Speaker 1: Today we're going to cover how I find cheap virtual assistance to run my e-commerce business and how you can too. Now, outsourcing is the single most important thing that I did in order to scale my dropshipping business. But what we'll cover in today's video doesn't just apply to e-commerce businesses, it's applicable to every business across the board. If you can profitably outsource certain aspects within your business, you can then buy back your time, avoid burnout, and give yourself more freedom to innovate and stress test it. And this added time is absolutely crucial because if you're not finding weaknesses within your own business and improving them, then it's realistically just a matter of time until your competitors surpass you. And by freeing up your time on tasks that might be vital but don't necessarily need to be performed by you specifically, you can then spend that time researching new frontiers and attempting to innovate, which will give you the potential to lead the space and not simply compete for a small portion of the pie. So then, how do you outsource and what are some examples of things that you can outsource profitably? My simple formula is to first identify what parts of your business you cannot outsource. These are things that you're going to need to continue to do yourself. Secondly, you need to identify what parts of your business you can automate, can systematize, and can outsource. You don't want to make the mistake of outsourcing all of these at once though. Instead, what you should do is pick the lowest hanging fruit and start there because you can always outsource more tasks later. And managing employees, even virtual assistants, is a different skill set that you'll need to learn too. So I recommend for maximum efficiency, you do this slowly in the beginning. You can always scale faster later. Next, you need to figure out where you want to hire from. Now, you can find good VAs in Facebook groups that are built around specific skills or topics. You can find them on sites like Fiverr, Freelancer, and Upwork, although my personal favorite is a site called OnlineJobs.ph. You can find high quality VAs here to do just about anything, and you can hire them for as little as $2 an hour. Now, when you've identified a specific skill or task that you do want to outsource, the next step is to create a job posting and summarize exactly what it is that you're looking for because then qualified people will respond with a short little blurb about why they think they're a good fit and give you a copy of their resume. After that, the next thing that you need to do is actually train them. Now, an easy way to do this is to simply have a screen recording on your computer of exactly what you want them to do step by step by step. If you can build a step-by-step system, you can hire pretty much anyone to then implement that system. Now, when you do decide on somebody that you think is a good fit, you do want to test them first on a small scale, and then if they seem like they're a good fit long term, then you can bring them on full time. You also want to make sure that you can communicate and pay your VA easily. Now, I can't recommend WhatsApp enough for communication. It's simple to use, and it's free as long as you're on Wi-Fi. For paying your VAs, PayPal obviously works great for most countries, but if you're dealing with a country that doesn't integrate with PayPal, then Western Union is your best bet. Some examples of things that I've outsourced in my own business is listing on pretty much every website, product research, order fulfillment, video editing, graphic design for Etsy and print-on-demand products, customer service, and the list goes on and on. Like I said before, learning how to outsource profitably is advantageous for any business, not just e-commerce. Although my experience is obviously within e-commerce, that's why I'm giving these specific examples to you. And I can still remember when the switch flipped for me last year, and I finally decided to hire my first VA. It was easily one of the best decisions that I've ever made as an entrepreneur. And last year was my most profitable year ever, even though I had five full-time VAs to pay and manage. The reason for that was simple. It was because I was able to build systems around most of the things that I would do every day on a daily basis prior to having any help, and then train people to implement them at an affordable rate. And it's also important to note that I didn't waste the time that I bought back. Instead, I learned new skills, took courses from other people to gain more insight, and mastered other platforms like Etsy, for example. And I was able to also use that time to stress test my business and make it stronger, as well as focus on new frontiers that my business could scale in that I certainly wouldn't have noticed or known about if I was busy working every single day in my business and not on it. So that's the exact formula that I use to find cheap VAs to help run my e-commerce business. I'm able to find tons of profitable VAs on onlinejobs.ph, and if you'd like to try onlinejobs.ph for free, I'll have a link down in the description where you can do so. It's easier to hire, obviously, if you upgrade and then cancel when you find somebody, but you actually still can hire pretty effectively if you use the free plan. All you need to do is wait for people to reach out to you, because most of them will give you their email address, and then you can just simply email them instead of messaging them on the platform. And that's it. That's how I'm able to profitably outsource a lot of the daily tasks that I need to get done in my e-com business. I'm more of a manager within it now, and I spend a lot of time making sure that other people are running it smoothly, but I'm not spending hours and hours a day listing, processing orders, doing customer service, and burning out weekly. I really hope you enjoyed this video. If you got any value from it whatsoever, please give it a like. I genuinely appreciate it. Until next time.