(Photo: Alan Clark Design)

[Tim's note: This is a guest post by Ramit Sethi on two of my favorite topics: one-shot-one-kill e-mail, and creating policies so you never repeat things. Also important to note: great VAs will use templates for answering *your* email; my assistant Amy uses more than a dozen specific templates to handle my inbox overload.]

Enter Ramit

Why is communicating with virtual assistants so hard?

When I first started using virtual assistants (VAs), I tested assistants from India, Bulgaria, and Israel. But I spent most of my time frustrated with the quality of their answers. How many times have your friends said, “Why don’t you just have your VA do that?” and you sigh because you know: they should be able to it, but you just can’t trust them to do it.

Right?

Other times, you email your assistant, saying, “Please book me a roundtrip flight from SFO to NYC from 3/19 – 3/22″ and you have to endure five back-and-forth emails before it’s done… leading you to wonder why you didn’t simply do it yourself.

No one wants more email. I always try for “one and done” emails, meaning when you send an email, it should get done the first time.

Fortunately, because I’m a huge weirdo about time management, I’ve spent over 65 hours optimizing my emails to VAs. Here are three examples of emails that get you answers in one round.

After reading the templates below, you’ll be able to write a crisp one-and-done email that gets you results — the first time. I’ve used these techniques to recover those 65 hours in 3 months and cut back-and-forth emails with my VA by over 80%…

But first, let’s start with a typical email that frustrates us all.

BAD email: Dinner reservations for a date

Imagine you sent this very common email to your VA:

Hi,

Please make reservations for dinner on Friday, 11/12, in midtown NYC. Time: 7 or 7:30pm. I like Indian and Thai food.

This email is doomed to failure…or at least 5 back-and-forth questions from your VA. Take a close look at the email — do you see all the implicit messages you unintentionally communicated in your email?

What is midtown NYC? What is your budget? What if there are no reservations at 7pm or 7:30pm? Do you have any food allergies? Most importantly, what is the single deliverable you expect from your email?

Using the scripts below, you’ll see how important your level of specificity is when working with a VA, or any assistant. You’ll see why spending three additional minutes crafting an effective email can save you 30 minutes in back-and-forth time. So, without further ado, here are 3 tested email scripts to use, along with an analysis of why they work.

Tested email script: Scheduling a doctor’s appointment

Hello,

Please set up these appointments on Monday morning (12/17), when the doctors’ offices open.

Please set up the following medical appointments for me:

1. A dental appointment (annual checkup)

2. An eye checkup (annual checkup)

WHERE TO LOOK

* Please look up doctors on http://www.bluecrossca.com — my doctor must accept my medical insurance (Blue Cross PPO — Lumenos)

* Then cross-reference the doctors’ names on yelp.com to find doctors with positive reviews

* Call the doctors to see which doctors are available for checkups on the below dates

* Please confirm with the doctors that, as a member of Blue Cross Lumenos PPO, I will have 100% exam coverage (dental exam) and a $15 co-pay (vision exam)

WHEN I’M AVAILABLE

* December 17, 18, 19, 21, 27, 28

* 8am – 11am PST and 4pm-7pm PST

LOCATION

* Located near the ZIP code of XXXXX

Thank you,

-Ramit

WHY THIS WORKS:

- You start with a specific request — you want an appointment set on 12/17 — so there can be no confusion about the deliverable.
- You give step-by-step instructions, which the VA can refer to if they get lost in the details. These instructions take 5 minutes to write, but will invariably save you 5-10x that from email responses and switching costs.
- You provide ALL relevant information so your VA doesn’t have to come back to you asking about your availability, ZIP code, etc. They have everything they need in front of them when booking availability.

Tested email script: Finding the best online savings account

Hi,

Please find me the best high-interest online savings account. I’ve heard good things about ING, Emigrant Direct, and HSBC Direct, so please begin with these — but please also search for other banks that meet my requirements.

