Dear everyone ever (especially "a smart bear", who should know better): stop saying "leverage" when all you mean is "use".<p>"I leveraged my fingers to type this reply."<p>"I leveraged the wheels on my car to drive to work this morning."<p>Etc.<p>Please stop.
I think his advice on outsourcing marketing, sales and support to an off-shore virtual personal assistant is profoundly dangerous.<p>When you've just launched, you have no idea what parts of your product are truly helpful to your customers and which have been a waste of time to build. Before my company launched I was completely off-base as to what we should be directing attention to, and it was only through talking with early customers that we identified where the focus of effort should be directed.<p>That direction wasn't obvious, either. It was only through speaking with many customers over many weeks that a vague idea of what just might be the best thing to focus upon emerged.<p>The author states that: "If you do not outsource these tasks, they will get in the way of work that's truly productive for your business.". However, without talking directly with customers, you are unlikely to know which activities are 'truly productive for your business'.<p>Outsource support at your peril.
Wouldn't it better go get an intern for this?<p>Even with a paid intern, for minimum wage, probably even get government tax credits for a new "hire", and still end up ahead.
I'm very skeptical of virtual admins. Every time I consider it, I realize most everything I want them to do requires them to be in the city I'm in. I've seen a number of friends and colleagues e ruin relationships and look like jerks after they got their VA. It appears to come from a latent blue collar desire for status, the same one that makes people put $3,000 rims on a $2,000 car, or buy a $3,000 television when they can't afford their mortgage payments.<p>When a close friend or colleague gets a VA and starts telling e to schedule social or business events through their VA instead of doing it themselves, I stop calling them. The only word for this is Douchebag, downmod me if you will.