I don’t know if it’s just me, but I find that many people I follow (via social networking or their newsletters) or talk to tend to discuss the same topic within a period of several weeks. About a couple of months ago, I felt everybody was talking about time management, and then, a month ago, every newsletter I received seemed to be focusing on stepping out of your comfort zone. Am I seeing that famous laws of attraction in action?
And this past 2 weeks, the same thing happened around the topic of outsourcing. What a great topic for us Virtual Assistants. 
Many experts agree that, to grow your business, you need to hire help at some point. Some people go even further to say, “outsourcing is the only way to take your business to the next level.” And who doesn’t want to grow his/her business? But the reality is that the majority of solopreneurs out there are still trying to take care of every aspect of their business by themselves.
Why?
After speaking with many solopreneurs since I started my VA practice, I noticed many of them have a fear around outsourcing their work. Fear, you ask? Yes, here are the main ones I identified:
- fear of letting things go
- fear of running out of the things to delegate
- fear of hiring somebody you do not know
- fear of creating work (to find somebody, to manage him/her, to come up with a delegation list and to set up a procedure for others handle tasks for you)
- fear of incurring extra *monetary* expenses
This may sound funny, but some of my current clients have provided the answers to getting over most of the fears above while talking to me here and there in the past. I just love my clients! So, I’d love to share some here, hoping to help you look at things differently.
When you are hanging on to all the little tasks that you don’t even enjoy, you get stressed out. I felt so liberated when I gave xxx (insert a task name) to you! Now I don’t need to think about that.
Many people do not realize that there are so many things they can delegate to their assistants. Mika, you should probably do up a list so that people would know.
I noticed many people do not even know where to go find an assistant (or any kind of help for that matter). They should just ask around.
Partnering up with an assistant is an investment. People should put aside some extra time at the beginning to find help and to build a right relationship. Soon, they will find they have more time to take care of better things.
If you don’t want to spend too much time creating a system for your busines, you can ask your assistant to help you create one.
People are so concerned about expenses these days, and they don’t even realize how much you can do for your business by hiring an assistant.
I intentionally did not look at the fees until I finished asking all other questions during the interview process. Fees sure can be one of the important factors when hiring somebody, but should not be the biggest determining factor. Otherwise, you may miss an opportunity to work with a perfect assistant who could eventually save you lots of time and money by working with you.
I know that an assistant with a lower hourly rate cannot necessarily take care of the things as quickly as somebody with a higher rate. Also, you may end up having to spend so much time explaining task details to an assistant A, while assistant B would understand your needs without having to be told everything step-by-step. So, going with an assistant only because his/her rate is reasonable does not make sense to me at all.
Speaking of hourly rates, one of my fab clients recently taught me about “Efficiency Wages”, a term used to describe a theory in economics. I’m not referring it here to convince you to hire an expensive assistant, but to encourage you to look at other important factors before making a judgment solely based on the fees. Most of the outsourcing nightmare stories I hear seem to have something to do with hiring an assistant without having a deep-level conversation before starting to work together.
Remember, you will be building your business with a help from your assistant(s). Make sure you’ll partner up with somebody who is just right for you! (See this post by Melanie Benson Strick… It’s so true!)
Partnering up with an assistant should be a fun experience, not a torture. If you decide to explore the world of working with an assistant, look at it as an exciting adventure! Like many things in life, it may be scary to do it for the first time, but once you’ve done it, you’ll notice it’s not scary at all.
If you are interested in learning a bit more, hop over to the newsletter signup form on the top-right corner on this page to receive a free report “Tips for Finding and Working with a Virtual Assistant”.
Interested in holding your first teleclass / teleseminar, but don't know how? Check out our new ebook/workbook in our 
The fabulous Heather and Stacy that I know from my VA alma mater AssistU started this project called 30 Days of Thanks. The idea of doing my gratitude journal on my blog instantly resonated with me, so I’m playing along here. Read more about 30 Days of Thanks here, and why don’t you join us!
I’m thankful to have wonderful mentors in my life.
Day 16
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