REQUIREMENTS FOR THE BANK ACCOUNT

* No fees

* No minimum balances required (my average balance will be around $2,000)

PREFERRED ACCOUNT OPTIONS

Things I’d *like* to have, but are not required

* High interest rate, over 1%

* Attached online checking account

* Customer service by phone available

DELIVERABLE

Please create a table and rank my choices. You should only include banks that meet my requirements. Rank them by which of the “Things I’d Like To Have” are present.

Also, please include an extra column called “Other interesting facts” for each bank, where you list the most important reasons to choose that particular bank.

This should take no longer than 5 hours. Please check in after 2 hours and send me what you’ve got. I’ll approve further work from there.

Thanks,

-Ramit

WHY THIS WORKS:

- You are explicit about the deliverable you want — a table with very specific cells. Too many people are vague about their deliverable because they don’t take 3 minutes to decide what they really want. Then they’re disappointed when they get another result. If you don’t know what you want, how can your VA?

Tested email script: Planning air travel

Hi,

I’d like you to plan a trip from San Francisco to New York and provide me the 3 best options.

DATES

Depart: SFO to NYC on May 15 (arrive in time for 11am meeting)

Return: NYC to SFO on May 19th (late afternoon)

TIMES

From SF to NY: I need to be in midtown Manhattan for an 11am meeting on May 16th. Please factor in travel time by cab from the airport.

PREFERENCES

I prefer window seats. All flights must be direct.

I would like the lowest price with the following conditions (in order):

1. Arrive in time to reach my 11am meeting on the 16th (again, please factor in travel time from airport, baggage, etc)

2. Non-stop flight (required)

3. Window seat (preferred)

4. United or JetBlue preferred

Please send me the best three flights in a plaintext email.

Thanks,

-Ramit

WHY THIS WORKS

- The total energy output of the sun cannot compare to my hatred for travel planning. That’s why you need to send explicit instructions to your VA to ensure that no details slip through the cracks, resulting in agonizing back-and-forth emails.
- In this email, you are specific about OUTCOMES when relevant — “arrive in time for 11am meeting” — so you’ve provided basic guidance VA can figure out the flight schedule on their own. However, for other areas where you don’t particularly care, you can simply say “late afternoon” and let them figure it out.
- You should never write your preferences down twice. Instruct your VA to record your preferences so that each interaction makes life easier for you.

Key learnings:

- Eliminate one-off actions and create policies. It’s ok to share your preferences once, but they should always be recorded. That way, if your VA gets hit by a bus (or you decide to work with someone else), you have a written record of your preferences. Examples: When are you available for meetings? Do you prefer aisle or window? What restaurants do you like going to for business meetings? See the ultimate example of a detailed process checklist here.

- Analyze why your emails aren’t getting the responses you want. Take the last email to your VA that produced unsuccessful results. Now show it to your smartest friend. If they can’t guess what the exact deliverable is, how can you expect your VA to?

- Specify the exact deliverable. If you don’t want to get 10 flights in 10 separate PDFs (this has actually happened to me), ask for all the info in one plaintext email. A couple extra seconds saves a lot of frustration.

- Differentiate between requirements and preferences. Ask for an easy-to-read table so you can compare. Remember, point them to an example!

- Once you automate the details, you’ll naturally get more general. Now that my assistant knows my preferences (and they’re recorded online), I can just say, “Please schedule some time for Ben and me to get together” and she knows exactly where I like to have breakfast, my calendar availability, if I prefer aisle vs. window, etc. But getting to that stage took months of training and refinement.

* * *
About Ramit: Ramit Sethi is the author of the New York Times best-seller, I Will Teach You To Be Rich. He is the founder of iwillteachyoutoberich.com, a blog on personal finance and entrepreneurship where you can learn in-depth techniques on earning more money and automating your finances.

