Frequently Asked Questions

A Virtual Assistant can perform just about anything as long as your business has the right tools. Virtual Assistants can tackle anything from sales to customer service to administrative work — answering calls, managing inboxes, data entry, customer support, graphic design, cold-calling, number crunching, payroll, etc. If it can be done remotely on a PC, they can likely do it.

MyOutDesk carefully evaluates your business objectives to make sure that a Virtual Assistant will meet or exceed your expectations.

Our Virtual Assistants, once assigned, log into our proprietary software called “MyTimeIn”, which you as the employer use to track their activity. They then connect with you regarding any assignments, instructions, updates, etc. They work from home with a verified reliable internet connection and laptop, maintaining contact with you throughout the agreed-upon timeframe. They are fully available to you, to satisfy your agreed-upon company needs.

There are many advantages to hiring Virtual Assistants:

• Experience: A virtual assistant may specialize in a particular area or have the ability to perform many different tasks. They are likely to have valuable experience working for different types of companies, as well as the ability to adapt to different environments.
• No physical space is required: Hiring a virtual assistant does not require any modification to your company’s physical space, since they work remotely.
• It saves time and money: Hiring a virtual assistant can save you time and money. You often don’t have to go through a lengthy recruitment or interview process. And you can save money by hiring a virtual assistant as an as-needed contract worker instead of a full-time salaried employee.
• It can increase your productivity and customer response time: By hiring a Virtual Assistant, you can increase your productivity and ensure that customers receive timely responses. If you are too busy to respond quickly to customer inquiries, for example, a Virtual Assistant can take this task off your hands. This not only ensures that your customers are taken care of, but it also frees you up to do other work.

✰ DATABASE OF FREELANCERS ✰
This VA company displays virtual assistant profiles for mainly part-time gigs. Prices vary per assistant.
Pros: Great for one-time, off-hand projects
Cons: Skills & experience typically not vetted by provider
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✰✰ PROJECT-BASED FREELANCERS ✰✰
This VA company attracts both virtual assistants & clients to their site, and charges a service fee.
Pros: Great for a one-time seasonal project
Cons: Skills & experience typically not vetted by provider
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✰✰✰ LOW-COST FULL-TIME PROVIDER ✰✰✰
This VA company provides full-time assistants, generally specializing in a few specific roles or industries.
Pros: An affordable alternative to a traditional employee
Cons: Limited to a few roles and responsibilities, and lower value tasks.
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✰✰✰✰ STRATEGIC OUTSOURCING PARTNER ✰✰✰✰
This virtual assistant services company (such as MyOutDesk) consults & caters to each client’s needs and addresses growth opportunities through outsourcing business processes — with specific expertise serving multiple industries. They provide services, starting from just one virtual assistant, for up to an entire enterprise workforce.
On the client side, the VA company provides a thorough talent-matching process, background checks, full-time client support, business process optimization tools, and business strategy consultations.
On the VA side, the company offers company perks such as professional development, health benefits, and holidays.
Pros: As affordable as all other VA services. Greatest quality of professional skill sets in a competitive talent pool. A powerful model for businesses looking to scale up. Hybridized physical-virtual (blended) organizational strategy allows local employees to focus on higher value tasks.
Cons: Not ideal for one-time projects.

There are various resources available for finding and hiring a virtual assistant. You can find freelancers via postings on a database, or through full-time providers like MyOutDesk and other companies. A Google search of “virtual assistant” should yield plenty of options to choose from.

Hiring virtual staff for specific roles on your team is different from hiring freelancers for specific projects. When you hire a freelancer for a specific project, that project has a start date and an end date. Since most freelancers have multiple clients you won’t always be their first priority.

When you hire a Virtual Assistant, you are hiring a team member. Ideally, you will be their only employer, and even though the tasks you delegate to them may change over time, they will still occupy a specific role on your team.

The price of virtual assistants can range from $3 per hour to $50 per hour. However the quality of these assistants greatly vary!

Will a $3/hr virtual assistant meet your expectations? Cheaper providers typically do not have FBI-grade background checks & legal backing like MyOutDesk.

Does a $50/hr assistant necessarily mean they’re the best? No. Higher wages mainly reflect the average living costs of where the assistant lives.

The ideal provider can work with you on a comprehensive solution — finding the most qualified candidates for the lowest rates & stringent safety checks.

