You can expect an SEO virtual assistant to do site optimization, social media posting, and link building.
How much do SEO virtual assistants cost?
You can budget between $400-$900 per month to hire an SEO virtual assistant in the Philippines. An entry-level SEO virtual Assistant costs less than if you hired somebody with more expertise and experience.
As always, I'd advise you to look to pay your Virtual Assistant between 1/4 to 1/3 of what you'd pay somebody if you hired them locally in the USA.
Facebook Virtual Assistant
What is a Facebook virtual assistant?
A Facebook virtual assistant is a remote staff member who handles Facebook for your business.
Tasks they do might include posting on Facebook, community management, monitoring messenger and replying to customer queries, and creating and sharing content and images.
You could hire a Facebook virtual assistant to work for your business, or you could hire them to be part of your digital marketing agency and assign the VA to work on your clients' Facebook pages.
How much do Facebook virtual assistants cost?
You can expect to pay between $360-$900 per month to hire a Facebook virtual assistant. You can directly choose from thousands of Facebook virtual assistants on the Virtual Staff Philippines outsourcing platform.
Social media virtual Assistant
What is a social media virtual assistant?
A social media virtual assistant is similar to a Facebook virtual assistant, meaning they will spend their days managing social media, creating content, posting images, and managing your page and community.
The difference between the two virtual assistants is that you can expect the social media virtual assistant to work on various social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.
I'd strongly suggest reading the article about working with a virtual assistant to manage social media.
How much do social media virtual assistants cost?
You can hire a full-time social media virtual assistant for $400 - $900 per month. Some social media virtual assistants might be willing to work for less, and some incredibly skilled and experienced VAs might command more.
Data Entry virtual assistant
What is a data entry virtual assistant?
Data entry virtual assistants are remote workers you hire to work specifically on data entry-related admin tasks. This could include data compilation, putting together information on google sheets or excel, and other such stuff.
Suppose you only require somebody to do data entry for a few hours per day.
In that case, it might be more beneficial to hire a full-time general virtual assistant, who, in addition to data entry, could also do other tasks such as posting on social media.
How much do data entry virtual assistants cost?
It costs between $360-$800 per month to hire a data entry virtual assistant in the Philippines, which would work out at around $120-$200 per week if you hired them full-time for 40 hours per week.
Real estate virtual Assistant
What is a real estate virtual assistant?
A real estate virtual assistant is an assistant who works remotely for realtors and handles their day-to-day tasks.
Some of the functions that a real estate virtual assistant will do include social media, admin, follow-ups, post and design listings, responding to chat and email queries, and verifying appointments on your behalf.
To learn everything you need to know, I'd strongly suggest you read this real estate virtual assistant article.
How much does it cost to hire a real estate virtual assistant?
Hiring a real estate virtual assistant costs between $400 and $1200 per month.
Generally speaking, you should budget $360-$700 for an entry-level real estate virtual assistant and upwards of $700 per month for intermediate and senior VAs.
If you pay upwards of $700 per month, you can easily expect to hire a real estate virtual assistant in the Philippines of the same quality as a local assistant that you'd hire in the USA.
This means you not only save a lot of money on employee costs, but you also don't compromise quality, which is, of course, equally as important if you want to hire succeed with hiring an overseas virtual assistant.
Amazon Virtual Assistant
What is an Amazon virtual assistant?
An Amazon virtual assistant is a remote assistant who usually works for an Amazon seller or an Amazon FBA business and helps them maintain listings, respond to customer queries, research competitors, and deal with the day-to-day admin-related activities of the business.
If you're a one or two-person Amazon business, then hiring an Amazon virtual assistant can remove many day-to-day routine tasks from your schedule.
This is also an effective way to increase the sale value of your business, especially if you combine hiring an Amazon virtual assistant with the implementation of a sound operations system.
Also, keep in mind an Amazon VA could also help you with other related marketplaces, such as eBay, Walmart marketplace, Shopee, or Lazada.
How much does it cost to hire an Amazon virtual assistant?
It costs between $360-$700 per month to hire an Amazon virtual assistant, and it depends on the skill level and experience of the individual VA.
