12/10/12

Hiring Your First Assistant Part 1

"The president is just a person with a large support system." I forget who said it first, but it might have been Hutt Bush, a business coach and consultant who is totally awesome.

If you have at least a little bit of money coming in, you can afford to hire an assistant as long as you budget wisely. I spend a portion of my monthly budget each week on things that give me the support I need to live my life to the fullest, like an assistant. Maybe you are saying that you don't need an assistant. That's ok, you don't have to get one. But I've had an assistant for years, and I think it's a huge part of my support system. An assistant helps me run all aspects of my life more fluidly. With her, I become the person I want to be. Without her, I think I would be more like the person I was in college- disorganized, not as reliable, and stressed out from all of the ups and downs of my energy levels. If you are ready (note: ready means ready to pay, ready to commit), feel free to use the suggestions below to find someone to give you regular support and help you reach your goals:

Assistants are all over the place. You can post an ad on TaskRabbit or Craigslist. More about that later.

How much expertise do you want? paying $10/hr will get you a very different level of expertise than $15/hr. Are you comfortable with training someone on some of the skills you need? If so, $10/hr may work for you. I need more expertise and I'm not willing to train for most things, so I pay a little bit higher.

How much time are you willing to spend each week? If you give a minimum and maximum time approximation each week, it makes people much more comfortable with relying on you for part of their income.

Make a list of tasks you are not very strong in. Make a list of goals you would like to reach in the next 6 months and 1 year. Most assistants will not stay with you longer than that, which is totally fine. Unless you are paying $80,000 per year, you are simply someone's transition from college to full-time work, or a stay-at-home mom's part-time gig until she gets bored (or pregnant again).

If you answered these questions, you have most of the information you need to make an ad on Craigslist or TaskRabbit. My second post will have a form to use that you can fill your own information on. This post is very text heavy - no yummy pictures this time.


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