Industry Magazine Grand General Agency Spring 2016 | Page 14

5 REASONS NOT TO USE YOUR VA

Ari Meisel

Ari Meisel is an author,
speaker, coach and the creator
of Less Doing, More Living—
an effective set of practices and
principles designed to help the
overwhelmed become more
effective.

5 REASONS NOT
TO USE A VIRTUAL
ASSISTANT
Outsourcing is Key

ONCE UPON A TIME, I WAS A
VIRTUAL ASSISTANT ADDICT.
ONCE upon a time, I was a virtual
assistant addict.
Well, maybe not addict, but I used virtual
assistants and I used them A LOT. However,
in the last 18-months, I’ve started using
some hyper-specific outsourcing services
in lieu of a VA.
Cheaper, faster, and generally more
effective, these outsourcing services
allow customers to issue a tasks in a fireand-forget format—no supplemental
instruction, no mistakes, and no
unnecessary delays.
While I’d NEVER advocate abandoning
your VA, I do think these hyper-specific
outsourcing services are an indispensable
supplement to the more general work your
VA normally tackles.
With that said, here are five services
worth considering in place of your virtual
assistant:
SPRING 2016

1. WP Curve

2. Design Pickle

For $99/month WP Curve provides you
with UNLIMITED WordPress support.
Though they won’t design a new site
for you, they can take care of almost any
WordPress-related task in less than 4
hours. Plugin conflicting with a theme?
Search function not working? Need
analytics code in your header? WP Curve
can do it and do it perfectly every time.
They can look at previous posts for proper
modeling, and – since they’re developers
not generalists – they know how to code
everything the right way the FIRST TIME.
Cherry on top?—WP Curve will also
do proactive maintenance on your site,
performing daily backups, regular security
checks, and offering suggestions to
improve SEO or site performance.
This service has been an absolute game
changer for me.

Design Pickle offers UNLIMITED graphic
design work for $195/month.
Whether you need a variation on a logo,
color adjustments on a photo, or an original
image for a blog post or podcast episode,
they can handle it.
There’s no limit on revisions and your
designer will usually provide you with
two or three design versions for each
project. I use them to create images for
my podcasts, blog posts, Facebook cover
photo, Instagram feed – heck – I’ve even
used them editing our family photos!

3. Fetch

Payments have long been a contentious
issue for outsourcers.
Many people, myself included, don’t
feelcomfortable just handing their VA a
credit card or access to a PayPal account,
and – even if they did – many VA services

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