If you're looking at someone without experience, but someone who you can perhaps train up, then $360-$600 per month would be the range that I'd suggest paying.
If, on the other hand, you want someone who already has a lot of experience with the Amazon platform, often obtained through past work as an Amazon VA, then I'd recommend that you pay them $500-$1000 per month.
Bookkeeper Virtual Assistant
What is a bookkeeping virtual assistant?
A virtual bookkeeping assistant is a remote staff member or professional contractor who remotely manages the day-to-day finances.
You'll usually have a bookkeeping virtual assistant working either part-time or full-time, and they will be working from home.
You can either advertise to hire a virtual bookkeeping assistant or advertise for a bookkeeper or home-based bookkeeper.
It is entirely up to you, and you could even try the various job post titles on VirtualStaff.ph and see which gets you the best applicants.
How much does it cost to hire a virtual bookkeeping assistant?
It costs between $400-$800 per month to hire a bookkeeper Philippines. You can pay less or more, but generally, we suggest paying within this range to guarantee you hire a good quality bookkeeping VA.
Other types of virtual assistants that you could hire in the Philippines?
This is just an example of some popular virtual assistant positions businesses look to hire.
If you'd like to outsource to the Philippines, and you want to see the hundreds of thousands of virtual assistants and remote workers that you could choose from, then go to the Virtual Staff Philippines outsourcing platform.
The differences between a virtual assistant and a traditional freelancer?
This one often confuses people. And to be fair, before I began outsourcing, I'd probably not have known the difference myself.
Many people see a virtual assistant as a freelancer.
In truth, a freelancer is usually someone who works with you on a one-time project or for a short specified period before moving on to another client. They may work with various clients at the same time.
On the other hand, a virtual assistant is someone who becomes part of your team.
You usually hire a virtual assistant either part-time or full-time, and when hiring a virtual assistant, both parties intend that this will be a long-term working relationship.
They are like a regular employee, and however, instead of working in an office, they work remotely.
Of course, if you hire a virtual assistant in the Philippines on our outsourcing platform, and you're an overseas business, you don't have to worry about employee costs such as healthcare, severance pay, maternity leave, and other such stuff.
This, of course, means that you as an employer don't need to worry about any of that stuff.
Suppose you're wondering why virtual assistants want to work for your business for under $10.00 per hour?
In that case, I'd suggest you read the article "how virtual assistants and entrepreneurs benefit each other," in the article, you will learn the psychology of both sides, and it'll give you a deep insight into why this is a win/win for everybody!
Why hire virtual assistants in the Philippines?
From the fact you will save thousands of dollars per year on employee costs to the fact that you're choosing from a young and educated workforce, all the way to the fact that English is a national and official language, there are so many reasons why it makes sense to hire virtual assistants in the Philippines.
Let's start by breaking it down into those three main points.
Outsourcing to the Philippines: You'll save thousands of dollars!
You can expect to pay between $400-$1000 per month to hire skilled and educated virtual staff and remote workers in the Philippines.
My rule of thumb, which I always emphasize, is that you should pay your virtual assistants or remote staff in the Philippines between 1/4 to 1/3 of what the cost of that equivalent employee would cost you in the USA.
I use this rule of thumb because the cost of living in the Philippines to live a solid middle-class lifestyle is about 66% to 75% less than that of the USA.
Philippines outsourcing is key to replacing local employees with lower cost but the equally skilled virtual staff and VA's without compromising quality.
Remember, you're better to pay a good quality Filipino graphic designer $500-$1000 per month and get somebody as good as a $20 to $40 per hour graphic designer in the USA, rather than paying $360-$500 per month, saving an extra $1.00-$2.00 per hour, but ending up with somebody who is not as good.
Read this article to learn more about outsourcing to the Philippines.
Where to a virtual assistant?
You can directly choose from thousands of virtual assistants on VirtualStaff.ph. It's as easy as just creating your employer account and then posting a job and directly communicating with applicants.
You always remain in control, and it's entirely up to you what salary rate you agree with the virtual Assistant.
