Ernie Svenson has been trying for years to incorporate virtual assistants into his work, without much success. After reading about Zirtual.com in the Wall St. Journal his interest was renewed. It helped that Tony Hsieh (CEO of Zappos) has invested in the company because of its excellent customer service. After a month of using the 10 hour $197/month plan, Ernie’s ecstatic. Here are things that his virtual assistant, Stacy, has done for him:
- Calendared events that are buried in the verbiage of some back and forth emails with prospective clients. (Stacy can access his web-based calendar).
- Set up meetings and invited third parties to participate by email notice.
- Researched the best dog walking services, and then conducted preliminary interviews.
- Called clients to politely remind them of an overdue invoice.
- Booked hotels and travel and then calendared everything (Ernie trusts Stacy with his credit card, and she uses LastPass as a Password manager).
- Helped him set up webinars and seminars, filling out physical paperwork, or handling online forms.
Because Ernie thought Zirtual was awesome, he told Megan, and she tried it out. She likes it so much that she’s upgraded to the 20 hour per month plan ($399). Here’s what she says her assistant Alicia does for her:
- Schedule appointments, and calendar them.
- Prepare content for Twitter and Facebook (Megan does social media work for clients).
- Pull client data and organize in a spreadsheet, and make helpful suggestion on how to streamline Megan’s workflow.
Megan says Alicia even “checked in with me when I was sick to offer advice on some things I could do to expedite my recovery – just because she’s sweet (and an expert Health Coach)!” Pretty amazing for someone who only works for you part-time. But, that’s the thing: Zirtual has figured out how to hire amazing people who have the skills and passion for this kind of work.
So, Ernie and Megan are sold on Zirtual.com. There is no free trial, but you can try it and cancel at any time if you don’t like the service. If you’re interested, check it out. You might be amazed too!
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