We know that part of being able to keep going is taking a little time to relieve some stress. With that in mind we have just released CBG Rocks!.  CBG Rocks! is an online game that is like “Asteroids” but the asteroids are heads of famous people with a few “guest rocks” added in.

We will be changing the “rocks” based on player comments. Whose heads will be there next week? Subscribe to our RSS feed to find out. Be sure to leave a comment to let us know your high score.

Now it’s time to play. Click here to go to the game page or click the CBG Rocks! tab at the top.

A post on SEOish brought to my attention a new buzz monitor tool called Serph, a search engine designed to reveal who’s talking about you on the internet, so I decided to investigate.

While the results were significantly less than doing a search in Google (19 vs 39,700), like SEOish points out from his own experiment, I found a couple of mentions of that I wasn’t previously aware of. Another bonus is that they are arranged by date order.

The results were somewhat interesting, but I was still curious about huge discrepancy in the number of results. What were the other 39,681 results that Google found? Many of the Google results were self published articles and press releases. Interesting, but not useful when trying to find out about your buzz factor on the internet so I went in search of a happy medium and found that Google’s blog search feature offered similar types results to that of Serph, but more of them.

Though Google’s Blog search doesn’t order results by date as Serph does, you can define date parameters on the right hand side of the results page.

Both of these are easy and quick enough that they are both worth checking out. Discovering who’s talking about you and why, can open the door to business building and partnership ideas that you may not have previously considered.

I can hear it now, “What?? All this time you and others have been telling us about the benefits of hiring virtual assistants and now you tell us there are pitfalls?” I feel like the old Endust commercial And now Pledge says to watch for build-up? It’s as true with hiring virtual assistants as it is with anything else – there are common pitfalls and you, as a consumer, must be aware of and you must protect yourself.

Unfortunately, as the industry grows and as more and more people think they can be virtual assistants; bad apples are bound to pop up. Our company alone has seen an increase from 500 VAs in 2003 to 18,000+ currently and growing at a rate of about 200 per week. So let’s talk about the pitfalls and how you can avoid them and protect yourself.

But, But, But, I Must Be An Employee!

If you’ve only heard one thing about virtual assistants and the benefits of hiring them it is that they are supposed to be independent contractors. I recently read a blog post that claimed that eventually companies would be required to bring virtual assistants on as employees rather than independent contractors. I just had to laugh! How in the world can someone who self-directs how they do the work be considered an employee? And as a business owner you don’t want employees. That’s why you hired or are considering hiring a virtual assistant in the first place. You didn’t want the employee I want and I deserve mentality.

I disagree 100% with the opinion of the blog post that claimed virtual assistants will need to be employees. There’s no need for them to be employees. Here are some of the items that you and I, as consumers, need to do to ensure that we set virtual assistants up so we are NOT ever required to set them up as employees.

• W9. When you contract a virtual assistant, always ask that they complete a W9 (tax reporting form) and send it to your company BEFORE he or she begins working. This form will give you the virtual assistant’s social security number or EIN number and information for tax reporting purposes.
• EIN a.k.a. Employee Identification Number a.k.a. Federal ID number. As an added line of defense, you should ask every virtual assistant or contractor you hire to obtain an EIN from the government. This number alone shows that they are operating as their own entity and not as an employee of your company. They may be Jane Doe d.b.a. Jane Doe Virtual Assistants but it strengthens the argument that they are not employees but rather entities in and of themselves and will keep you out of hot water with the state’s departments for employee relations. The virtual assistant can obtain an EIN online in about 5 minutes and it’s free.
• Contract. Anyone and everyone who hires a virtual assistant must have a contract executed between your company and the VA. The contract should spell out the relationship (that of a contractor and not an employee), the duties (what will she be doing for you and what will you do for her), the rate of pay (what are you going to pay him), where are any arising court battles fought, and so on.

Oh Tax Man!

Because a virtual assistant is set up as an independent contractor, you do not need to withhold state or federal taxes, 401(k), Medicare, FICA, or any other employee-related acronym. As an independent contractor, a business entity of their own, it is up to the virtual assistant to obtain his or her own retirement plan, medical insurance, file quarterly and yearly taxes, etc.

However, be absolutely sure that you send the virtual assistant a 1099 Miscellaneous Income tax form (in lieu of a W2, which employees only receive) each year.

Shhhhh…Don’t Tell!

The last thing you want to happen is for a virtual assistant to walk away with your company’s important information if the relationship turns south. It is absolutely imperative that you have your attorney design a non-compete/non-disclosure agreement and then make sure your virtual assistant signs and returns the agreement before beginning any work for your company.

In my next article, Avoiding Virtual Assistant Performance Pitfalls, we’ll go over the things you need to be aware of and look for in the virtual assistant while hiring the non-regulatory things.

Guest Post by: Gayle Buske, President and CEO, Team Double-Click
Team Double-Click, Inc. provides virtual assistance for small and home-based businesses. Visit Team Double Click’s Web site at http://www.teamdoubleclick.com or phone 888.827.9129. Click to receive your free report, 101 Ways To Work With A Virtual Assistant.

If you would like to be a Guest Poster, contact David @ Create Business Growth dot com.