As people who are endeavoring to implement the ideas found within The 4-Hour Workweek, we have become internet marketers. What we market online varies, but we are all internet marketers, just the same.

Tim Ferriss presented virtual assistance as integral to allowing us to free our time and get more done with less. Taking the leap to hiring my first virtual assistant has been quite a process. There was nothing inherently long about it; I just needed to paint myself into a corner before I was willing to jump. I have gotten tired of bending over to pick up pennies while dollars were falling out of my pockets.

My move to Portland was not inexpensive, and I did some hard looking at the math of my businesses to see how I could make more or spend less, hopefully finding a way to do both. Here’s the process I went through.

I started by writing down my income.  Let’s say it’s $50,000 per year. I divided that by 2000 hours (a salaried person’s work year), which gave me $25/hour. Some internet marketers work six days per week, which would give 2500 or so hours, yielding $20/hour.  You do your own math.

If you are doing tasks in your business that would cost you less to outsource to a virtual assistant, then you are HEMMORHAGING money by doing it yourself!

Some of my excuses I had come up with to avoid hiring a VA included:

Excuse #1: I don’t trust anyone doing my work for me.
Excuse #2: I can do it faster myself.
Excuse #3: I don’t have time to train an assistant.
Excuse #4: I don’t know if I can come up with 40 hours worth of work for them each week.

Here’s how I finally dealt with each of these on the path to hiring my first VA:

1. “I don’t trust anyone doing my work for me.”
What this has meant is that as long as I don’t trust others to get the work done for me, I can only do everything myself. It seems obvious when stated that way, but many of us don’t snap out of that trance, ever. This is the basis of the E-Myth as well, working on your business rather than in your business.

2. “I can do it faster myself.”
Depending on the task at hand, I probably can, but even if it takes my VA twice as long to do the work at $5/hour, I am still GAINING $10/hour for every hour of work (assuming you earn $20/hour.) Doing it yourself, you are WASTING $10/hour. Why not just light up an Alexander Hamilton once an hour? It will be more fun.

3. ” I don’t have time to train an assistant.”
Getting over/through this one took some mind bending on my part. It was during a LinkedIn message reply session (I get a LOT of mail on LinkedIn), that I realized it was insane for me to keep doing what I was doing. My behavior said that I would rather do the same repetitive task over and over and over again instead of training an assistant just ONCE so they can do the task FOREVER.

4. “I don’t know if I can come up with enough work for them.”
This was initially a concern for me when I started my search for an appropriate outsourcing firm.  What I found is that the best firms will find ways to keep the VA busy, working on my behalf, helping me make more money, which will help me better afford buying more time.  This process can take the form of my VA promoting an affiliate program where I get paid ongoing commissions for sales they help ME generate — without my assigning any work to them. So, I can end up earning more per month than I actually pay your VA. This is an amazingly positive feedback loop.

I have realized that there are literally hundreds of tasks that my virtual assistant can take off my plate very week. As I finished my days, I would make a list of my priorities for the next day. I noticed very quickly that at least half of my tasks could be easily delegated to a virtual assistant. This is how this whole process got started for me.

All I have to do is send an email with instructions on what’s to be done for the day. By the end of the day my assistant emails me, letting me know that my mind-numbing tasks were completed for me .

In my search for a company with the right fit, I discovered Daven Michaels, and 123Employee. You can download his free e-book which explains it all: Outsource This! Read the e-book, and then have a conversation with 123Employee about your needs. I am very glad that I did.

I recently recorded a podcast interview with Daven, which will be posted to the site very soon. The public portion of the interview covers the general questions that one might have about outsourcing a virtual assistant. The members-only interview covers specifics about how you, as an internet marketer on a quest for the 4-Hour Workweek, can get the most out of the service.

Download Daven’s book now: Outsource This!