MyOutDesk Virtual Assistants are individuals who work for you over the internet from their home office for a monthly fee.  They can be responsible for a variety of tasks ranging from administrative coordination to lead generation, enabling you to focus your time and energy on those activities that generate income like meeting face-to-face with your clients.

They don’t. Our clients pay us a flat monthly rate, and we pay our Virtual Assistants ourselves, as well as handle all insurance, benefits, and PTO.

Our VA’s are paid by us; MyOutDesk. Our clients only pay us one flat monthly rate, and we handle everything else regarding the assistant. Their pay, insurance, benefits, PTO, etc.

This depends on where they’re getting the Virtual Assistant from. Companies prefer MyOutDesk VA’s because they go through in-depth reviews before we hire them for assignments. We’re only as good as our weakest employees, so we take pride in providing the kind of professionals that companies deserve and expect.

Because when a small business is trying to grow, it needs very careful attention to detail. That’s hard to do when managers/leaders are distracted by piling up busywork. A Virtual Assistant can come in and get their hands dirty, freeing up local staff to focus on their own customers and higher-level tasks.

A MyOutDesk Virtual Assistant is paid a fixed salary for their services which you may write off as a business expense.  There are no hidden fees or additional costs such as federal and state payroll taxes, FICA, unemployment insurance, or benefits.  You’re also saving a lot from purchasing additional equipment or office space.

MyOutDesk Virtual Assistants undergo a rigorous screening, interviewing, and assessment process. Only the highest-caliber personnel are selected to begin our intensive training program which further ensures the Virtual Assistant has deep understanding of your industry and processes, especially in the area of work where they will be placed.

It feels wonderful! Because you have a reliable, hard-working person on your team handling all of the things that you shouldn’t have to. You feel less pressured, and no longer stretched thin. You can focus on dollar-productive tasks and engaging with your customers with peace of mind. It feels like how growing a successful business should feel, when you have virtual assistants on your side.

After reviewing an applicant’s experience and measuring their skills, we have certain technical standards that must be upheld by all Virtual Assistants. Their internet connection and computer hardware must meet our standards to be eligible for work.

Every professional who applies to be a Virtual Assistant  for us, undergoes examination to determine their specific skill-set and experience. If hired, they are categorized accordingly.

Request a free consultation first. MyOutDesk provides one-on-one demos with anyone considering hiring a Virtual Assistant, so as to hear directly from you what you want/need. Then we discuss an action plan for exactly how we can help. Zero obligation, just helpful insight.

Any business experiencing growth, or planning to, in need of some extra hands. If your company has work that can be done remotely, to free up your local staff to focus on higher-level tasks, then you’re the right client.

Just about any business with work to be done digitally and remotely. Customer service, tech support, data entry, marketing, sales, real estate, online shopping, recruitment, executives, etc. The list goes on.

Yes, MyOutDesk Virtual Assistants will work in your timezone. You can choose their schedule—whichever one works for you. This means you can have someone manning your phones or handling admin tasks during weekends, making sure that you don’t miss out on any hot prospects.

Our Virtual Assistants  are based out of the Philippines, so while they’re in a different time-zone completely, their schedules can vary and be flexible. Some will work nights, to be available during the day for us in the states. While others will work all day for you, getting your job done while you sleep. It varies depending on the company’s needs.

They’re great for business. A Virtual Assistant from us is a proven, experienced, skilled professional. Ready to handle whatever task you need done, so that you’re freed up to focus on more dollar-productive projects. A Virtual Assistant facilitates efficient, healthy scaling up for almost any business.

Because you need all hands on deck, especially during the infancy of a growing business. The people driving the company need to focus on building relationships, and making big moves. A Virtual Assistant can handle everything else in the background, so no one local feels overwhelmed, stretched thin, or distracted.

Yes! Because they can be just as experienced, skilled, and reliable as a traditional in-house employee while costing up to 70% less. And when your assistant is in another timezone, you have the luxury of having tasks done while you sleep.

The only real disadvantage of utilizing a Virtual Assistant is the lack of in-person interaction if that’s important to you. So it really depends on your business needs and cultural preferences. Our VA’s continue to mix in with existing cultures wonderfully, even from afar. Otherwise, there are no disadvantages that can’t be countered.

MyOutDesk Virtual Assistants are located where English is the common second language. Our college educated Virtual Assistants come from schools where English is the medium of teaching and most have been speaking and writing in English since childhood.  In addition, MyOutDesk’s screening process filters out applicants with poor English communication skills.

