This post by Matt Hooper, is part of ‘VBL Guest Post Season 2′.

As an outsourcing master, Chris will probably be the first person to tell you that achieving success with your virtual staff depends on you as much as it does on your virtual staff. When you are adding virtual staff to your business, you’re creating a team - a bit like the team above, that runs his Virtual Staff Finder company. A successful team relies on all of its team members in order for the team to thrive. Of course it is important to find knowledgeable virtual staff that will provide you with the support you and your business need but it is also important to make sure that all of you are on the same page.

Training is one of the most vital keys to success when working with your team. You may assume that they know how to do something, since it might appear trivial to you. That said, unless you have clearly defined what it is they need to do, there is always a chance for misinterpretation.

I’m not suggesting that you micro-manage your team since this isn’t why you decided to outsource in the first place. However, you do want to make sure that you train virtual assistants the right way. You want to clearly define what they are going to do, then document the process and then ensure that they know to consult the documentation when they have a question. For example, you may decided that one of the things that you want your VA to do is create a list of people on Twitter that @ reply you or retweet you. The best way to do this is to record your screen while going through the process once. After that, they will always have something to refer back to.

Leverage Existing Training Programs

You can take this process to the next level by purchasing a training program for your VA. There are many processes and systems you follow daily in your online business. There is a strong chance that someone has already created a course around these systems or precesses. There is no need to reinvent the wheel and spend hours creating video training resources when you can purchase a digital product for your VA.

There are a number of advantages to using pre-existing training programs:

• Gives your virtual staff a training resource.
• Doesn’t force you to waste your time creating hours of videos.
• Frees you up to focus on growing your business.
• Always available to your virtual staff.

You might find that you need to fill in the gaps and create a few short pieces of documentation to bridge what was taught in the readily available training program with what you want to do in your business. This will be far less time consuming when compared to the actual time commitment that would be required for you to create all of the training from scratch.

Train Outside Your Expertise

One of the reasons that you might want to outsource is because you don’t actually possess the expertise yourself to do something. Let’s assume that you have been working with a virtual staff member for some time. They mostly take care of your scheduling, research and social networking. They are eager learners and are very capable of learning new skills. One day you decide that you want to have them install a new instance of WordPress for a new product or site that you are launching.

Does it really make sense for you to learn how to complete this and then teach your VA how to do it? Do you want to troubleshoot their troubleshooting? On top of all of that, you get an added benefit of buying a digital product to train your staff. They now have a solid set of documentation that they can refer to whenever they have problems.

Have you ever purchased a digital training product to train your virtual staff? Leave a comment below and let all of the VBLer’s know how it turned out.

Matt Hooper is the creator The WordPress Course, which helps you learn how to use WordPress in a single weekend. He is also the author of the free report, “A Beginner’s Guide To Building An Internet Presence”. Be sure to follow him on Twitter.

Creating passive income is the holy grail of online business. The ability to make money whilst you travel the world, or simply when you’re sleeping – sounds good, doesn’t it!? And I’m here to give you two very REAL realizations.

Number One – its possible.

Number Two – there’s an ‘easier’ way of doing it, that so many internet marketers and online entrepreneurs just simply aren’t embracing as much as they should (some not at all!), and I hope this post slaps them solidly around the face, so they start!

Utilizing virtual assistants to help create your passive income portfolio is probably one of the most over-looked concepts in online marketing. Think about it seriously – why do ALL the work, if you don’t have to..!?!! So, today I bring you three very solid examples of how you can work with VA’s to get your passive income snow-balling towards you faster than you probably ever thought possible…

Here we go!

eBook’s

eBook’s are probably one of the easiest and quickest online products to create. Even on your own they would only take a short time, from cover to cover. A lot of people have created very successful eBook’s from material that already exists on their blog – what could be easier?!

They simply re-package the content into an eBook format and launch it as a product, or a free giveaway, to perhaps help build your online brand.

Virtual assistants can help you create eBook’s in a number of ways, such as:

• Subject matter research and compilation.
• Transcription of your eBook, if you prefer to dictate it.
• Designing of graphical elements, such as the cover and logo.
• Internal page development and layout.
• Facebook & Twitter account promotion and marketing.
• Write the entire eBook (if you don’t intend to put your name to it, and use it as a niche product elsewhere online, other than your blog / primary site).
• SEO virtual assistants can help you market the eBook through Google, etc.

