How much VA work?

[HeadedForSuccess]

I've decided to have a VA do the market analysis/research for me. How long (sirca) would a VA use in order to have decent results?

This is the task that I'm thinking about giving the VA:



My task for you is to find 3-5 products that I can sell online in a Danish market with at least a 40% profit margin. I need to know that there is a market for this in Denmark and that the opportunities are great.

After 3 hours of work I want a status update.

[scholty]

I've decided to have a VA do the market analysis/research for me. How long (sirca) would a VA use in order to have decent results?

This is the task that I'm thinking about giving the VA:



My task for you is to find 3-5 products that I can sell online in a Danish market with at least a 40% profit margin. I need to know that there is a market for this in Denmark and that the opportunities are great.

After 3 hours of work I want a status update.

You have to be MUCH more detailed then this.

What kind of industry?
What kind of market?
What kind of products?
What pricing?
etc. etc. etc.

[HeadedForSuccess]

How much time should the VA use on this task?

[Monk]

How much time should the VA use on this task?

I've never used a VA myself but I'd hazard a guess that your above question is way way too open ended. If you were the VA where would you even start??

You need to be much much narrower and more focused. Eg get them to research top selling products online in Denmark in a specific industry sector over a set period of time. Give the VA examples of where to look as a starting point.

To be honest if you read the bit on VAs in the book it should give you a good template to use.

[vmgbpo]

It is very difficult to set parameters on something like this as there are so many possible variables. It is best to look on it as an evolving project.

Tell you VA that you want to cap the hours at X amount (say 10 hours) and would like progress reports at 2 hour intervals. Review the report and then you can adjust your instructions accordingly.

Quite often you don’t find what you think you will and progress reports allow you to make adjustments as you go.

[Monk]

Aren't 2 hour updates over a 10 hr period a bit overkill? If it takes 5-10 min for each progress report you're losing a lot of productivity (almost 10%), not to mention spending time reviewing the updates.

Would it not be better to break the task up into smaller chunks and set individual time limits for each, rather than setting an open ended task? If you chose your VA carefully and set the task properly time spent checking up on them should be less right?

Like I say I have never had a VA so could be entirely wrong here.

[HeadedForSuccess]

Aren't 2 hour updates over a 10 hr period a bit overkill? If it takes 5-10 min for each progress report you're losing a lot of productivity (almost 10%), not to mention spending time reviewing the updates.

Would it not be better to break the task up into smaller chunks and set individual time limits for each, rather than setting an open ended task? If you chose your VA carefully and set the task properly time spent checking up on them should be less right?

Like I say I have never had a VA so could be entirely wrong here.

I agree that 2 hour updates are overkill.

I believe that ONE update after 3 hours is good enough (this is what Tim recommneded in his book).

[Monk]

So how have you sourced your VA? Ask Sunday? Elance? Interested to hear your experiences.

[Griffin]

oDesk is pretty good as well. I've posted a couple of VA listings their and a couple of programmer listings. Got a really good response to all, with a lot of Philippines-based workers.

[HeadedForSuccess]

Thanks Griffin, I'l check out oDesk.

[HeadedForSuccess]

Anymore recommended sites than oDesk?

[Bfree]

So how have you sourced your VA? Ask Sunday? Elance? Interested to hear your experiences.

I use Personal Touch. Their website is http://getmorehands.com I used asksunday for a while but their quality/service went way downhill. I have found that elance and odesk are just too much work. I don't want to have to manage my VA. These guys are all US based so making phone calls is no problem. So far my experience with them has been pretty good. More expensive than asksunday but less of a time commitment on my part

[theglen]

I wonder how much time you need to develop an earthcache.

Thanks,
ym

[infospray]

I know this is an old post, but wanted to add my 5 cents.

If you do not know how long this task should take, it is because you do not know how it should be solved. And if you do not know how to solve this, how do you expect the VA to solve it?

I always write how I expect the VA should solve a task!

Also since you're from Denmark, you can check out my free minicourse in outsourcing on 4TimersArbejdsuge.dk (http://4timersarbejdsuge.dk) (sorry to the rest of you, it's in Danish)