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Virtual Assistants

15 Tasks to Outsource to a Dropshipping Virtual Assistant

Interested in hiring a dropshipping virtual assistant for your online store?

Dropshipping is a fulfillment method where a seller doesn’t hold stock on hand. They instead purchase products from a third party that holds inventory and ships to customers directly. Using the dropshipping method can save you a lot in overhead costs. However, it can be a lot of work. That’s where hiring a dropshipping virtual assistant comes in.

Whether you’re selling on Amazon, Ebay, Shopify, Etsy, or any other eCommerce marketplace, hiring a dropshipping virtual assistant can be one of the best decisions you’ll ever make.

15 Tasks You Can Outsource to a Dropshipping Virtual Assistant

A virtual assistant can help your dropshipping business perform several different tasks:

Dropshipping Preparation

  • Product research: A virtual assistant can help you find profitable and trending products to add to your online store.
  • Supplier research: They can also help you find reliable and trustworthy suppliers to partner with for your dropshipping business.
  • Order processing: Your virtual assistant can process and fulfill customer orders, which includes verifying payment, packaging the product, and shipping it out to the customer.

Dropshipping Management

  • Inventory management: They can keep track of your inventory levels and ensure that popular items are always in stock.
  • Customer service: A virtual assistant can handle customer inquiries and complaints, respond to emails and messages, and provide support through live chat.
  • Social media management: They can help you manage your social media accounts by creating and scheduling posts, responding to comments and messages, and running paid ad campaigns.
  • Administrative tasks: Your virtual assistant can handle administrative tasks such as scheduling appointments, answering phone calls, and managing your calendar.
  • Product Tracking Management: A dropshipping virtual assistant can keep a close eye on the product journey from order placement all the way to fulfillment.
  • Refund and Returns Management: Your dropshipping virtual assistant can handle some post-purchase customer support tasks.

Other Tasks

  • Email marketing: Your virtual assistant can help you create and send out email newsletters, promotional offers, and abandoned cart emails to help increase sales.
  • Website maintenance: They can help you update your website content, images, and product descriptions, and ensure that your website is running smoothly.
  • Data entry: A virtual assistant can help you enter product details and other data into your e-commerce platform, as well as organize and maintain your database.
  • Product listing: They can help you create and optimize product listings to improve your search engine rankings and increase sales.
  • Keyword research: Your virtual assistant can conduct keyword research to help you optimize your website and product listings for search engines.
  • Competitor analysis: They can analyze your competitors’ websites and pricing strategies to help you stay competitive in the market.
  • Analytics reporting: A virtual assistant can help you track and analyze your website traffic, sales data, and customer behavior to identify trends and opportunities for growth.
  • Graphic design: They can help you create product images, banners, and other graphics to improve the overall look and feel of your website.

What Should You Look For In a Dropshipping VA?

A dropshipping virtual assistant working on a laptop and mobile phone.

1. Works Well With Others 

You obviously wouldn’t want to work with someone that has a sour attitude towards their work or towards other members of your team. Part of the process of onboarding is making sure that your remote hire is a good fit for your business not only in terms of skill, but also in terms of work culture, values, and attitude. Managing a team of remote workers is challenging, so you want to make sure your VA can communicate, collaborate, and cooperate well with the existing members of your team. 

2. Customer Service Experience

Dropshipping VAs may also interact with customers directly when answering order inquiries and handling issues with payments and returns. They may have to serve as a bridge between the supplier and the customer. As such, you want someone with a pleasing personality. They need to be able to handle all types of customers with a calm, patient, and helpful attitude. You may want to confirm the VA you are hiring has some experience in the area of customer support. 

3. Flexibility and a Wide Range of Skills

As we’ve discussed, there are a variety of tasks that can be delegated to a dropshipping virtual assistant. The main tasks involve product descriptions, product research, inventory management, customer service, data entry, and website management. While we do not recommend over-working your VA, we also recommend you to find someone who is able to handle multiple tasks with proficiency. The mark of a good virtual assistant is their flexibility and adaptability. They are able to seamlessly flip from one task to another as needed. (E.g. When a customer has an urgent issue that needs resolving quickly.) 

How Much Will Hiring a Dropshipping VA Cost?

Several factors affect the cost of hiring and maintaining a dropshipping virtual assistant. 

  • The scope of the work 
  • The type of tasks
  • The length of the project
  • The level of experience/skill/specialization 
  • The country they live in 
  • Their individual rate 

The amount you would pay a VA for basic tasks will be very different from what you would pay for tasks requiring specialized knowledge. For instance, data entry is a basic-level task that costs around $4-$6 per hour. On the other hand, if you are hiring a content manager to help you keep your website updated, it can cost you between $8-$12. This can go all the way up to $20 if you need someone with a background in SEO. 

If you want someone who is proficient in most tasks related to dropshipping specifically, it can run you up to $50/hour. 

Note: Some VAs will prefer per-hour rates while others calculate their rates on a per-project basis. Keep this in mind when hiring. 