Bottom Line: An eBook might be a quick easy product to put together, but it must also be done in a professional manner, with long-term in mind. Remember, everything you put your name on should be QUALITY – and that’s the same for the design and marketing, as well as the content itself!

Niche Websites / Marketing

A lot has been written about niche creation, finding a niche (like in my post, Finding Your Niche in 20mins or Less!), etc., so I am not going to get into that side of this particular story. However, I have successfully used virtual assistants whilst putting together niche products and websites quite a few times.

This particular stream of passive income is golden, as you can (as with eBook’s) literally make money whilst you sleep! And as a lot of the requirements to build niche websites are quite time consuming, its a no-brainer in regards to looking to outsource as much of the process as possible.

When building niche sites, a virtual assistant can help you in lots of ways, such as:

• Keyword analysis and competition research.
• Registration of domain names and installation of WordPress, and WordPress themes.
• Creating web-forms in AWeber, and re-jigging your theme to focus on building your mailing list.
• Content creation and publishing of original content to build keyword heavy articles.
• Promotion through social media platforms and article submission sites.
• Link building and other SEO related work.
• Lots, lots more…!

Bottom Line: A huge amount of work goes into creating these types of passive income generation machines, and as the ‘owner’ of the niche, or the marketer of whatever affiliate product you’re promoting, you should certainly look at working with a virtual assistant as much as possible, so you can spend your time on more constructive processes, such as networking with potential affiliates and resellers, as well as coming up with your next big niche idea!

Audio & Video Courses

I’m currently in the process of putting together my first ever training course on the subject of entrepreneurial outsourcing. It’s a great experience, and I’ve enjoyed putting together the content more than I ever thought I would - attacking it from the ‘Dummies Guide to…’ approach. I’m doing all this in Video and Audio, with workbooks and a few other goodies thrown in.

However, I’m already learning how to utilize the virtual assistants that work for me on this project to maximize my time on the content side of things, whilst they handle everything (well, almost!) else.

So far, my virtual assistants have helped me with lots of tasks on this project, such as:

• Creating Powerpoint slides, based off my audio and written notes for me to use as a make-shift autocue for when I am shooting my videos, so I am not mumbling and stumbling too much.
• Developing the logo and website layout for the landing page and subsequent marketing material, as well as the ‘Members Only’ section of the website.
• Putting together the complete affiliate program for the course, including free content and material to help affiliates promote and market it, once it goes live.
• Converting all video content into audio content, for an AudioBook version of the course.
• Transcribing all the videos in the course, for a written version, which can be printed and referred back to time and time again.
• Doing the layout and design of the eBook and WorkSheets that will accompany the course.
• Tons more..!

Bottom Line: This project is probably the biggest one I have ever gotten myself into, in regards to online business. And actually, this started out as just a simple audio product. It’s now going to be much bigger and I hope it’ll become the Industry Standard course for entrepreneurs and personal outsourcing. There is NO WAY that I could do this all on my own – there simply isn’t enough time in the day!

REAL Passive Income = Working with Virtual Assistants!

The idea of making money whilst we sleep, and travel the world, and spend more time with our families, etc., is a wonderful, beautiful thing. And it IS possible.

But, before those PayPal bells start ringing regularly, there is a lot of work that goes into putting together your passive income streams. Some require more time and effort than others, but, they ALL require some kind of ‘time’ dedication. Utilizing the support and additional skill-sets of virtual assistants minimizes that time, like no other way.

I’ll leave you with a quote in regards to virtual assistants and what they can do for you, as an entrepreneur, from one of my favorite bloggers and best buddies online… This totally sums up my thoughts on this entire subject:

I really have to say that if I could go back and start all over again, I would have utilized virtual assistants much earlier. I probably would have been in the market much faster and would probably be earning a lot more money, too.
Pat Flynn, SmartPassiveIncome.com

Have you worked with Virtual Assistants to help create and market passive income streams…? If so, please tell us all about your experiences below.

And, also feel free to leave any comments and questions below, as always. And if you haven’t already downloaded it, whilst you’re here, grab a copy of my free eBook & AudioBook on working with Virtual Assistants below.

