How to Hire a Virtual Assistant for Your Publishing Business

About this video

Responding to a viewer who wants to grow a self-publishing business without running themselves ragged, Dale frames hiring a virtual assistant as a question of time versus money and strengths versus weaknesses. If writing is your strength, he says, free up time to write more by hiring a professional for tasks you are weak at, such as cover design, rather than doing them yourself. If cash flow is limited, he invokes what his friend Rob Archangel calls sweat equity — learning to do it yourself — or bootstrapping cash by freelancing your own skills on platforms like Upwork or Fiverr, or running a Kickstarter campaign. Dale warns against settling on price, advising authors to hire high-quality professionals with a history in the profession, a portfolio and testimonials or reviews. His preferred method is word-of-mouth networking with peers; his own assistant Ava was recommended by a mutual friend after he struggled with cheaply outsourced assistants who needed constant training and correction and where communication was difficult. He says hiring a trained VA should be about setting expectations, not training them up, and redefines ‘hire slow, fire fast’ as researching options, interviewing candidates and taking them for a test drive before hiring. His specific metric is to wait until you have broken at least $1,000 per month consistently — ideally for three months straight — and limit the hiring budget to about 10% of monthly earnings, which would leave about $300 saved to spend wisely.

Key takeaways

• Delegate your weaknesses, such as cover design, so you can spend more time on your strength, such as writing
• Dale’s metric: wait until you consistently earn at least $1,000 per month for three months before hiring out
• Limit the hiring budget to about 10% of monthly earnings — about $300 saved after three months at that level
• Do not settle on price; look for a professional history, portfolio and testimonials or reviews
• ‘Hire slow, fire fast’ means research, interview and test-drive a trained VA rather than training up a cheap, underqualified hire

Episode details: published April 22, 2018 · 5:11 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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