123Employee: Hire the help. Bring the plan.

David Seagraves had ideas. What he needed was a database. In a testimonial published by 123Employee, the TrepMula founder describes a week spent getting organized with his virtual assistant: sorting out the system, clarifying his directions and preparing the work. Only then did the database begin to take shape. It is a small detail in a sales testimonial, and a revealing one. Before another person could make him more productive, he had to make his intentions legible.

The brief comes before the bargain

123Employee occupies an appealing corner of the outsourcing market: the owner who has enough work for another pair of hands, but little appetite for building another desk, recruiting another employee or becoming an amateur IT department. Its small-business site pitches dedicated assistants to marketers and entrepreneurs. Its service menu reaches from research to customer support. The promise is room in the day.

The useful complication is that room must first be made in the instructions. Seagraves’s account does not begin with instant freedom. It begins with preparation. Another company-published testimonial, from John Fariss of Worldwide Travel Plan, describes assistants taking on appointments, email deployment, telemarketing and social media work. These are customers’ accounts, rather than independently measured results. Still, they put a recognisable shape on the purchase: a collection of recurring jobs moves off the owner’s desk.

A remote worker with a very real office

Founded by Daven Michaels, 123Employee dates its opening to February 2006, with ten employees. The company subsequently described a workforce of hundreds and three outsourcing centers in the Philippines. Its stated aim is to make outsourcing affordable while creating opportunities for Filipino workers. That combination explains its position: international staffing delivered in a format a smaller business can buy.

“Virtual” describes the client’s relationship with the worker. On the other side of the connection are ordinary workplace requirements: computers, supervisors, telephone equipment, internet and electricity. 123Employee’s about page describes redundant voice and data systems and backup generators. Those claims are part of its sales proposition. The customer is buying access to an existing operation, as well as a person’s time.

A freelancer hired directly can provide a dedicated relationship too. The distinction here is the surrounding management and infrastructure. A local employee offers another arrangement again, with the workplace and employment administration closer to the buyer. The sensible comparison is how much responsibility each option leaves with you. Geography is only part of the bill.

Three packages, one useful calculation

The public small-business pricing page lists three monthly packages. Silver provides 40 hours for $597; Gold provides 80 for $897; Platinum provides 160 for $1,387. Dividing the listed fee by the listed hours gives the effective rates below. These are calculations from published packages, rather than an assistant’s wage or a quotation for every possible assignment.

The same page describes American management support, a computer, connectivity and telephone features. It says clients provide a job description, are matched with candidates and can meet their assistant before billing starts. That makes the brief part of the buying process. A vague request gives the matching team less to work with.

The lower hourly figure at 160 hours is attractive only if those hours have useful assignments. An idle hour remains an expense. For an owner considering the service, the first calculation should therefore concern demand: what work recurs, how long does it take and what result would justify handing it over? Buying a larger package cannot answer those questions.

The work between the big ideas

The service guide is unusually helpful because it draws boundaries. Its task lists include maintaining social profiles, scheduling posts, uploading podcasts, posting articles and videos, researching information, filtering email and setting appointments. Much of this is the work between a decision and its delivery. Somebody still has to publish the thing, tidy the list and send the agreed reply.

“Your 123Employee Agent is NOT a marketing consultant, they cannot design your strategy.”123Employee Service Guide

The guide recommends delegating a few key tasks and working from a strategy the client has already tested. It also distinguishes routine execution from work requiring further information or training. An assistant can send a standard response; a question requiring an unfamiliar judgment needs guidance. That boundary matters more than the length of the service menu.

A practical reading is to begin with one repeatable assignment. Supply a finished example, explain the acceptable result and specify which exceptions should come back to you. Review the first attempts before adding volume. This is an application of the guide’s advice, rather than a guaranteed company outcome. It is also useful preparation for hiring almost anyone.

The telephone opens another door

123Employee’s website has a second entrance for enterprise customers. Here the language shifts toward voice operations: inbound calls, telemarketing, help desk, technical support, monitoring, appointment setting and operational support. The enterprise site advertises custom packages that can scale with a client’s needs. Its listed industries include retail, communications, financial services and travel.

The enterprise pricing page displays $1,497 per agent plus a 10 percent management fee, without identifying the billing period beside that figure. It is best read as a published starting point for a proposal. The enterprise model requires a different conversation from choosing an assistant package: call handling, staffing requirements and the scope of support have to be defined.

The ambition to move further into larger accounts appears in a December 2012 investor presentation. It proposed acquiring and merging with SupportSave, describing a combination of small-business and corporate outsourcing. The document records an intended direction. Its proposed transaction and financial projections should be read as plans, rather than achievements. The revealing feature is the desire to sell the operation to another kind of customer.

Freedom takes a little management

The company has also sold education around delegation. A historical New Wealth & Freedom workshop offer bundled 40 hours of assistant service with a three-day event, connecting instruction to implementation. Michaels’s book, Outsource This!, belongs to the same wider pitch. Learn how to delegate, then put someone to work on the plan. In that arrangement, preparation becomes part of the product’s appeal.

Inside the operation, the enterprise culture page describes school support, a charity fun run and a tree-planting program called 12Tree Employee. It also names an employee-to-entrepreneur initiative. The company connects team building and community service with employee retention. These are its descriptions of workplace programs, without a published retention measure attached.

For the buyer, the fit is clearest when the work is repeatable, the instructions are teachable and someone has time to review the output. A business seeking an original strategy, an undefined specialist skill or unsupervised judgment has a different assignment to fill. The attraction of 123Employee is practical: another person can keep useful work moving. The owner’s first job is to give that person something clear to do.