If you found this post helpful or insightful in any way, please ‘be sweet’ and ‘retweet!’. Thanks for the support.

Location: New York, USA – Reading Time: 7mins

So, following on from yesterday’s post where my company’s chosen virtual assistant v wrote on cool online app’s for sharing and storing files online, organization and calendar sharing, today we continue with my case study, looking into the world of the Philippine Virtual Assistant, but more specifically answering the question as to whether or not they can help you in creating original, quality web content for projects such as blogs, site content, eBook’s, etc.

Please note: This is REAL, completely UNEDITED text (sure, we’ve formatted for the blog, but that’s it!), written by one of the virtual assistants that works directly for my company, serving a client that is based in the USA. Let’s continue with the test!

Applications for Writing:

Unleash your creativity and earn money in the process.

Google Docs (http://docs.google.com/). Don’t worry if you don’t have MS Word or spreadsheet because Google Docs and Spreadsheet has these. You can create a new document, spreadsheet or presentation and upload your files from and save to your desktop. You can access your files anytime anywhere and choose who can access your documents. Those who have access to files can share changes in real time. And it’s all free!Writeboard (http://writeboard.com/). This tool is perfect for bloggers or freelance writers. Whiteboard is a web-based application that allows you to make text documents where you can save every editing you made. You can always go back to any version of your edited documents and compare the changes. It also allows for collaborative work. Users will find Writeboard a great tool for business or personal use.

Lulu (http://www.lulu.com/). This is more of a web service, rather than a web application. However, it’s still very useful. Lulu is a convenient way for authors to publish their work and sell their books to their intended audience. It has all the tools that you need to format and publish your work, plus it grants you complete control of editorial tasks and copyright. Social networking and author services are also provided so authors can realize profit.

Marketing and Networking Applications:

Build your online brand and grow your business.

LinkedIn (http://www.linkedin.com/). LinkedIn is the ideal social networking tool to grow your business. This social website is home to millions of professionals and you can easily find the like-minded people to share ideas and information. Use this site to build up your profile, be updated with industry trends and establish your online brand. If you haven’t joined LinkedIn yet, you are missing a lot of opportunities for your business.

Elance (http://www.elance.com/). This is the place to go to if you need the services of experts to do your tasks. If you need to have your job done efficiently, whether it’s programming, web design and multimedia, writing, administrative tasks, sales and marketing, or finance, name it and you can find the professional who will do your job on Elance. You can hire, manage and pay that professional online.

Twitter (http://www.twitter.com). Twitter is creating more and more waves in the social networking world with every passing month online. If you are a professional, entrepreneur or just trying to build a brand – either personal or a product or service, then you need to be on Twitter!

Applications for Communicating:

Communicate with key people in your business easily without spending a lot of money.

eBuddy (http://www.ebuddy.com/). If you have a lot of online accounts – MSN, Yahoo, AIM, GTalk, Facebook, ICQ, and MySpace, you can log in to them in just one place with eBuddy. You can chat online anywhere anytime with this application. It’s absolutely free and there’s no need for you to download or install any software. You can use it on any computer or you can use a mobile version of this application for your text messaging.

FaxZERO (http://faxzero.com/). Want to send a fax but you don’t have a fax machine? You don’t need to buy a fax machine if you rarely send faxes. FaxZERO allows you to send a fax for free to anywhere within the U.S. and Canada. Just type in the sender and receiver information and attach the file that you want to fax. This service allows you two free faxes per day for sending documents with a maximum of three pages. You can choose a premium service so you can fax documents as large as 15 pages.

Campfire (http://www.campfirenow.com/). There is one web application that is specially designed for instant messaging for groups. With Campfire, you can communicate with your clients by chat or you can create any number of chat rooms for collaborative work with your teams. Campfire keeps a record of past chat transcripts for you to review. You can also upload images that appear in your chat room. This web-based application can be integrated with Basecamp. You are assured of the privacy of your chats because they are password protected.

Tomorrow we’ll be finishing up this little case study focusing on some great app’s that help you make money online, store and handle client contact info as well as security. See you then!