Access to a global talent pool also means access to differing rates. Hiring from a country with a lower cost of living might mean more affordable rates than outsourcing locally. 

While there are quite a few variables to consider regarding outsourced VA rates, one thing is certain. They are far more cost-effective than hiring in-house, full-time workers. With VAs you don’t have to consider worker benefits, overhead costs, or taxes. 

Where Can You Find Reliable Virtual Assistants Online?

Freelance virtual assistants are everywhere online. However, security and quality can sometimes make people hesitant. 

This is why we recommend going for verified freelance marketing and business platforms. These places make it easy for employers to find the specific talent they are looking for while also connecting skilled individuals to businesses that need them. 

Not only do these places typically vet their freelancers before allowing them to post their services on their site, but they also have social proof systems in place. These systems include freelance ratings, rankings, and reviews that you can look at to inform your hiring decisions. You can also view their profiles and see their education level, and certifications. Check their work history and see how much experience they have working with other companies in your industry. 

The freelance marketplaces we recommend are:

Tips to Onboard & Manage Virtual Assistants

The importance of onboarding cannot be stressed enough. Onboarding helps get your dropshipping virtual assistant set up with tools and resources for the job. Not only that, but this process is where you can iron out all the essential details before the working relationship starts. 

When you are conducting remote onboarding and management, make sure you:

  1. Build rapport and make them feel comfortable. 
  2. Get them acquainted with your business, goals, values, and culture.
  3. Set expectations
  4. Provide a rundown of the tasks they will be performing. 
  5. Negotiate rate and work schedule.
  6. Provide the set of tools they will be working with (especially the communication channels they will be using) as soon as possible. 
  7. Introduce them to team members, especially those they will be working closely with. 
  8. Set deadlines and milestones
  9. Set meeting schedules. 
  10. Open the floor to any questions or concerns they may have.
  11. Orient them on SOPs (if you have any). 

What Is Outsource School?

Outsource School helps you to unlock the potential of virtual assistants and accelerate your business growth.

This is the exact system Outsource School’s founders, Nathan Hirsch and Connor Gillivan, used to go from zero to 8 figures and 40+ virtual assistants with an exit in 2019.

Since being founded in 2020, Outsource School has helped 1,000+ business owners hire 2,000+ virtual assistants for their companies.

Schedule a free sales call to learn more

Free resources you might like: 

Conclusion

A dropshipping virtual assistant can help you take full advantage of your dropshipping method. If you don’t do dropshipping yet, but are considering it, we hope this all-in-one guide will help you get started the right way. Keep focused on improving your core business offers and let your VA handle the other tasks for you. 

Categories
Virtual Assistants

17 Ways an Asana Virtual Assistant Can Get You More Organized

 

Thinking of hiring an Asana virtual assistant? 

You’ve come to the right place!

Asana is one of the best product and project management solutions out there. It offers businesses the ability to manage and organize work in one place. The founders of Asana wanted to build a platform to make work easier. They wanted businesses to not have to spend so much time doing tasks leading up to the real work needing to be done. So, they created Asana, a platform where you can coordinate with your team more easily. It also helps you get started on tasks quickly, increase productivity, reach deadlines faster, and improve overall worker satisfaction. 

With Asana you have access to a myriad of useful collaboration tools. 

  • Communication tools – Talk with your team within the platform. View messages and tasks via your inbox. Create new tasks from comments made by team members. 
  • Reporting tools – Send updates, set reminders, and create milestones to keep projects on track and team members on the same page.
  • Various Ways to View Tasks – Asana offers flexible formats to display and share tasks including files, grid formats, to-do-lists, calendars with deadlines, bulletin-style, and your inbox to view all conversations. 

As you can see, Asana’s solutions can greatly benefit you and your business. However, not everyone has the time to learn the software and manage all of these tasks themselves. That’s where an Asana virtual assistant comes in! 

17 Ways an Asana Virtual Assistant Can Help You

The list is really endless, but here’s 17 to start with:

  1. Creating new projects and tasks in Asana
  2. Assigning tasks to team members
  3. Setting due dates for tasks
  4. Creating and managing task dependencies
  5. Sending notifications and reminders to team members
  6. Updating task status and progress
  7. Adding comments and attachments to tasks
  8. Creating project timelines and Gantt charts
  9. Conducting team meetings and discussions within Asana
  10. Creating and managing task templates
  11. Creating custom fields to track specific data points
  12. Tracking time spent on tasks and projects
  13. Integrating Asana with other tools and apps
  14. Generating reports and insights on team performance
  15. Managing team workload and capacity
  16. Providing training and support to team members on Asana
  17. Implementing best practices for using Asana effectively within your organization

How Much Does A Virtual Assistant Cost?

asana virtual assistant

The draw of outsourcing tasks to a virtual assistant is cost-effectiveness. Whichever way you slice it, VAs will save you money compared to hiring full-time, in-house workers. With VAs, you don’t need to worry about worker benefits, employment taxes, or overhead costs. 

