I had a conversation with a new client recently. He was hiring his first VA and was asking questions about how we worked, trying to understand the process.
“I’ve got enough in my budget to do part-time, maybe 10 hours a week. Can we schedule someone for two hours a day to start?”
He was thinking of a VA as a traditional part-time employee who has a set schedule and is paid for their hours whether there is work or not. I explained that the great thing about VAs is that there are no pre-determined timetables. “You never pay for anyone to wait around for something to do; you only pay for the time your VA works on your project.”
He went on with his questioning. “What about adding an additional person to the project? I have a lot of work coming up and I don’t want to bog anyone down. Is there an extra charge for adding another VA to my staff?”
My answer? “Nope.”
When you use a VA service, you only pay for actual “time-on-task.” Let’s say your project takes twenty hours to complete. It doesn’t matter whether that work is accomplished by one VA in twenty hours, or ten VA’s who work two hours each; you’re billed for twenty hours. Period.
If you haven’t used a virtual assistant before, it’s a new concept to get used to. We don’t bill in increments, or have minimums. We literally bill by the minute. You don’t pay for us to sit around and wait for emails to come in. You only pay for work done on your account. And, there’s never an extra charge for having a second (or third, or fourth) person come on board. You are simply billed for the cumulative time it takes to complete projects or tasks.
Think of it like your water bill. You’ve got faucets all over your house, right? There’s one in the kitchen, another in the bathroom sink, your tub, your shower. Anytime you want water, you turn a handle and it’s there. You’ve got constant access to water whenever you want, but you don’t have to let the faucet run all day just in case you get thirsty or need a shower. You control the flow and when your statement comes in, you’re only charged for the water you actually used. The same applies to your VA. You’re billed for our time-on-task, not for the convenience of having us available.
Of course, if you want to work within a specific timeframe or budget, we can accommodate that. For instance, if you wanted to only spend 10 hours a week on your project, we would keep track of our billable hours, and notify you once we hit a total of 8 to keep you aware of where we were in the process. Once we reached your maximum of 10 hours, we’d contact you and wait for approval before continuing with more work. The process and overall budget are totally up to you!
“Time-on-task” billing for VA’s works so well for business owners because we’ll accommodate you no matter what your workload is. It’s natural for businesses to ebb and flow. Some days there is a lot going on, and at other times the workload decreases. Regardless of how much or how little work you have, your team of VA’s is available when you need them.
One email or phone call can open up your VA faucet and when you’re ready, another one can turn it off. You can set parameters ahead of time or simply have us work until the project’s finished. It’s all up to you!