If you liked this post, please do leave a comment below – I love hearing from my readers, and reply to pretty much every one! You can also “Be Sweet and Retweet!” if you like, too. Thanks, everyone!

It's 100% Original. It's FREE. It'll change your life!

Location: Home – Reading Time: Post – 3mins, eBook – 25mins

Since the site went live last Friday, almost 80 people have downloaded my free virtual assistant eBook. Not bad considering it was launched to a very small group of people on Twitter, and that was about it! So, if you have downloaded the eBook “Saving the Day, the Virtual Way” already, thank you. Sincerely. If you haven’t, and you’re back at the blog for a second or third time (or even if it’s just your first time!), what exactly are you waiting for? This is what the Virtual Business Lifestyle is all about. In my post on Tuesday, on outsourcing life, I go a little into working with VA’s, or more so, finding them, or specifically how to find virtual staff. This eBook takes this subject a whole lot further.

Over 30 pages of content to enable you to take the next step in creating a lifestyle that you can become happy to boast about at lunch with buddies, on the golf course, or even at the ball game when your friends are tapping away on their Blackberry’s instead of enjoying the live action! And all that can start by knowing how to find virtual staff.The book focuses on what it means to work with an outsourced, predominantly offshore Virtual Assistant and goes into great detail on the benefits involved in working with a VA, on how to find virtual staff, as well as, amongst other things, how to work with them. Here’s a rundown on the chapters:

• Once Upon a Time in the Life of an Entrepreneur
• Meet Your New Superhero – The Virtual Assistant
• The Benefits of Working with a Full Time Virtual Assistant
• How to Find Your Own Superhero Virtual Assistant
• How to Work with Your Virtual Assistant to Maximize Productivity

How Do I Get My Copy!!!?

To get your own copy, just fill out the form below and you’ll be reading all about it quicker than you can say ‘James Bond is too cool for school’ (or something just as irrelevant!). I won’t go into much more detail here on the eBook’s content, except to say that if you aren’t already working with a VA already, the chances are you will HAVE to start, sooner or later, to make sure you don’t get left behind. Trust me, do NOT underestimate the importance of having good, dependable support around you. Find out now how to find virtual staff.

I hope you enjoy the eBook, and feel free to comment below (on any additional ideas, etc.) too.

COMING TOMORROW: A video tour of my ‘Mobile Office’ – See EXACTLY what I bring with me when I travel to be able to continue to do business seamlessly! Don’t Miss it!

If you liked this post, (and if you’ve already downloaded the eBook), please do leave a comment below. I love hearing from my readers, and reply to pretty much every one! You can also “Be Sweet and Retweet!” if you like, too. Thanks, everyone!

Another Awesome Snorkeling Session - Taken on a Tuesday Afternoon, 3pm

Location: Home, Reading Time: 6mins

A hell of a lot has been written on the subject of outsourcing life. Even though its been around for quite some time, the subject itself has really grown in popularity (particularly for the ‘normal’ business owner, or every day ‘Joe’) over the last 3-4 years or so. A lot of this has to do with the amount of news coverage, the number of lifestyle design blogs (including this one, I guess!) that have popped up and certain books that have been published, such as the Four Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferriss. Bottom line, however, is that regardless of how much you read or pick up on the subject of outsourcing life, you wont actually know what its like (and the benefits that come along with it) unless you actually GO FOR IT!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t literally mean dive right in and hire a bunch of outsourced employees! What I do mean however, is plan it, try it out and then tweak it to death until you have the perfect set-up for you. Nowadays, quite frankly, outsourcing life couldn’t be easier. You have many good companies offering outsourcing solutions to reach out to and many freelancing virtual assistants working all over the world. Although the Philippines and India are the two hot-beds, you’ll find them everywhere! Recently, the Philippines has grown in popularity because of the versatility of the people that the country offers, not to mention the fantastic English speaking and writing skills.

Generally speaking there are only two major ways to start outsourcing life. Firstly, you can work with a freelancer, finding them through sites such as Freelancer.com, or other equivalents. This is a slightly more long winded way to start things off, because of the obvious searching, interviewing and training that you personally have to go through to find the right person (and its not always possible to do that with the first choice). However, it is the most cost effective way.

