How to scale smarter with Support Assistants
Better than Before
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Episode breakdown
Barbara Turley is an investor and entrepreneur and a founder and the CEO of The Virtual Hub, a business that she started by accident that exploded in the space of 12 months to become one of the leading companies that recruits trains and manages virtual assistants for businesses who need to free up time and energy so they can go to the next level with a strong focus on customized training and ongoing career development.
Barbara ensures that her team is trained in cutting edge programs like HubSpot, Ontraport, and some others to best meet their client’s unique needs in digital marketing, social media, personal assistant services, and administrative support.
Barbara is an adventure lover with a passion for horses, skiing, tennis, and spending time in nature.
- How Barbara Turley started The Virtual Hub
- Why using support assistance as an outsourcing tool is the new lean business model
- Know what to delegate and where you’re spending your time
- The reasons why people fail with support assistants
- How to know when having support assistants is not working for you
- When to add another support assistant to your team
“I sort of see the job of the business owner or the business operator, as the person who needs to kind of facilitate the system, process team structures and to get those things moving”
In this episode
00:08 Podcast Introduction and Overview
Tony Richards opens the show by introducing the podcast’s theme of business leadership and communication. He teases the guest, Barbara Turley, and highlights the month’s focus on improving communication in leadership.
00:42 Introduction of Barbara Turley and Her Business
Tony introduces Barbara Turley, CEO of The Virtual Hub, and discusses her background, including her move from a corporate career to entrepreneurship. Barbara shares how she started The Virtual Hub by accident while consulting for small businesses and realizing the universal need for scalable staffing solutions through support assistants.
04:13 Growth of The Virtual Hub and Personal Journey
Barbara recounts the rapid growth of her company, including expanding to 150 staff in the Philippines. She also shares her personal journey as a mother and entrepreneur, emphasizing the challenges and triumphs of balancing both roles.
07:39 Common Objections to Using Support Assistants
Barbara discusses typical objections from business owners about hiring support assistants, such as trust issues and skepticism about remote work. She highlights how the pandemic accelerated digital transformation, making support staffing more acceptable and practical.
10:46 Support Assistants as Part of a Lean Business Model
Barbara explains how outsourcing tasks to support assistants aligns with a lean business model. She emphasizes the inefficiency of having high-level executives perform administrative tasks that can be easily delegated, leading to better productivity and lower operational costs.
12:56 Overcoming the “I Don’t Have Enough Work” Mentality
Barbara addresses the misconception that there isn’t enough work for a support assistant. She explains how initial delegation often reveals more tasks and how structuring a business into departments can help identify and offload recurring responsibilities.
14:50 Five Reasons Support Assistant Relationships Fail
Barbara outlines key reasons why outsourcing support assistants may not work for some businesses, such as mindset, poor communication, lack of processes, and unclear expectations. She advises focusing on systems and processes before blaming personnel and distinguishing between skill and will issues when assessing performance.
20:05 Clarification on Team Member Identity
Tony asks about someone named Peter involved in their email correspondence, and Barbara clarifies that Peter is her brother, not a support assistant.
21:03 Building a Team from One Support Assistant to a Corporate Structure
Barbara shares her journey from hiring a single support assistant to eventually creating a corporate team of 30, including leadership roles like Head of HR and Head of Operations. She outlines the natural growth path from solo entrepreneur to structured organization and explains how support assistants can evolve into project managers or team leads as the business scales.
22:42 When to Add Another Support Assistant or a Manager
She describes the clear signs it’s time to add another support assistant—usually when tasks start slipping or one support assistant becomes overwhelmed. When managing 5–7 people directly consumes all your time, it’s time to insert a team lead or project manager to maintain efficiency.
23:52 Using a High-Low Strategy for Advanced Tasks
For specialized tasks like advanced marketing strategy, Barbara recommends a “high-low” model—hire a strategist for a few hours a month to plan, while the support executes. This keeps costs down and efficiency up without stretching support assistants beyond their skill set.
25:16 Knowing a Support Assistant’s Limits and Being Ready
Barbara stresses the importance of matching a VA’s role to their abilities and the client’s readiness. She cautions against expecting VAs to function as strategists and shares that The Virtual Hub will honestly advise clients if they’re not ready to hire.
26:41 Defining the Ideal Client Through Mindset, Not Size
Rather than revenue or company size, The Virtual Hub prioritizes client mindset. Ideal clients value systems, delegation, and team integration. Many use tools like Asana, Trello, G Suite, and HubSpot, and often work in digital marketing.
28:44 Lightning Round Personal Insights
In a quickfire Q&A, Barbara reflects on her childhood memory of city lights, names her mother as her hero, and shares her core value: freedom. She lists sleep as her favorite thing, crunchy breadsticks as her favorite food, and Santorini as the most beautiful place she’s visited. She defines success as freedom and wants to be remembered as someone who believed in people until they believed in themselves.
34:53 Final Resources and Contact Information
Barbara provides a special link for listeners to access free resources from The Virtual Hub, including a mini-guide on why support assistants fail and an e-course on scalable business systems. She invites listeners to book a consult with her team to explore hiring a support assistant.
35:15 Closing Remarks and End of Interview
Tony thanks Barbara and wraps up the conversation, expressing admiration for her mission and hoping to stay connected in the future.
36:33 Leadership & Business Lesson – Communication Without “But”
Tony’s closing lesson focuses on communication. He advises replacing “but” with “and” to create more constructive, inclusive dialogue. He expands the idea to mindset, urging listeners to replace either/or thinking with both/and for better problem-solving and communication.
