Is it Time to Hire a Virtual Assistant?

Is it Time to Outsource? 7 Questions to Ask Yourself.

“Why Would I Hire a Virtual Assistant When I Can do all of this Myself?”

Great question and one that was recently asked of me during a Social Media Management consultation.

When you have the skills and the knowledge to complete a task why would you outsource to a Virtual Assistant?

I absolutely hate several household chores. Cleaning bathrooms and mopping floors. Regardless of whether I hate them or not, they need to get done and preferably on a regular basis.

For any task that needs to be completed there are several things to take into consideration:

1. Do you have the skills and knowledge to complete the task accurately?
2. Does the task require specific tools?
3. Do you have the required tools for the job?
4. Do you have the best tools?
5. Do you have the time to properly complete the task on the desired schedule?
6. The time spent on this task will take away time from something else. Is this the best use of your time?
7. If your answers to 1-5 are a yes, do you get excited and actually enjoy doing this task?

I do not look this sexy cleaning!

Looking at my despised household chores let’s benchmark this task against the list of questions posed above.

1. I have the skills and knowledge to mop floors and clean bathrooms. I am the oldest of seven kids so these were regularly assigned chores I had growing up.
2. This job requires at least water, cleaning solution, and a mop/rags (optional: rubber gloves)
3. I have all necessary tools
4. I believe I have the best tools to get the job done. However, I did not pursue a career in cleaning so do I have the tools that will get the job done in the least amount of time? Maybe. Maybe not.
5. Do I have the time? Well, we all have 24 hours in a day so in theory I do have the time but if I had a choice I’d rather spend that time with my son, on Twitter, at the beach, writing blog posts, etc….I’d prefer to spend my time on anything BUT those two things.
6. Is this best use of my time? No. See No. 5 above…I’d rather do anything BUT….and doing this will not get me closer to my life and business goals
7. I answered YES to 1-5 and NO to 6. I do not get excited to clean floors. I’d put it off forever, if I could get away with it.

You can easily see that hiring a housekeeper/cleaning service is best for me and well worth the investment. In my case it costs me $75/month to have someone come in and take care of my bathrooms and mopping. As an added bonus she also does above and beyond that for me.

If you’ve been sitting on the polar ice cap wondering if hiring a Virtual Assistant is the best choice ask yourself these seven questions. If you find that the answer to ANY of the seven questions is a NO, then it’s time to outsource those tasks.

Check out the following free downloads:

• What is My Time Worth? This checklist will help you in determining which tasks are not generating your desired return on invested time.
• Checklist for Hiring a Virtual Assistant. You are ready to interview a Virtual Assistant for your business, this checklist will help guide that conversation to determine who is best suited with your needs, desires and budget.

If you are ready to proceed please contact me. If I can’t help you I can probably refer you to someone who can.

P.S. I insist that my floors are mopped on hand and knees. It seems to be the best way to assure they are clean.