Virtual Assitant Problem? Help?

[Want2MeetTim]

Hi Everyone,

I contacted Brickwork to hire a virtual assistant and the prices seem crazy! The want $18 an hour to do market research from me on a product I'd like to launch. I gave a cap for how many hours I thought several tasks should take and they basically estimated it would take many hours longer.
One of my requests was to locate a green cleaning service near where I live and I gave specifics and they said this task would be about 3 hours! It will probably take me 15 or 30 minutes at most to find someone. I didn't say to hire me a service but to just find 3 options.

What do you think about this? I think $18 is very expensive. Who else do you guys use and like?

[jimbland]

Check out my blog on this here http://jimbland.wordpress.com/2010/05/16/getting-the-most-from-a-virtual-assistant/

Brickwork is expensive and in my experience not worth it.

My suggestion would be: 1) Very clearly define your project. What information do you want? Be specific. 2) What do you want the output to look like? 3) What's the due date? etc.

Also, assess the complexity of what you are looking for. If you want a professional market research report, I would hire a professional on elance that focuses on market research. You will probably pay more than $18/hour but the result will be worth it.

On the other hand, if you just want someone to bounce around the web, google various questions and submit a summary then a generalist VA should be able to do it for $10 or less per hour. Fancyhands gives you 15 tasks for $30/month and has successfully completed this level of research for me.

[OutsourcedMyLife.com]

That's insane! I've seen this happen with almost all the VA companies I've used / researched. They start cheap, get big, start charging more.

For basic VA work I'd never go through one of these companies. It's just too easy (and cheap) to hire direct and cut out the middle man.

I've hired a bunch of very smart international VA's for $2 - $4 an hour and have been extremely happy with the results.

[Want2MeetTim]

Thanks for the feedback. I thought 18/hour sounded expensive. My sister just graduated college in the US and is making 18 an hour as a temp and was lucky to get that job! I was thinking that I could find someone in the US to do it for less or I need to look at another VA international company.
I like the idea of fancy hands, thanks! Just need someone to do a little research and some other small projects. As things get more complex I'd be interested in spending more money.

[OutsourcedMyLife.com]

There are plenty of people in the US that have 2-4 year college degrees, great internet skills, that are out of work and would be willing to work for $8-$10 an hour. Heck, on one of my communities I have probably hundreds of stay-at-home moms that would love to make $7 - $8 an hour if they could work at their leisure.

If you really want a US person, some of the companies I listed on my outsourcing blog (http://www.oursourcedmylife.com) will allow you to search a specific geo graphical area (US) and specific rate and skills.

Another option is to find a few cities where craigslist has a lot of users and search for VA's that way... in fact, in 5 mins I found this one that is a notary and is only $10 / hour:
http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/res/1721388139.html

[seth121]

It really depends on how much research data you want.

If you want a lot of data then $18 dollars is not bad, but if you want simple figures then there is no need for $18.

But then again sometimes a few hundred dollars is worth a report that will save you a lot of time on finding customers and where to properly market. I think reports are one of those things that should be taken rather seriously. You can potentially make a far greater return because of a well documented report.