Hiring A Virtual Assistant in 60 Days or Bust

[Shawn C.]

Hello Everyone,

It looks like I am finally going to take the plunge and hire a virtual assistant in the next 60 days (or less) for my real estate investment business.

I am searching for advice in hiring a Virtual Assistant or a Company that contracts them out to assist my with the below mentioned. I posted here because I think this is where this type of post is allowed. I am searching for a company instead of an individual so I have access to backups in the event the VA is sick, on vacation or just gets hired full time by another company. The hours needed will be determined on the VA or company chosen and how they are able to assist my company's growth.

The current plan is to have a VA start out with a couple tasks like downloading spreadsheets re-sorting them to specific zip codes and emailing to bird dogs, manually researching county foreclosure records and entering into spreadsheets, & sorting emails. Then maybe some light bookkeeping depending how things go and I learn how my business can better benefit.

Does anyone have any tips, suggestions or things to look for when working with a VA or a company that employs them? I am also curious to what functions worked really well for a VA to complete? Were there any tasks you added later that only occurred to you because of your experience working with a VA? I am also interested in hearing of tasks that maybe they should stay away from.

I would like to further mention, I have never hired a VA so this is all new to me and I am very open to everyone's thoughts and suggestions.

Thank you in advance for your assistance!