###

Afterword from Tim:
Just to emphasize: this post is not to imply that VAs are dumb. It’s to imply that most people don’t know how to send clear emails. Good VAs are smart, and — as emphasized in The 4-Hour Workweek — most communication failures are due to the person sending the email, not the recipient. Amy, one of my assistants, also emphasized:

Also, a good VA should “study” their client. For example, I read every blog post, every tweet, listen to every interview you do, read every article you write, and every Random episode, flickr update, etc. (Obviously I don’t charge for that time), but it helps me understand what you’ve got in the pipeline, and what you’re working on. A good VA should be familiar with thier clients interests.

Good VAs are like good employees, good managers, and good CEOs: proactive.

QOD: Do you have any e-mail rules that work well with VAs or employees? Or disaster stories and lessons learned? Please share in the comments!

Photo: Andres Rueda

The following post is a guest post by John Hargrave, whom I met in 2007 at SXSW.

If you find large-scale pranks (Super Bowl, anyone?), impersonating celebrities, and other clever mischief amusing, he’s the king of the domain. His book Prank the Monkey is a guide to unleashing your inner Loki.

Given my interest in outsourcing and pushing the envelope with concierge services, he suggested the following post, which looks at just how far VISA will go to keep you happy. I’ve run similar experiments with American Express Platinum Card with similar results. There are no credit card affiliate links in this post, so no ulterior motives. Just eager for you to reap benefits you’ve probably never taken advantage of. Enjoy.

Please share your success stories, past or present, in the comments.

Herewith enters Sir John Hargrave.

###

I recently signed up for The Visa SIGNATURE Chase Freedom card, for one reason: it has a concierge service. [Tim note: In fact, all of the "Visa Signature" cards have this concierge service, among other benefits]

A credit card concierge service is much like a hotel concierge service, except you don’t have to tip. A concierge is your own personal assistant, someone who will do anything you want them to do: make dinner reservations, book a trip to Hawaii, or shop for negligees for your grandmother.

We’re so used to being treated badly by credit card companies that it’s almost impossible to believe that they are serving you. But that’s how it works: they’re your virtual assistants, ready to help you with anything.

Anything?

I wanted to test the limits of my Visa Chase Freedom concierge service, so I spent a week making incredibly ridiculous requests, to see how they’d hold up…

TEST #1: GIANT TUB OF NACHO CHEESE

I made my first call to the Visa Chase Freedom concierge service by calling the toll-free number on the back of my card. I was connected to a concierge named David, who I pictured wearing a little bellboy hat, like a hotel concierge, though I think they just wear a telephone headset nowadays.

David spoke English, which was a nice change from my usual calls to Visa. “I’m traveling to Austin next week, and I want a big tub of nacho cheese. Make that a HUGE tub,” I told him. “Enough to fill a punch bowl.”

“Does it need to be in a tub?” he asked, taking the request with the seriousness of someone who worked for me.

“Can, jar, tub, I don’t care,” I said. “I just want liquid cheese, and a lot of it.”

“Would you like us to get back to you by phone or email?”

“Phone, please. I don’t want there to be any miscommunication about my cheese.”

“Is it okay if we have this information to you by 2:00 pm tomorrow?” he asked.

“That would be fine,” I responded, “as long as I get my cheese intel.”

“You’ll get it, sir,” he assured me. “Thank you for calling Visa Signature concierge service.”

Chase Freedom, before it runs away.

Here’s how the service works: your request is assigned a “case number,” which goes into an enormous pool of concierge requests. These requests get outsourced to overseas workers who track down the information and enter it into their system. Then you either get e-mailed, or an English-speaking worker phones you back the next day with what they’ve found.

“I have your information,” said a young woman named Jenny who called me the following day. “There is a supermarket in downtown Austin named Fiesta that sells large cans of nacho cheese.” She gave me the address, phone number, and the price of the cheese.

I went to Austin the following week, where I went to Fiesta, and I actually found the cheese exactly as she had described.

I was floored. This service was a dream come true. Just think of the ridiculous errands I could send them on next!

When I heard that the Visa Chase Freedom card came with a concierge service that would do anything I wanted, I had to put them to the test. Don’t we all want to make our credit card company work for us for a change?