Moreso, there are a few things you should know about VAs that will help you get the best bang for your buck. 

Virtual assistant is a flexible term given to people who can handle a variety of different tasks. This stretches over different industries and at different levels. As such, the price of hiring and maintaining a virtual assistant is dependent on multiple criteria. 

Tasks Performed

For an Asana virtual assistant, part of their job includes data entry, managing calendars, scheduling meetings, and other tasks related to project and team management. 

Payment Plans

Freelance virtual assistants will choose between a per-hour or a per-project payment option. The price will vary depending on which plan they prefer. 

Length of Project

Regardless of payment option, the amount of time you plan to maintain your VA will affect how much you need to pay.

Level of Experience and Expertise Needed

There are typically three tiers of tasks that virtual assistant can perform. They are: basic-level, expert-level, and specialist-level. Basic-level tasks can be performed by practically any type of virtual assistant. Expert-level requires a higher level of experience and skill within a particular industry. They are also usually hired to be strategists, planners, and consultants. Specialists are freelancers who have trained and maintained their skills in a particular field or with particular tools and software. The difficulty of mastering the software or tool may also affect how much they will charge for their services. 

Asana virtual assistants will most likely fall into the specialist-level category. They would need to have trained and mastered managing tasks and teams using the work management platform. 

A specialized virtual assistant will always put a lot of resources into mastering a particular software. They invest a lot into familiarizing themselves with a specific platform. So, expect to pay more for someone proficient in Asana than you would a general virtual assistant. 

Individual Rate

Individual rates shouldn’t normally be vastly different from one another. However, it’s a good idea to familiarize yourself with the general rate for the position you are hiring for. This way, you deal with your candidates fairly. 

A VAs individual rate will vary depending on the country you are hiring from. Keep in mind that VAs living in countries with a higher cost of living might have higher rates. 

Where Can You Find an Asana Virtual Assistant?

Freelance Marketplaces 

When hiring virtual assistants, we recommend canvassing within reliable freelance marketplaces. These marketplaces guarantee a level of vetting, quality control and security that you may not find if say you went the route of social media advertising. 

Another benefit to freelance marketplaces is access to worker profiles. Here you can view their work history, years of experience, education and certification, and even rate. 

Additionally, the existence of rating and review systems make it much easier for employers to decide. These allow employers to view verified critique given to VAs evaluating the work they have already performed for other businesses. This means you won’t be rolling the dice on someone’s claims of experience and education level. 

These marketplaces include FreeUp, Upwork, Fiverr and its variations (Fiverr Business and Fiverr Pro) and OnlineJobs.ph

Byron

However, since an Asana virtual assistant is a specialized type of VA, you may have a difficult time finding one in the general freelance marketplaces. That’s why we also recommend Byron. 

Byron is a platform comprised of a team of vetted US-based Asana virtual assistants. Whether small or large business, Byron can help boost productivity and handle admin and collaboration using the Asana platform. Get the support your team needs without having to m commit to hiring full-time assistants. 

Final Tips On Hiring & Managing an Asana VA

asana virtual assistant

Onboard Effectively 

If we’ve said it once, we will say it again. Onboarding is crucial to the success of a partnership and essential in preventing a bad hire. This is especially true with remote teams who do not see in other in the office every day.  

From familiarizing them with the “what” and “why” of your business to clarifying the scope of the work, onboarding will make sure your hire knows about your business beyond the job description. Set clear expectations for deadlines, scheduled meetings, payout schedules, and more. 

Set Up Clear Communication Channels 

While Asana has built-in communication and collaboration tools, they do have limitations. Make sure that the tools you use for remote meetings are shared with your Asana virtual assistant. These tools will be used for updates and making sure your VA is adjusting and working well with your team. 

Listen to Your VA

Remember the reason you hired an Asana virtual assistant in the first place. They know the software inside and out. They have likely worked with other companies using this platform and have developed efficient processes and methods. Be sure to listen to any suggestions they may have. Even if you are also an expert in Asana and just needed the extra help, it still benefits you to keep an open mind. At the end of the day, the final  say rests with you, but at least they would see you as an employer who takes recommendations into careful consideration.

What Is Outsource School?

outsource school

Outsource School helps you to unlock the potential of virtual assistants and accelerate your business growth.

This is the exact system Outsource School’s founders, Nathan Hirsch and Connor Gillivan, used to go from zero to 8 figures and 40+ virtual assistants with an exit in 2019.

Since being founded in 2020, Outsource School has helped 1,000+ business owners hire 2,000+ virtual assistants for their companies.

Schedule a free sales call to learn more

Free resources you might like: 

Conclusion

Project management is no simple undertaking. You not only have to allocate tasks, but you also need to make sure members are collaborating with each other. You need to keep people communicating and providing consistent updates so that things run smoothly and deadlines are met on time. 

An Asana virtual assistant can take that stress off your plate and ensure all your projects, and your business at large, are on the track to success.