Fancy Hands: everyone can afford an assistant
How much of your day is dominated by menial tasks that you could easily delegate? How much money do you have set aside for an executive assistant or virtual assistant? If your answer to the first question was “a lot” and the second was “only a little,” Fancy Hands is worth a look.
For a flat fee, Fancy Hands offers an assistant who performs a variety of tasks – users pay for tasks in bundles rather than charging by the hour. Five tasks cost $25 per month, 15 tasks cost $45, 25 tasks cost $65, and paying by the year gives your company a 25 percent discount on the entire bill.
The company pitches their services as “a team of assistants ready to work for you now for less than $1 a day. Do what you love. We’ll do the rest.” Genius.
Fancy Hands features
Task requests can be done via email, phone, or the web, and is even integration with Basecamp so assignments can be done and tracked in a system you may already be using.
Fancy Hands can manage your calendar, and the best part is that when you CC “your assistant” when you need to schedule an appointment on your calendar, it doesn’t count against your bundle of tasks for the month.
They say they have a “gigantic rolodex” for all types of services so you can tap into exclusive discounts with service providers, and you can even make purchases through FancyHands (think flowers, professional gifts, plumbers, etc.), and your credit card information is kept private and secure at all times.
The company’s TeamWork tool can be given to your entire team so they too can pass off tasks that slow them down. “We’ve learned a thing or two about the benefits of friction-free collaboration, and our nationwide army of assistants will lead your people to glory,” the company explains.
Common Fancy Hands tasks
The Fancy Hands site offers the following as just a few of the many common tasks people ask their Fancy Hands assistants to do:
- Can you email my friend Amanda and tell her that we can go on that tour any Saturday at 3pm, and ask her what Saturday works best for her? Then book the tour for the two of us and add it to my calendar.
- Please call for a reservation at Hundred Acres next Thursday around 8pm. There will be 8 of us now.
- Can you find 5 banks within 5 miles from my homes that have large safe deposit boxes, and send me the monthly prices for rental? Also, do they offer month-to-month or only yearly contracts?
- My luggage is lost. Here’s the ticket number from the bag and here’s my flight info. Can you figure out where it is and how soon I can get it back? It should be delivered to my house, there’s a doorman 24 hours a day.
- Can you proofread this article that I wrote and send me any edits? Make your edits in red so I know what you’ve done.