TEST #2: CROSSWORD PUZZLE

“I’m really stuck on 62 across,” I complained to Maurice, the concierge who helped me the following night. I came to learn that I would get a different concierge every time I called, but they were all quite helpful, with none of the attitude that you normally get from customer service reps.

“What crossword puzzle are you doing, sir?”

“It’s the USA Today puzzle,” I said. “The clue is BLUE GROTTO LOCALE. I have no idea what that means.”

“Blue Grotto locale,” he repeated, writing it down.

“The only Grotto I know is at the Playboy Mansion,” I told him. “But this is 11 letters, and starts with I.”

“Okay,” he said. “You want to hang on?”

“Sure,” I said. He put me on hold for about two minutes—the same amount of time it usually takes me to get through to someone at Visa—and came back with the answer.

“You ready?” he said.

“What, you already got it?”

“The answer is ISLE OF CAPRI,” he said. “11 letters, starts with I.”

11 letters, starts with “I”.

“That’s incredible!” I exclaimed. “Are you like an idiot savant of puzzles?”

“You just happened to get someone who likes crosswords,” he said, modestly.

“I will call you every time I need a clue in the future!”

“Uh … okay!” he said, as brightly as he could.

How many times have you been at a restaurant, arguing with your friends about which President was the fattest, or whether Kevin Bacon has ever done a nude scene? Now you don’t need to pull out your smartphone and Google it, you can just call Visa and have them look it up for you.

Having a Visa worker do your bidding: much classier than an iPhone.

TEST #3: DAILY AFFIRMATIONS

“I suffer from low self-esteem,” I told Jamie, my new concierge. “My psychologist recommended that I give myself a daily affirmation. You know, something like, ‘I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.’”

“Okay,” said Jamie, not sure where this was heading.

“But that’s a lot of work, so I’m hoping you guys can do it for me. Just call and give me a daily affirmation.”

“You want us to call and tell you you’re a good person?”

“That’s right. I mean, if you think so. I’m not so sure myself.”

“If you can hold for one moment, I can check on this for you,” Jamie said.

Keep repeating this, and you can one day be Senator of Minnesota.

I bit my lip to keep from cracking up as she went to check with a supervisor. She came back with bad news. “I’m afraid we can’t do this for you,” she said, “but we can look up services that would do this for you.”

“What?” I asked. “Why? Am I not good enough? Oh, I knew it.”

“I’m sorry, we’re just not allowed to do anything of a medical or emotional nature.”

“You can’t tell me I’m good enough because I’m not,” I moaned. “Which is exactly what I thought!”

“Sir,” she said patiently, “I’d be happy to look up other services that can send you these affirmations, and e-mail you that information.”

“Could you at least attach a little positive note to the e-mail?” I begged. “Just like, ‘Thanks for being you?’”

“Let me check with a supervisor,” she said, a little less patiently this time.

I pushed hard on the affirmation, and she asked a supervisor three times before I relented. Apparently Visa Signature couldn’t do quite anything, but I have to admit she did eventually come through on her promise, sending me this via e-mail:

Visa Signature Concierge

(This post originally appeared on Credit Card Chaser)

Afterword from Tim: In the comments, several concierge service providers were kind enough to provide their thoughts, and one was kind enough to list some of the cannot-do’s. Here are a few:

1. We cannot get you an interview to work for a sports team.
2. We do not have special access to confidential government reports.
3. We do not have discounts for venues, restaurants, or services not included on the website http://www.visa.com/signature.
4. If a hotel is completely sold out and booked, we cannot reserve a room there; however we’d be glad to check other hotels nearby.
5. We cannot research your school paper, or do your job for you.
6. We can’t run personal errands or call your friends for you.
7. We can’t plan your wedding, but we can help you find a wedding planner.
8. As far as what’s considered unethical behavior, consider this an example: If child prostitution is legal somewhere, we won’t help you find one; however if you’re in Nevada and want to make an appointment for a rendezvous at the Bunny Ranch, we’d be glad to help you check rates and availability.
9. We don’t have access to your credit card account information or rewards program.

