An entrepreneur tries to juggle many balls each day, but sooner or later one of them is going to be dropped. A smart business owner will realize that he/she can’t do everything because there are only 24 hours in a day. Too many business owners spend their time doing what they are not passionate about or very good at simply because they don’t know how to go about finding someone to do that job for them.

Where do you start? First I suggest that you make a list of tasks you work on every day and how long each one takes you. Next decide which of those you do not enjoy doing and would like to hand off to someone and which you feel comfortable giving over control of to someone. How do you find someone? You can ask your colleagues if they have ever worked with a virtual assistant and can recommend one for you or do a search for virtual assistants online.

You should interview your prospective virtual assistant just as you would if you were hiring him/her as an employee. Since this person will be handling your confidential records, you want someone who is trustworthy.

Depending on your location, you should expect to pay between $25 and $75 an hour for a virtual assistant. Don’t necessarily hire the one who offers the lowest rate- remember you get what you pay for. The more experienced person will cost you more, but will provide valuable input and suggestions to streamline your business that will wind up saving you money in the long run.

Since this person will be working closely with you in your business, you should feel comfortable with him or her. If you have any reservations about this person, go on to the next candidate.

While the selection process may take a while, it will be worth it later. Take your time to find the perfect virtual assistant, and in a few months you’ll wonder how you ever managed to run your business before you hired one.

Let me give you some background information, my husband had to go up to Canada to sell his mother’s house and get it emptied out.  Right before he left I saw a commercial for this product called The Bagster.  It is like a dumpster, but you buy them at the local home supply store, fill them up at your leisure and schedule a pick up and within 3 business days they will be picked up.  I thought it would be better then a regular dumpster because you can only rent them for a certain amount of time, and with these you could take as long as you needed.

It started out ok, he bought them no problem and over the next three weeks he started to fill them up.  He scheduled them on 5/18 which means that they would be picked up between 5/19 –5/21.  Since he was flying home on the 23rd and the new owners are taking possession on the 28th, he figured that would work out fine.  WRONG!!!  It’s now the 26th and the bags are still sitting there, and the only answer I can get from anyone is that they’ll have to send an email to Corporate and wait for a response, but that it does show we were scheduled for pick up between May 19 and 21 2010. 

Ok so I’m listening for about the 10th time that I’ve been told they have to email and then I ask: “Wait you need to email corporate?  You don’t have a number that you can call and speak to someone?”  I was told no, they only have an email.  I find this very hard to believe, in fact I find it completely ludicrous.  What if there was an emergency and they needed to reach someone immediately, they could only email them?  How is possible to not have a phone number, I mean really?

Ok so I called on Tuesday night and they emailed and now this is my 4th call today and you’ve emailed them 3 mores times and you still haven’t gotten any kind of reply?  Has anyone stayed on top of the situation? I was told that I would receive a phone call back each of the times I called.  I waited a few hours and then I would call back and each time, they had to check with a manager to see if they’d gotten a reply and when they hadn’t I was assured that they would send another email and I would get a phone call back.  So for my 4th call of the day I asked for a manager right off the bat, I explained the situation and my frustrations to her, and our conversation went like this:

Manager: First stop yelling at me

Me: First I’m not yelling, if I was you’d know it believe me.  I want to know why my bags haven’t been picked up and what the problem is.

Manager: All I can tell you is that we’ve sent emails and haven’t heard back from corporate yet.

Me: So there’s not one person there who can actually help me?

Manager: I am trying to help you.

Me: No you’re telling me what’ I’ve heard every time I’ve called and still no one can tell me when the bags will be picked up.

SILENCE

Me: So can you stay on top if then and if you haven’t heard back from them in another hour send a reminder email to them at least?

Manger: They’re closed now it won’t do any good to send an email now no one is there to get it.

Me: So why did you say you’d send them an email and someone would call me back?  You know what never mind.  Can I expect someone to actually call me back tomorrow or do I just need to start calling in the morning again?

Manager: I will make a note to see if we received an email and for someone to give you a call.

Me: Ok so I need to call back tomorrow and start all over again.  Thanks for nothing really. Have a good night.

Now I’m annoyed, pissed off and still have no idea when or if my The Bagster’s are going to be picked up.  I thought because there are a product of this huge company that basically services all of North America we’d be ok, but I apparently I was mistaken.  I was even planning on using them for when we do our community clean up days, but now I’ll never use their services or recommend them ever again.  I know that companies can have an off day, but this has been the same bs for two days and 6 people.  I think that’s a little beyond having an off day.  I just find it very disheartening that they don’t seem to have a problem treating their customers that way. 

Do you think customer service is a thing of the past? Let me know about your good or bad experiences.

1. Write your proposal
2. Respond to emails
3. Follow up with clients
4. Manage your twitter account and facebook fan page
5. Maintain your blog
6. Update your website
7. Send out cards to clients, friends and family
8. Pay bills and send out invoices
9. Order your office supplies
10. Create your marketing materials
11. Do research
12. Update the books
13. Be your sounding board
14. Make your travel arrangements
15. Confirm appoints and reservations

So I was on twitter and reading through the posts and I came across one from a country music celebrity asking fans to not follow them around because it creeps them out and to just ask for an autograph. I know that this is a tame kind of brush off compared to say James Cameron freaking out on autograph seeker, but it really annoyed me. I mean I’m so tired of that kind of attitude from celebrities. Hello Wake Up people if it wasn’t for your fans you wouldn’t be celebrities!

Is it really so hard to be polite to the people who buy your music, pay to see your movies, watch your tv shows, or buy your books? I think you need to realize that without us “FANS” you would be nothing. If we didn’t pay for this stuff you wouldn’t have a job regardless of how talented you are. Maybe you should think about that and show a little gratitude the next time someone asks for an autograph or a picture with you.