So I’m ready to bring on my second regular VA. I’ve made up my mind that VAs, in general, will work best to take care of many gruntwork, time-consuming tasks.
However, this VA will do an important task - sourcing. For now, I can’t afford an employee. So, I’m going to use a VA to at least tide me over until I get closer to that point.
But, by early-to-mid next year, I have a good shot at being able to afford an employee. And then I see some people in this forum use VAs full-time to do sourcing.
So, when I can afford an employee to do sourcing, how do I decide to go with an employee or with a VA instead?
@dast1983 This depends on what type of sourcing tasks you want the employee to do. If you want someone to do sourcing steps 1-3, a VA can manage this. If you want someone to validate products and communicate with potential suppliers, this is where you need an employee.
Dan
My experience has been that with a good VA they can do a large majority of the work. Our best VA can run almost every aspect of our business other than closing a deal. He could probably do that also if his English was a little better. With proper training and tools you can really leverage your VAs. The primary reason to hire a US based employee for us is a “sales person” that can be your closer.
Dan
I am not sure I fully understand the question and/or concern. Any employee could leave at any time. We treat our VA’s like we would any other US based employee. Treat them well and dont give them a reason to leave. Having strong SOPs and tools in place allows you to plug people into roles if you do have a change in staffing…
Steps 1-3 are the WEBS processes that we use. This includes finding storefronts and extracting brands and products from those storefronts. This is the ground work that we have all VAs do. After we receive a price list, we revaluate products to make sure that they are as profitable as we thought at the price point (validating products after the VA finds them).