Please keep these not-so-unreasonable limitations in mind when you give us a call. We’ll hear from you soon.

Elsewhere on the Web – Odds and Ends:
Tim Ferriss on Angel Investing (video) – TechCrunch
How I answer the question “How should I monetize my blog?” (3-minute video)

The Wilburns have used freelancers in India, Israel, and Britain. (Photo: Dana Smith)

Here is the beginning of a worthwhile article in the current issue of Businessweek called “Mom-and-Pop Multinationals.” Ever wondered how much personal outsourcing really costs? How to divide and delegate the various tasks that consume your time? This article includes several useful case studies:

From the outside, the gray Victorian with the stained-glass windows on a gentrified block in Dorchester, Mass., is a typical middle-class dream house. But it also is the headquarters of what you might call a micro-multinational. Randy and Nicola Wilburn run real estate, consulting, design, and baby food companies out of their home. They do it by taking outsourcing to the extreme…

Read the entire article here. I was not aware I was featured until my agent sent me the link.

What happens when a successful US-based computer programmer, who lost his lucrative job to outsourcing, travels to India to try to get it back?

Will he discover the secret of India’s success, or that sending jobs overseas is an unstable gamble?

The videos below share his incredible experience. It’s a fascinating and humanizing portrait of real Indians in Bangalore, the “Silicon Valley of India”.

This inside look shows how ridiculous it is to throw around terms like “slave labor” and “stealing jobs” without understanding the realities of this unusual world where best jobs start at 6pm and end at 3am…

Three suggestions:

1. Keep in mind which jobs are displacing foreign workers and which are not.
2. Notice the level of complaining among Indian workers. It’s almost non-existent.
3. Give the videos a minute to load. Patience, young Jedi.

This is hard-to-find coverage that will change how you think about “your” job. Highly recommended.

Berkshire Hathaway vs. Nasdaq (orange), 1984-2004

I met David Hassell in Omaha at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting, and he asked me an interesting question:

Do you think that the value of time can compound like interest?

Three glasses of wine into a post-event party with Cirque du Soleil performers, I didn’t have a good answer, but David recently sent me a thought-provoking e-mail I thought I’d share.

Compound what?

How might better use of your time compound? David explores:

Bear with me, this is somewhat rough at the moment — my initial quandary was whether time, like currency, could be invested to produce a compounding effect. After a bit of thought, my conclusion is that the value of ones time could experience a significant gain, and perhaps a compounding effect over time, given an investment of [that present-state] time in knowledge, skill or other capacity, and a reinvestment of future gains (just like currency).

Money and currency — accumulated excess money — represent one part of your capacity to transact in the marketplace, and can be exchanged for help from others in the form of products or services, including “things” like consumables, depreciable and appreciable assets. Similarly every action you take, whether it be transaction-related or not, requires the expenditure of some amount of time, which is roughly fixed for all of us (say 10,000 working days between the ages of 22 and 62).

Much like currency can be exchanged for appreciable assets that can grow with a compounding effect over time if the gains are re-invested, my theory is that time can be thought about in a similar way, which may lead to more effective action.

To put this in terms of your thinking from your book, lets say you work 40 hours per week simply performing tasks requested by your employer, none of which produce any additional future potential for generating income for yourself.

This is the equivalent of spending your money on consumables or living expenses. It’s single use, and gives you no real future gain, aside from whatever currency you might earn in the moment. Now, you decide to outsource 50% of your tasks to India, producing the same outcomes with 50% of your time. You just doubled the value of your time compared to before (less the additional expense for the help). Now, with that free time, you get more rigorous about working out, studying, and building your networks. You increase your energy, skill, and capacity working with others and manage to produce yet the same results that were taking 50% of your time with only 30%. If you keep reinvesting some of your time in additional gains in your capacity to act, you can theoretically have a compounding effect with the value of your time (rather than time itself). Just like investing currency, the earlier you start this process, and continue to invest in your capacity, the more time your capacity has to compound, and the greater outcomes you can produce during your lifetime.