Having a virtual assistant is almost a necessity for today’s budding entrepreneur. You know that you simply cannot do it all alone, but you may not be profitable enough in the beginning to hire more staff members. A virtual assistant could be the perfect answer, but the process is not without its challenges. How do you find the right person? How do you train them for what you need them to do? How do you know what to delegate and what to handle yourself? We’re covering all these questions and more in today’s show!
Barbara Turley is an inventor, entrepreneur, and founder and CEO of The Virtual Hub, a business she started mostly by happenstance. Her business exploded in the space of 12 months to become one of the leading companies to recruit, train, and manage virtual assistants in digital marketing and social media space for businesses. If you have a business where you need to free up your time and energy so you can go to the next level, then this is the episode for you! Getting the right support as an entrepreneur is critical, and Barbara is on a mission to eradicate small business overwhelm with a new virtual assistant model. In this episode, Barbara shares the art and science of using VA’s to scale your business, why outsourcing with VA’s is the new lean business model, when you should fire your VA, and the top 5 reasons someone can fail with a VA, and how to fix it.
Barbara’s path to The Virtual Hub
Barbara spent time in the money industry as an equity trader, and she accidentally fell into what she does today. Back in the beginning, she got involved in an Australian distribution company but wanted something more. She had the vision to build something impactful, so she started doing business coaching and helping women in their relationships with money. Noticing the complete overwhelm and the vicious cycle of needing to make more money to hire more help, Barbara saw the need to recruit and train VA’s to help fill the need. Seeing the problem and formulating a workable solution was the precursor to The Virtual Hub.
How Barbara helps her clients with their first problem
Barbara wanted to lift her small business owners out of the pain of their overwhelm and help them make more money. Through providing quality VA’s, she’s seen these small businesses grow, acquire more staff, and create happier entrepreneurs. Through her company in the Philippines, she’s trained many people to become VA’s and have successful and fulfilling careers outside the toxic call center industry that is so prevalent. The VA training she provides around the world secures a better life for many people and their families.
The 2nd problem
Barbara began with a webinar about becoming a VA, and her business exploded. The growth brought with it intense overwhelm for Barbara in dealing with the problems her clients were having with their VA’s. If the first problem was finding VA’s to help small businesses, then the second problem was teaching clients to delegate effectively. She realized that her clients needed systems, processes, and project management tools to deal with outsourced staff members. Assuming that everyone had basic communication skills and guidelines was not working, so she built training programs for clients to increase the effectiveness of their VA.
The 3rd problem
Can you guess what the next obstacle was for Barbara? She describes it as “an HR minefield of using offshore staff, especially Filipino or Indian people.” The VA’s would say they were working when they weren’t and generally display no integrity in their work. They would report on their resumes that they had certain skills and experience that they didn’t have. Barbara confronted the problem by rebuilding the entire business to recruit and train VA’s differently. Now, she uses a six – week recruitment process that results in long lead times but high success rates.
What to consider if you think you’re ready for a VA
To work successfully with a VA, you have to be detail-oriented in delegating tasks. It’s better to have a process of how you want things done and work with your VA to deliver, implement, and execute that process properly. You have to know what you want in your business and have a recurring task list, process, and project list. You have to decide the VA’s role and what you’ll delegate to them, and look for good character and strong work ethic in a VA. The primary thing to discern about a VA is whether they can follow a process.
Why a VA and a project manager are not the same
The VA role has grown over the years to encompass a broad range of tasks, but it was originally intended to be someone who is an assistant to your process and system, and one who drives your machine in the way that you teach them. A project manager takes your vision and develops a project plan with timelines to accomplish the end result. Some VA’s can handle project management tasks, but a project manager is not there to do the grunt work. Be careful not to confuse the two roles.
Using a VA to scale your business
Barbara’s podcast, The Virtual Success Show, covers all topics related to using a VA in your business. Look it up and take a listen if you need information on a particular aspect of working with a VA. She says the hardest part is going from solopreneur to hiring your first VA because it takes so much work. Once you add more VA’s, you have to manage team dynamics, which is a different challenge altogether. If you have too many people reporting to you, then you need a project manager. She says the key is to understand the journey and the pain points along the way. Every business can use her model and use it to leverage resources and make more money.
The guiding light
Entrepreneurs usually make the mistake of creating their business vision and then creating the business model that drives their personal life. Barbara says to define the lighthouse for your personal life first. For her, she identified freedom and motherhood as her priorities and then structured her business around those. She can still run a big business and impact other people’s lives, but not at the expense of her own.
The new superwoman
Barbara’s personality drives her to know what she wants and then prove that she can have it. She wanted to show that a woman can run a business, be a mother, and delegate effectively to her team. With a little bit of money, she’s learned to lead her team and gain the freedom to live the life she wants. “To do none of it but to run all of it is the new superwoman model.” Now she’s busy preparing her business for when she has her second child later this year.
Learning to lead teams
Solving problems will build a more powerful business. Learning along the way will happen organically as you grow and deal with the problems in leading your team, and learning occurs in a domino effect. Communication is the key as a team grows. Barbara saw mistakes that were happening in her team, so she implemented a daily huddle, even in a virtual environment, and saw massive improvements.
How to fire someone
Barbara says that if you start with specific expectations and the right systems and processes, then you may not have to fire someone. Simply setting expectations in how you want your VA to communicate with you on a daily basis will eliminate a lot of frustration. Set expectations for what failure looks like and what doing a good job looks like. It’s important to identify these expectations for yourself from the very beginning.
Negative feedback
Barbara admits that dealing with conflict is a personal weakness of hers because it’s something she doesn’t like to do. Most people deal with negative feedback by using the sandwich approach, where the negative is sandwiched between two pieces of positive feedback. Barbara doesn’t like to use criticism but prefers to have sessions where she asks the team member to rate themselves regarding specific tasks. Surprisingly, people are usually honest in responding to this questioning, and it makes a much more collaborative approach than simply blasting someone with negative feedback.
Highlights of this Episode:
- 2:25 – How Barbara came into the VA business by accident
- 7:55 – The problem she saw and could solve
- 11:57 – The 2nd problem
- 17:13 – How to know if you’re ready for a VA
- 21:45 – A project manager vs. a virtual assistant
- 26:05 – Using VA’s to scale your business
- 29:51 – The new lean business model
- 31:27 – The driving force in Barbara’s work
- 36:45 – The new superwoman
- 41:17 – Learning to lead teams
- 45:31 – How to fire someone
- 49:11 – Advice on handling conflict
- 52:41 – Fem Five
Resources mentioned:
- www.thevirtualhub.com
- Barbara on LinkedIn
- Visit www.thevirtualhub.com/nextfem for three free gifts for NextFem listeners!
- Barbara’s free mini-guide, “The 5 reasons people fail with VA’s and how to fix them”
- Barbara’s 7 – part video course, “The Scalable Business Success Formula”
- A free strategy call with one of Barbara’s consultants
- Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You by John Warrillow
The Fem Five:
1. Favorite book to recommend for women?
- Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You by John Warrillow
2. Favorite self – care hack?
- “Whenever I’m overwhelmed, I take a shower. There is a calming effect from the water, and then I can face anything.”
3. Best piece of advice and who gave it to you?
- “A close friend taught me an Arabic proverb that says, ’The dogs may be barking, but the caravan still passes’.”
4. Female CEO or thought leader you’re into right now?
- Dr. Pippa Malmgren, the American economic analyst
5. One piece of advice you’d give your five years younger self?
- “You’ve got this. Keep moving forward.”
Last Time on The NextFem Podcast
Doing Politics Before It Does You – with Simone Leiro
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