VMP 062: How To Create Your Veterinary Marketing Dream Team

One thing that I keep seeing over and over with the veterinary industry is that everyone has TONS on their plate. It shouldn't really be a suprise with as much work as a veterinary hospital sees that there simply isn't time for marketing activities like content creation. On this week's episode I go over how to use virtual assistants or freelancers to do marketing activities for your veterinary practice. 

In case you don't know, virtual assistants or freelancers are people who are skilled at specific task that you are looking to achieve and will work for you on an as needed basis. Often times, virtual assistants are found in different parts of the world where the currency echange rates and costs of living help to create situations where you can find highly qualified workers for aa really reasonable rate. I've had lots of luck finding virtual assistants in India and the Philipines who do amazing work at really affordable rates. 

When thinking about what kind of tasks you want to outsource think about these three questions: what Do I don't have time to do, what do I dislike doing and what am I bad at? These are things you can outsource. One thing you need to do for sure is define what the task description is, what is involved in the process and what the desired outcome is. This should be easily definable and measurable. Being able to measure the outcome is crucial because if you can't measure the outcome you won't be able to tell if it is worth outsourcing. 

Once you've definied what you want to outsource, create a job description and go to a site like upwork.com or guru.com and post an ad. There you'll get dozens of applicants. You can see how many people have used the applicant, view reviews and see resumes. Often times you'll get people applying who are asking between $3-$20 per hour depending on skills and location. After having the job posting up for a few days I then select two or three applicants to test.  The test that you have applicants do is really important because you want virtual assistants or freelancers who will read the emails that you send, follow instructions and make your life easier. If they don't read the instructions or follow the instructions you give them explicitly you will have a difficult time getting work done the way you want it. 

For example if I have a person who I want to create graphics for my content, I'll create a test where they have to read the article I've written, get an idea of what it is about create 3 graphics that convey the same idea but are in 3 specific sizes and then email the result to a specific email address. I'll make the graphic sizes a really specific size to make sure they read the email and follow all the instructions. 

Creating a template along the way is very important as well because you'll likely have to re-use the process you create every once in a while. You don't want to have to reinvent the wheel every time you need someone to do some freelance work for your veterinary practice.