Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business

Virtual Freedom is THE definitive authority on taking control of your business, modifying your mindset to focus on the value you uniquely provide, and pursuing your business dreams effectively. Chris’ Book helps the business owner understand how to identify why, what and when to outsource, how to outsource well, and how to develop and nurture collaborative VA relationships. It also addresses understanding cultural and language idiosyncrasies and becoming a more effective leader of employees overall. You will find multiple links to Chris’ seemingly endless resources at his website, allowing you to dive deeper into key areas. These links provide a depth of discovery and understanding not found in ordinary books. Subscribe to Chris’ blog while reading one of the linked pages. While you are at it, subscribe to his NewBusinessPodcast as well. You have an opportunity to enter into ongoing learning with rich insights into how to best leverage yourself and your resources. Virtual Freedom includes over eight pages of resource links in the back of the book. These are in addition to those interspersed throughout the text that facilitate understanding key points. The links are excellent starting points from which to take action. The Kindle version has all of the links live including internal links that connect key sections of the book. There are case studies strategically located throughout Virtual Freedom. You will find yourself repeatedly saying “Hey, that’s me…” and simultaneously be newly equipped to replicate the strategies in your own business. There is a bonus section of the Top 10 Virtual Team-Building Mistakes and How to Avoid Them in the back of the book. You will find this indispensable. I’ll be using Virtual Freedom as a blueprint in the coming year… Rick Rick Coplin [...]

I've followed Chris's work for a while and had already learned how to delegate some of my disliked tasks to virtual assistants and I've found some good freedom in that. But this book has opened my eyes to all the repetitive tasks I'm doing that I _shouldn't_ be doing! I'm a recovering "Superhero" and I'm eager to find new ways to grow my business by focusing on what I do best while training others to handle other responsibilities. Virtual Freedom gives extremely practical tips and advice for not just how to find and work with a VA, but how to _think_ better about how I grow my business. Even before finishing the book, I already felt enlightened that now is the time to get a VA, and I'm already feeling the taste of freedom by recognizing my new potential! Before you think this book is just for six-figure-income entrepreneurs, let me tell you where I am—under $50,000 and working too hard. I see hiring a VA as not just the possibility to earn more money, but also to gain more freedom in my life and alleviate stress by investing in quality virtual assistants, training them well, and giving them the tools and freedom to succeed. I even realized that hiring a VA can help with my marriage, because Virtual Freedom is very clear that clear communication is necessary in working with a VA. And what marriage can't benefit from a habit of clearer communication? As an aside, I appreciate that while Chris Ducker owns his own VA staffing company, the book isn't all about his business and only his clients. He gives equal attention and endorsement to people who have used his competitors or found the right help on their own. Much of Chris's information has been available in other forms and other places, but Virtual Freedom so nicely collects and expands on all of it! I highly recommend this for anyone who wants more freedom, more success,

If you are reading this review, it is likely because you experience the pain of many entrepreneurs and independent workers: the bottleneck of you. You reached the limit of your passion, skill, time, and money. And you lack the resources to grow your business. You've come to the right place, because Chris Ducker has experienced your pain and found a solution that enables him to live a life of impact without burning out. He now is the CEO of 3 successful companies, and yet works 4 days a week. Your hope is in the way he does it. First, he cured himself of the SuperHero Syndrome: the temptation to feel that you must do it all in order to do it right. He was near burnout and desperate. And he realized that he had no time for his family, his greatest priority. He tells you how you can cure yourself as well. Second, he assembled a virtual work team. He decided to hire and train a host of virtual staff to offload his many administrative, management, and technical responsibilities. This freed him to focus on developing his business: vision; strategy; and creating content. In other words, the things he loved to do and the things he did best. Now he wants you to have your turn. This book builds on Ducker's success by providing you a road map for building your own virtual work team. Each section is full of practical steps for entering the virtual workplace. You will find advice on assembling your team; how to train and manage them; choosing whether to go local or overseas; and a six-month plan for getting started. Ducker wastes no space; every page is full of tips, case examples, charts, and resources to address every question you have and nearly every problem you encounter. As I worked my way through the book,these insights were especially helpful: - Once you discover the things that you enjoy doing and those tasks that you think you should do, then it is time to offload the other stuff. The first step: make your "3 Lists to Freedom:" o Tasks you don't like doing o Tasks you don't know how to do o Tasks you feel you shouldn't be doing - The "Super-VA (Virtual Assistant)" is a myth. Accept that you will never find one person to do everything you need done. You need to build a team. Start with the person who will relieve you of the necessary but time-consuming administrative tasks that will give you space to do more creative work. Then build the other members of your team as your business grows. - Remember the three factors of a good hire: o Skills o Growth potential in the new hire o Personality This book is a gold mine of practice and inspiration. Ducker has given you a rich and detailed handbook for starting and growing your business. And you will find more bonus resources in his `secret' web page for his book. This an immensely valuable book.

