A few years ago, I started using a virtual assistant. And dear god, I made every mistake in the book: I tried to save a few bucks by using international assistants (I paid between $2/hour and $10/hour), but I ended up wasting tons of time explaining exactly what I wanted. Then I switched to American assistants and got better results, but some were flaky, and sometimes I didn’t know how to use their skills.
Finally, I cracked the code.
I’ve now developed a “playbook” I use with my assistant, who is based in Florida. She anticipates what I want — for example, when I travel somewhere and land, I open my phone and my entire itinerary is there, including turn-by-turn directions, confirmation codes, and special notes about people I’ll meet. She also corrects my weak spots (e.g., not just reminding me to buy gifts for someone, but giving me 3 options along with a recommendation, so I can just reply and say “Yes”).
Working with a skilled virtual assistant — and using a SYSTEMATIC APPROACH to save time — has been one of the best investments I’ve ever made. I save over 30 hours every week, and I can spend time doing the things I love instead of booking travel and doing online research.
And now I want to hook you up.
As a thank-you for reading “I Will Teach You To Be Rich,” I’m offering one reader an entire year’s worth of virtual assistant services — free. No catch. I’ll even train them myself. And I’ll spend 30 minutes on the phone with you sharing the best ways to use your assistant’s skills.
If you don’t have hours of work per week to assign them, don’t worry. You can use them “on demand” whenever something comes up — through all of 2012.
All I ask is that you send me a few updates throughout the year telling me how it’s going.
This contest is free and you have a pretty good chance to win, so I hope you give yourself a chance to make next year the most productive year of your life.
Good luck!
Click to enter to win a year of virtual assistant services — free:
http://www.iwillteachyoutoberich.com/assistant
I'm the New York Times bestselling author of I Will Teach You To Be Rich. I co-founded PBwiki and graduated from Stanford.
25 comments
Leave a commentHi Ramit,
FYI, your link for contest entry is not working.
Link fixed. Thanks!
officially the strangest contest i’ve entered, yet i’m so very intrigued by all the things i could do with an assistant.
Heh, why is it weird?
Hi Ramit,
This is an awesome Xmas gift.
Good luck to all your US citizens readers.
Will you share your tips about virtual assistants with your foreign readers on the blog?
Thanks.
Interesting. I first heard of using virtual assistants from Tim Ferriss in the 4 Hour Workweek.
interesting twist to a contest / giveaway. leveraging the help of quality VAs has contributed significantly to my success on the internet.
happy holidays buddy – hope the turnout pans out well for you.
Hi Ramit,
Regardless of who wins the contest, I’d love to hear more about your techniques used to handle virtual assistants and who/what to avoid. New post? (there is some information on your blog from 2008 and from T. Ferris but it sounds like you have some new insight).
Yeah, a surprising amount of interest in this. Maybe I’ll release something on this next year.
Hi Ramit,
This is an incredibly generous gift, and a great way for people to learn to stay focused on their strengths. Thank you!
I’m encountering some challenges with the confirmation emails. No confirmation emails are arriving, and when I follow your instructions (on the form) and re-submit, Aweber says I still need to confirm, and redirects me back to my email and/or bulk folder. (It’s not in the bulk/spam folder either).
Anyway, I will keep trying, but just FYI.
Happy holidays!
Awesome contest idea! I am loving it. By the way what tool or platform did you use to host this contest? I love how it’s issuing unique links and tracking shares and points.
Please advice
We built it ourselves.
Dude make it a SaaS and I will buy. I was thinking of building one for myself but since you have one in place I don’t mind signing up to use it.
So, I don’t really want to do the competition…
But, if signing up for this is putting me on a “readers with an e-businesses list”, I’d like to sign up for whatever stuff you’ll be sending out down the line. Should I sign up?
Ya go for it
This is awesome xmas gift. Tell me how to get it. Thank you.
Step 1: Read the simple ONE-PAGE SITE
+1 vote for cool prize. And I gleefully entered. I don’t care as much about hearing more about how to use a Virtual Assistant (I can read that in a bunch of places, and you’ve talked a bit about it before); I’m a lot more interested in all of your thinking on how you structured the contest and what you’re driving towards. e.g. By giving more chances to win based on sharing the site on social media… are you looking to just increase readership/expsoure? Or is it even more targeted to find “these types of people share a lot”, or “these are the types of people that are most interested in my product…how can I further tailor my products for them?” Clearly you’re practicing what you preach about testing/refining/tuning method… Does it make sense to share what you do behind the curtains of IWTYTBR? Or is it all proprietary super secret info?
it amazes me, those people’s comments “Oh I don’t really care about winning this VA, but I’ll enter anyway”
This is a amazing prize, I sure hope I win! and btw if I don’t I would love to get my hands on your “playbook”.
I am reading your book and it has got some kind of over powering you to read more. Along side ur book, I am reading The 4 pillars of investing. Is there any book with similar caliber for the English stock market,
Kind Regards
Kentiba
Too bad I’m in the UK, this is a wonderful giveaway and I’m launching a business next March so it would have been fantastic!
Good luck to the people who enter and I’ll look forward to reading information in the future about the do’s and don’t of hiring a VA
Thanks Ramit for all that you do and congrats on a great interview in Fortune; a 6 page spread is amazing…
Congratulations to the winner.
So happy, that you promote the industry of VAs, Ramit. Thank you very much in the name of all virtual assistants who are helping businesses to save time and effort, which could be used so much better. You rock, Ramit
@Rae: There are Virtual Assistants in the UK as well. Having been a corporate assistant for over a decade I just leaped to be a VA myself. So feel free to get in contact (hope, that’s alright with Ramit).
Happy New Year and best for success to all.
I was going to enter, but sadly I’m not a US citizen. Damn!
I’m curious to see how the winner will end up using it, though.
Hey, great contest idea! I want to add my vote for to hear more about your techniques used to handle virtual assistants and who/what to avoid. Would love to see a post on that.
Well so far I have five “points” for the contest, I find a lot of my friends who I have asked personally via email think it’s spam, selling something and they will have to buy, and some even will not consider entering a online contest for whatsoever reason–just because it is online or it is against their religion. I think they associate it with those contests online where they say you can win a ipad, or a mac but then you get lot of work to enter and it all is distrustful and you end up getting spammed.
SO I’m not giving up, I tried getting a buddy of mine to say I signed up too on Facebook in a group page. And some clever wording on that post. Still no luck right away. I am thinking I got to target some other people other than my friends. I think those people are not as internet literate or interested as I am (for sure). It was a great lesson in internet marketing. It’s not as easy to be a affiliate marketer online as people think. Just because I am friends with them they are not willing to sign up or understand the contest. Very interesting.
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