Can you Trust a Filipino VA

We’ve got a cool little Mastermind of smart businessmen on Twitter. (No, you can’t join – sorry)

Yesterday, the topic of hiring VAs (virtual assistants) came up. Specifically, a guy asks where he can find a VA that he can trust enough to give access to his computer and handle stuff for him.

His situation is a little unique because he needs somebody ASAP due to an accident that is limiting his ability to work.

Knowing that I work with VAs, he came to me for advice on where to find VAs that you can trust.

(Side note: Amazing how even just 6 months of experience sets you apart and makes you the de facto “expert” on a topic)

Here’s the thing: Trust needs to be established over time. You can’t simply go from 0 to 100 in a week regardless who or where you hire.

So, how do you establish trust with a VA?

Here’s how I do it…

Before hiring, I create a long list of tasks that I want to delegate. However, I spread them out over time.

I don’t dump everything on a new VA on day 1. Instead, I add new tasks every week.

This allows the new VA to get used to working with you. You don’t want to overwhelm him / her in the first week.

It also allows you to gradually increase the level of access you give him. Most tools they’ll need have different levels of user access: Use these wisely.

To use Shopify as the example, a VA will need access to orders, apps and the dashboard to fulfill orders. But they don’t need access to the store settings for example.

When a new VA starts working for you, only give them access to what they need. Overtime, you’ll get a feel for how trustworthy they are & can give them access to more if it makes sense.

One area that is a little tricky with dropshipping is Aliexpress access…

As far as I’m aware, there is no way of adding secondary users to the account. So if you want your VA to fulfill orders, you’ll have to use a shared password.

(Same is true for Instagram, I believe)

Fulfilling orders is a huge pain in the butt if you’re making a decent amount of sales so you definitely want to delegate this as much as possible.

What I did & recommend, is to only give new VAs access to Aliexpress (set a shared password that you don’t use elsewhere), but don’t give them access to AliPay.

That means you’ll have to log in and click pay all orders every day or two.

It’s a bit of a pain, but I think it’s a good precaution to take when you haven’t been working with a VA for a long time.

I did this for around 3 months, I believe. Then, I decided to change the password & give my Shopify VA access to AliPay as well.

That’s a perfect example of building trust over time.

Hope that clears up some of your questions regarding hiring virtual assistants. It’s a crucial step for anyone building dropshipping stores.

Honestly, having a VA isn’t optional if you’re dropshipping. Once you start getting orders, you must delegate customer support & order fulfillment at the very least.

If you’re interested in how I hire my VAs, check out my dropshipping course which has a full lesson on the topic.

I also include my interviewing process with the exact questions I ask in the bonus section.

Pretty neat, huh?

Click here to check out Start Dropshipping Stuff.

And I’ll catch you tomorrow,
James Holt