Smartlife

About a month and a half ago, I told myself that I needed to drive some damn traffic to my new blog. I knew from reading Problogger.net and conducting mini-trials of my own that habitually commenting on other people’s blogs generates traffic. Readers see your “value-added” comments, visit your site, and become avid followers. Fellow bloggers appreciate your meaningful contributions, become fans themselves, and promote your site. Backlinks accumulate and help improve your site’s Google ranking.

Though a highly effective SEO and marketing tactic, let’s face it: commenting can be a little tedious.

How often have you looked into your refrigerator and noticed that it was empty? That you didn’t have anything to eat and no ingredients to cook? I don’t know about you, but this happens to me way too often, forcing me to make an unproductive run to the grocery store or eat yet another overpriced and unhealthy meal out of the house. If only there were a method to make sure you had enough food, always. Fortunately, with the increase in personal outsourcing options, now you can even outsource the most basic of tasks: grocery shopping.

I thought the first task that I outsourced made perfect sense. Despite my assumption, it took half a dozen back-and-forth emails for my virtual assistant to figure out just what I was talking about. Outsourcing, when you first start, might be a little bumpy. You may need to get used to the pattern of back-and-forth communications and troubleshooting your outsourcing setup if you run into problems.

Troubleshooting by the checklist

When I run into problems with my outsourced tasks, I look for how the problem occurred. From there, it becomes a matter of figuring out how to prevent a repeat of the same problem.

One of the more confusing aspects of outsourcing personal tasks is the number of ways you can structure payments. Are you expected to pay a virtual assistant hourly? By the task? Some combination? And what is the typical price charged?

By the hour

Many virtual assistants work on an hourly basis — I think this arrangement is the easiest option for both those doing the outsourcing and those doing the work. It’s easier to track work and payments on an hourly basis.

Some virtual assistants are more than happy to handle tasks for you that require personal information. But is it really necessary to go around handing out information like the password to your email or your credit card number?

How personal is too personal?

You may want your virtual assistant to purchase something on your behalf. Most assistants will want your credit card to make the purchase. Perhaps you want your virtual assistant to respond to emails for you — but she’ll need to get into your email account to do it. Most of us aren’t comfortable handing out that sort of information, for good reasons.

The key to successfully outsourcing tasks is effective communication: if you aren’t able to clearly describe the tasks you want completed, it’s only a matter of time before a virtual assistant can’t complete a task to your satisfaction.

Talking about tasks

When you’re laying out a new task or project for your virtual assistant, it’s important to be specific. Say that you want estimates on a new fence for your home. Rather than telling your virtual assistant that you just want a new fence, tell her the type of fence, criteria for companies to do the installation — location, testimonials, etc. — and other details.