The second way to jump on the outsourcing life band-wagon is to hire an outsourcing solutions provider, such as my company (Don’t worry, this is not going to turn into a full-blown elevator pitch, I promise!). Although a little more pricey than the freelancer route, this is a little easier on the person wanting to outsource their life, as the searching, interviewing, hiring, training, supervising, motivating, etc., is all done for you. Plus, you do have the added benefits that come along with working with partners that are set-up properly with professional contingency plans in place (I’ll perhaps go into this subject a little more on a separate post – if there’s enough interest – let me know).

Whatever way you look into beginning your new lifestyle, the most important thing is that you do it now. But, do it your way – the way you believe will be the most successful for you. Procrastinating will get you nowhere, and believe me, you’ll love the freedom that comes along with outsourcing, as well as the obvious business benefits, too (spending more time planning trips and vacations, time with family, etc.).

Through the upcoming pages of this blog, and with the videos that I will be uploading here and on my YouTube channel, I hope that the ideas you’ll pick up will create enough excitement to start your very own outsourcing life adventure. You can start immediately by downloading my free eBook on working with virtual assistants (below) and always remember, I am wide open for questions, should you feel the need to fire any at me!

If you liked this post, please do leave a comment below – I love hearing from my readers, and reply to pretty much every one! You can also “Be Sweet and Retweet!” if you like, too. Thanks, everyone!

Another Awesome Snorkeling Session - Taken on a Tuesday Afternoon, 3pm

Location: Home, Reading Time: 6mins

A hell of a lot has been written on the subject of outsourcing life. Even though its been around for quite some time, the subject itself has really grown in popularity (particularly for the ‘normal’ business owner, or every day ‘Joe’) over the last 3-4 years or so. A lot of this has to do with the amount of news coverage, the number of lifestyle design blogs (including this one, I guess!) that have popped up and certain books that have been published, such as the Four Hour Work Week, by Tim Ferriss. Bottom line, however, is that regardless of how much you read or pick up on the subject of outsourcing life, you wont actually know what its like (and the benefits that come along with it) unless you actually GO FOR IT!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I don’t literally mean dive right in and hire a bunch of outsourced employees! What I do mean however, is plan it, try it out and then tweak it to death until you have the perfect set-up for you. Nowadays, quite frankly, outsourcing life couldn’t be easier. You have many good companies offering outsourcing solutions to reach out to and many freelancing virtual assistants working all over the world. Although the Philippines and India are the two hot-beds, you’ll find them everywhere! Recently, the Philippines has grown in popularity because of the versatility of the people that the country offers, not to mention the fantastic English speaking and writing skills.

Generally speaking there are only two major ways to start outsourcing life. Firstly, you can work with a freelancer, finding them through sites such as Freelancer.com, or other equivalents. This is a slightly more long winded way to start things off, because of the obvious searching, interviewing and training that you personally have to go through to find the right person (and its not always possible to do that with the first choice). However, it is the most cost effective way.

The second way to jump on the outsourcing life band-wagon is to hire an outsourcing solutions provider, such as my company (Don’t worry, this is not going to turn into a full-blown elevator pitch, I promise!). Although a little more pricey than the freelancer route, this is a little easier on the person wanting to outsource their life, as the searching, interviewing, hiring, training, supervising, motivating, etc., is all done for you. Plus, you do have the added benefits that come along with working with partners that are set-up properly with professional contingency plans in place (I’ll perhaps go into this subject a little more on a separate post – if there’s enough interest – let me know).

Whatever way you look into beginning your new lifestyle, the most important thing is that you do it now. But, do it your way – the way you believe will be the most successful for you. Procrastinating will get you nowhere, and believe me, you’ll love the freedom that comes along with outsourcing, as well as the obvious business benefits, too (spending more time planning trips and vacations, time with family, etc.).

Through the upcoming pages of this blog, and with the videos that I will be uploading here and on my YouTube channel, I hope that the ideas you’ll pick up will create enough excitement to start your very own outsourcing life adventure. You can start immediately by downloading my free eBook on working with virtual assistants (below) and always remember, I am wide open for questions, should you feel the need to fire any at me!

If you liked this post, please do leave a comment below – I love hearing from my readers, and reply to pretty much every one! You can also “Be Sweet and Retweet!” if you like, too. Thanks, everyone!