Very helpful book. I run a digital marketing agency where I've been doing everything myself and notice myself hoping every day that I'll somehow be able to better handle my workload. Systems are obviously key to that. But I recognize I need more people, so I grabbed this book. Most of my business' tasks can be completed from any location which makes my biz perfect for outsourcing and I need to deal with my workflow pretty much immediately. I found the book to well organized for easy learning and that it covers most basic concerns one might have about getting through hiring one's first VAs. No doubt there will be a ton of learning once actually getting into it on top of that. This book has probably saved me hours of burning brain cells in forming a plan to hire and manage VAs, and maybe has even saved me a few major headaches that I would have otherwise encountered. The $13 was a no-brainer for getting prepped for an opportunity to scale one's business in a big way.

Chris Ducker ist ein weltweit anerkannter Experte zu Outsourcing und betreibt selbst eine Firma auf den Philippinen, die virtuelle Assistenten bereitstellt. Sein Blog ist einer der führenden Blogs zum Outsourcing und sein Buch ist das langerwartete i-Tüpfelchen. Alleine schon die positiven Rezensionen von namhaften Entrepreneuren wie John Lee Dumas, Pat Flynn, Srinivas Rao, Cliff Ravenscraft, Jay Baer, Michael Hyatt und vielen weiteren zeigen, wie gut dieses Buch ist. Chris erklärt Schritt für Schritt, wie man den richtigen virtuellen Assistenten für seine Ansprüche findet, wie man Interviews mit virtuellen Assistenten führt um den richtigen VA zu finden und wie man die Arbeit mit dem VA oder einem ganzen Team von virtuellen Assistenten managed. Neben der puren Anstellung vom richtigen VA behandelt Chris in seinem Buch ebenfalls das Training von virtuellen Assistenten, damit die Aufgaben auch wie gewünscht ausgeführt werden. Er beschreibt, wie Teams aufgebaut und geführt werden und warum das Anstellen von VAs ein kapitaler Vorteil für Unternehmen sein kann! ---- This is easily the best book on outsourcing and hiring, training and managing virtual assistants. Chris Ducker is a well-known and globally respected expert on this field and his blog is leading. The book gives insights based upon Chris' experience in building businesses that are supported and leveraged by VAs. It's about finding the right VA just for your needs, training your VA so that your tasks are done correctly, building a team of VAs and managing tasks, projects and recurring to-dos for your virtual assistants. I love the real-world examples he's giving when he's taking the spotlight on successful online businesses and analyzing how those are using VAs. This book is a must-read for all entrepreneurs building online businesses!

This is a fabulous wealthy book filled with easy straightforward information to make hiring a VA easy. I had struggled and made mistakes, left feeling depressed about it ... then this book changed it all. I now have templates and all the protocols in place. Thank you thank you thank you.

If you run your own business and want to leap to the next level and create some well-deserved free time for yourself, you are crazy if you don't buy this book. Virtual freedom is a recipe for virtual success. The book is very clearly written, extremely easy to follow and stuffed full of excellent advice. I don't think I've ever folded over so many page corners in a book (I do that to remember what to go back and refer to). Thanks Chris. I am excited!

I'm about to go from being a full-time blogger to a part-time entrepreneur (I know I got it the other way around). And I'll definitely have less time to work on my stuff. But it might be an opportunity if it helps me to focus on the most ROI part of my work. However, I'll need to find someone cover my low-productive work like email management, niche site content writing, podcast transcription... Without the help of the Virtual Freedom book, I'd be lost on the way to find a VA AND to manage her well. (I had a past experience gone wrong because of lack of education). Chris' book is all about content he got from his own experience and from hundreds of other "virtual boss". This book is so helpful and will put me on a path to be a good entrepreneur, manager and leader. And my virtual staff will thank him for that ! I actually used the 10 questions to ask during an interview just yesterday. Without the direction of this book, I'd be so lost... I ordered 5 of his books and if you do so, you get great bonuses: [...] The companion book is a must !