Yes.  English is the common second language to MyOutDesk Virtual Professionals.  Since childhood, they have been taught to speak and write English. The Philippines is also considered an “accent neutral” country which is why many US companies base their call centers and other operations there.

Click the LINK HERE to request a free consultation, where we’ll evaluate your company needs and assess how one of our Virtual Assistants might help

Call us to schedule your FREE consultation with a MyOutDesk account specialist at 866-406-9025 or click here now!

If you’re trying to grow your business; extremely important. Some experts don’t realize how stretched thin they are, or how much time they are wasting on non-dollar generating tasks that could easily be outsourced to an experienced, proven professional externally. The more you can focus on higher-value action items and customer relationships, the better your business will flourish.

Absolutely. A marketing virtual assistant only needs a good PC and reliable internet to do just about anything a digital marketer needs. And our Virtual Assistants are required to have exactly that, so as to provide the highest quality of service. They can handle emails, send text messages, manage social media, create visuals, engage with customers and prepare analytics. And so much more.

Yes, you can! We have many experienced Virtual Assistants ready and able to make and answer calls. Scheduling appointments, cold-calling, bill pay, tech support, etc. These are some of the most common requests we’re ready and able to fulfill.

ISA means “inside sales agent”. This is a role perfectly suited for a virtual assistant. It can be done from anywhere, with a laptop and an internet connection. A virtual ISA will track leads, follow up, cold-call, etc. All the nitty-gritty sales work that needs to be done, and sets you up for success.

A TC (transaction coordinator) is someone who helps real estate agents with the busywork, such as data entry, document preparation, reminders, and scheduling. A virtual  Transaction Coordinator can do all of the above, from anywhere they have access to the internet, and for much less than a local/in-house Transaction Coordinator.

They look for reliability, experience, and professionalism. A Virtual Assistant should be easy to reach, hard-working, and flexible. MyOutDesk provides virtual assistants who are all of the above, ready to cater to just about any business need.

To ensure that you’re receiving your MyOutDesk emails, do the following:

Be sure to add the corresponding MyOutDesk email addresses to your email whitelist to ensure the best chance of receiving our content and updates.

A whitelist is a list of accepted items or persons in a set—basically, it’s a list of e-mail addresses or domain names from which an e-mail blocking program will allow messages to be received.

Why is this important?

Unsolicited, unwanted advertising e-mail, commonly known as “spam”, has become a big problem. It’s reached such proportions that most e-mail services and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have put some sort of blocking or filtering system in place or begun relying on self-proclaimed blacklists to tell the good guys from the bad.

MyOutDesk applauds their intention to protect you from spam, but everyone agrees that the current systems for stopping spam are far from a perfect solution. They often block e-mail that you’ve requested, but that fits somebody’s idea of what spam looks like. The more responsible anti-spam activists are working hard to cut down on these “false positives”, but in the meantime, you might unexpectedly find you’re not getting your subscription’s content…

As it happens, there’s something you can do to keep your subscription’s content from falling into the false positive trap. You can fight the blacklists with a “white-list”.

White-list us now, before your delivery is interrupted.

Of course, every e-mail system is different. Below are instructions for some of the more popular ones. If yours isn’t here, please contact your ISP’s customer service folks for their instructions. (Forward the answer to us, and we might add it!) If you’re using some sort of spam filtering or blocking software yourself (in addition to what your ISP provides), we’ve also listed instructions on how to exempt your subscription from some of the more popular of those programs.

Gmail:

1. In your inbox, locate an email from getmod@myoutdesk.com

2. Drag this email to the “primary” tab of your inbox.

3. You’ll see that our emails will go to your primary folder in the future!

Yahoo! Mail

When opening an email message, a “+” symbol should display next to From: and the sender’s name. Select this and an “Add to contacts” pop-up should appear. Select “Save”:

Mac Mail

Select “Mail” and “Preferences” from the top menu.

In the “Preferences” window, click the “Rules” icon.

Click the “Add Rule” button.

In the “Rules” window, type a name for your rule in the “Description” field.

Use the following settings: “If any of the following conditions are met: From Contains.”

Type the sender’s email address in the text field beside “Contains.”

Select “Move Message” and “Inbox” from the drop-down menus.Click “Ok” to save the rule.

Outlook 2003 & Later

Right-click on the message in your inbox.

Select “Junk E-mail” from the menu.

Click “Add Sender to Safe Senders List.”

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