Summary: Virtual Freedom

Review and Analysis of Ducker's Book

BusinessNews Publishing

• Publisher: Must Read Summaries
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9782511035986
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Operations
• Index: Business

The must-read summary of Chris Ducker's book: `Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive and Build Your Dream Business`.

This complete summary of the ideas from Chris Ducker's book `Virtual Freedom` details how many new entrepreneurs believe they have to do everything themselves. This method is impossible for a long period of time. According to Ducker, entrepreneurs should hire virtual staff to manage tasks. This gives them the freedom to focus on bigger tasks and work on their business. Building a virtual team requires three steps; find and hire workers you trust, train those workers and then constantly manage your team. By following these steps, you will be able to create a successful company without doing everything yourself.

Added-value of this summary:
• Save time
• Hire virtual workers you can trust to do smaller tasks
• Focus on the bigger picture and tasks that add more value

To learn more, read “Virtual Freedom” and find out how you can start devoting your time to improving your business!

Summary of Virtual Freedom (Chris Ducker)

Find

Finding and hiring virtual workers is not dissimilar to the process of doing the same for employees who will work in your office. The main differences tend to be in the mindset you need to bring to the job to be successful.

The four key points to remember here are:

1. Understand the fundamentals
2. Create 3 lists
3. Make your local/global decision
4. Attract the right people

Find. 1. Understand the fundamentals

Before you start trying to assemble a virtual team, there are four principles you must understand:

1. Virtual workers are people, not a program
2. Put quality in to get quality out
3. One size does not fit all
4. Super-VA's don't exist, so stop looking

1. Virtual workers are people, not a program.
   And therefore you'll get the most out of your virtual assistants (VA) if you treat them with the same respect you would a person who is working in your office. It's smart to understand the communication customs, cultural traditions and holidays of each of your VAs rather than expecting them to be available 24/7 every day of the year.
2. Put quality in to get quality out.
   In fact, the quality of the work any VA will do for you depends entirely on the quality of the instructions you give them. Give them jumbled and unclear instructions and it should come as no surprise they deliver poor results.
3. One size does not fit all.
   You'll find every VA you ever use has strengths and weaknesses. They won't admit that up-front so you'll have to tread carefully and figure it out for yourself. Match a specific VA to what you need done rather than expecting them to be able to do everything well.
4. Super-VA's don't exist, so stop looking.
   There is no single VA anywhere on the planet who can handle everything you do as well as you do things. Stop trying to find a virtual clone of yourself that you can turn everything over to and retire to the beach. Instead of trying to find that elusive super-VA, identify specific roles you need to fill and hire specialist VAs for each of those roles.

That last point is critical. You wouldn't hire an electrician to fix a hole in your roof in the real world. The same holds true in the virtual world. As an entrepreneur or business owner, you fill many different roles. Don't fall into the trap of thinking there's a super-VA lurking out there who can do everything you do. That's not feasible.

GVA

A super-VA does not exist but what you should be looking for is a virtual sidekick – a general virtual assistant (GVA). Rather than wearing all the hats you do, your GVA will help run your business life and help you by taking over those time-draining repetitive tasks you dislike handling anyway. Think of your GVA as your business sidekick – in much the same way as Batman had Robin.

“As entrepreneurs, time is our most valuable commodity. Money will come and go, but once you’ve invested your time into something, that time is gone forever. It stands to reason that if there are any actions we can take as business owners to free up more time in our daily routines, we should take them. Hiring and working with a GVA will help you do just that. Think of your GVA as a personal assistant (PA). Aside from bringing you a cup of coffee or picking up your dry cleaning, GVAs can do all the same tasks that an old-fashioned, in-office PA could handle.”

- Chris Ducker

Find. 2. Create three lists

The first step towards virtual freedom is to figure out exactly what tasks you want freedom from. To do this, take a piece of paper and create three lists:

1. Tasks You Don't Like Doing (The stuff that drives you nuts)
2. Tasks You Don't Know How To Do (The stuff that you'd like to do)
3. Tasks You Shouldn't Be Doing (Necessary and time-consuming)

As you put together those three lists, you're starting to figure out what kind of virtual workers you will need. You're also coming up with a list of all the activities...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Book Presentation
• Summary
• About the Summary Publisher
• Copyright