What if you want to use marketing to reach more people, but you feel you are taking advantage of people because you don't pay them, for example. After all, they want to help you voluntarily. What will you do?
I received a marketing question from someone, and I always like questions related to business or entrepreneurship.
So recently is got the question from someone who felt they were taking advantage of people because they volunteered to help them with marketing.
Working with volunteers
I have the following to say about that:
People who want to volunteer to do it, go with it. What's also good to do then is appreciate them. You can do this by getting them gifts.
In fact, research shows that people need to feel some degree of pride about their volunteer work and that appreciation from the organization is important[1].
For example, if you look at Tony Robbins, he works with many volunteers and he gives them all a shirt. This makes them feel part of a team and super connected to his company. They also take pride in the work because they are helping people.
So you can look at how other entrepreneurs working with volunteers are doing this. What are they giving those people?
Often this is just appreciation. This is something people want.
Second, they want to belong somewhere.
That leaves the question: How do you come up with the idea of using people? Because if people want it, how do you take advantage of them?
On the other hand: Sure you make use of them, but they want to. Otherwise, they're not volunteers.
Abusing people is quite another thing.
That might be a feeling that's playing up, but you can also ask.
"Do you want this?"
"Yes"
And then you can take advantage of it.
People also do this for their own reasons. Maybe to learn things from it. Maybe to be involved in the process. Maybe to see how you do something to copy it, that they can do it the same way.
Research also shows that people who volunteer are more likely to get back to work sooner[2]. So in that respect, it can also be a business decision to actually do some work on this.
So there can be all kinds of reasons why they don't need to get money, but why they want to be there.
I myself am someone who does pay people, because I'm not into gifts and things like that. But that's a choice.
Another reason I pay is because I think it makes people feel more responsible , but that's my own limiting belief in my head.
Now I hear people thinking "I've been working with volunteers for a long time and it works super well."
People pay
The follow-up question was "I want to hire people, or work with them on a self-employed basis, but what am I going to pay them? I want a virtual assistant, but what should I pay someone like that?"
This is always interesting and the rule of thumb is often cheap is expensive. That's not always true. Volunteers, that includes super good people.
And cheap, too, people with lower hourly rates or those with higher hourly rates.
You would think that someone with a higher hourly rate would be better than someone with a lower hourly rate, but you don't know.
My advice is to hire three people and give all three the same assignment. When you get the assignment back, you'll know who you want to continue with.
You may have certain criteria for that, such as:
Speed
Maybe person A has it ready the next day, person B a week later, and person C has yet to come. Then C drops out.
A then still has an edge over B.
Quality
So is B better than A in terms of the quality of what it delivers? If not, then go with A.
Origin, qualifications and the like don't matter then. What matters is whether the person delivers something qualitative within a certain period of time.
What if you have a lot of candidates?
You may have many more people to choose from. For example, you post a job posting then you can do the following to quickly see who is secular and not.
You make a whole chunk of text out of the job posting and in the last paragraph you instruct people to email you and in the subject of the email put in capital letters MY resume.
Then, when people email you and they haven't, you already know that they haven't read everything carefully and so may not be secure enough. Or not suitable, depending on the job you want to give them.
Because if that assignment already fails, will the rest succeed? I got this tip from others who receive a lot of job applications. They then email the people without MY resume in the subject line that they didn't make it and with the rest they move on in the process.
It depends a bit on what kind of job it is, but if you want a Virtual Assistant to deal with marketing you'll want them to be meticulous about it.
In addition, a video interview can also be nice, because you see and hear someone and can get an immediate picture of them. This also gives you a sense of whether or not someone is a good fit for your company.
The price doesn't really matter. If someone is good for 30 euros, that's fine. If someone is 10 times as good for 100 euros an hour, then 100 euros is a good investment. It's going to get you a lot then, but sometimes the people who charge 100 euros an hour are the people who do the work of 3 to 5 people you would hire for 40 euros an hour.
I am beginning to realize this more and more the longer I am in business.
If you don't have that budget. Then you can go for someone cheaper. If it's good, it's good, but the quality or speed might not be as good. Sometimes you get lucky and hit someone who doesn't know exactly what they are worth.
Often though, if you have higher priced people you are in a better place in terms of quality.
Artificial Intelligence
And perhaps the best tip: Have you thought about AI? Because when it comes to texts, ChatGPT can help you with that just fine, and there are many other AI possibilities.
Deepl helps you with translations of texts, for example. Much better than Google.
You also have Typetone.ai. That is also a text generator that is better than ChatGPT. That will cost you a little per month and it can generate texts.
ChatGPT can also create images. So you don't necessarily have to do that in Canva either.
If you take out a few subscriptions to that, you'll be able to design just fine.
ChatGPT's account is also full of plugins to help you with all sorts of things.
Customer service is possible with a Chatbot.
Your website, meanwhile, can even be created by AI.
You may even wonder if you need anyone else.
Or you just need someone to help you do well with AI, and I do think we are moving in that direction.
So you want a virtual assistant who can work with the tools of AI.
So this can also be a criterion to use whether someone may help you with this.
Because if someone charges 100 euros per hour, but that person works with all those tools, they do get an awful lot of work done in that one hour. Maybe 100 times as much.
Then it's not expensive at all compared to that person getting 30 euros an hour who can't do this. Those you have to pay much more for the same output, what they get done, because they spend longer. Or you have to hire 100 people to get it done that fast.
On websites such as Upwork, you can find many professionals who work with it.
So if you want to expand, now is the time to select for people who can work with AI. After all, those tools are going to take over the world.
The younger generation is growing up with it and they are just going to use those tools. That will be the biggest change from work. A lot of work will be done by AI.
Is AI better than a human?
You may ask, why go to a human when a computer can do it better? Already many surgeries are done by robots. Blood tests by computers.
Those robots are very important because it is such precise work that if it goes wrong the consequences are great. A robot has a very steady hand and always has its day. A robot can make a mistake especially if the computer fails.
A doctor can make a mistake if they are not having their day or get nervous about something.
People will continue to be needed, of course. To keep fine-tuning such a computer, for example. Because after every mistake, an update can be made.
Also watch this video:
Hypnosis for your biological computer
This blog contained mostly entrepreneurial tips, and I suppose with all this information, you can determine whether you are taking advantage of people or not. Entrepreneurship is often also a mindset game and you can improve that with hypnosis.
Want to learn more about hypnosis? Then come to the free online master class.
Or register for one of our events or trainings.
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