Eradicating business overwhelm with virtual team development
Expert Authority Effect
Want the transcript? Download it here.
Episode breakdown
Have you ever had overwhelmed with your business and just thought there are all these great things you want to do, but you’re not sure how you’re going to get it done? Barbara Turley, Founder of The Virtual Hub is going to be sharing with you how you can build the team and how it’s going to impact your business for the better.
Barbara Turley’s mission is to eradicate “small business overwhelm” by simplifying the offshore outsourcing process and facilitating cost-effective business scalability. She and her team at The Virtual Hub make this happen every day through digital marketing, social media, personal assistant, and administrative support for growing businesses.
People have lives. Their life isn’t their business, even though it’s a large part of it and everyone experiences overwhelm. How do you take people out of that and get them back on that path of being productive?
- How to free up your time to grow your business
- What should a business owner do
- Why you don’t have to have experts in every role within your business
- How to let go of control
- Mistakes that business owners make
- How Barbara Turley started
- Barbara Turley’s advice
- Internal leverage concept
- Barbara Turley’s success story
- What to invest time in
- How to delegate effectively
- How efficient and cost-effective is your delivery and your operations
As businesses grow, you have to continue to evolve and develop your team, your systems, your processes
In this episode
00:00 Understanding Business Overwhelm and Delegation
The discussion opens with the topic of business overwhelm, emphasizing how common it is among entrepreneurs. Barbara Turley shares her experience and expertise in reducing overwhelm through effective delegation and virtual team development. She highlights that overwhelm is a recurring challenge and outlines the necessity of regularly reassessing workloads to stay productive.
01:32 Evaluating and Delegating Tasks Effectively
Barbara explains the importance of determining whether the business owner needs to perform specific tasks or if they can be delegated. She suggests that playing in one’s “genius zone” and identifying tasks that can be processed and outsourced are crucial steps to regaining time and focusing on growth.
03:35 The Business Owner's True Role
The conversation explores the metaphor of the business owner as the conductor of an orchestra. Barbara emphasizes that the owner should lead and oversee rather than be involved in every task, reinforcing the need to build and delegate systems.
05:10 Challenges in Finding the Right People
Barbara addresses the common complaint of not being able to find the right people to delegate to. She asserts that this is often a process problem, not a people problem. Strong systems and well-documented processes are necessary to support successful delegation, even to less experienced staff.
06:37 Mindset Barriers to Letting Go
Letting go of control is identified as a major mindset challenge. Barbara explains that business owners often fear losing control, but with the right systems, oversight, and training, it’s possible to delegate without actually losing control.
08:02 Realistic Expectations for Transition
Barbara debunks the myth that delegation and systemization can happen in seven days. She outlines realistic timelines, suggesting that true transformation typically takes six to twelve months, depending on the business’s starting point and the roles involved.
10:17 The Importance of Starting Now
Barbara and Mario stress the importance of beginning the delegation and systemization journey immediately rather than delaying. The passage of time is inevitable, and the earlier one starts, the sooner the benefits are realized.
11:39 Preparing Before Hiring
Barbara warns against hiring team members prematurely. She advises defining roles clearly, preparing processes, and planning onboarding thoroughly before adding new hires to avoid creating additional stress and inefficiencies.
13:09 Scaling Teams and Leadership Structure
As teams grow, Barbara explains, the need for structure increases. Once a team reaches a certain size, project managers or team leads become essential to prevent overload on the founder. She shares her experience at The Virtual Hub, which now has a full leadership and operational structure to manage 150 staff effectively.
15:03 Delegation and Trust in Business
The discussion begins with the importance of delegation in business growth. Many entrepreneurs fail to scale because they don’t trust others to handle responsibilities, resulting in them becoming the bottleneck. The conversation emphasizes the necessity of building systems and trusting a team to avoid burnout and to develop a sustainable, scalable business.
17:08 Commitment to Systems and Processes
Barbara Turley underscores that achieving business dreams requires commitment to systems, processes, and effective teams. Success comes not from working harder, but from creating a business machine that functions efficiently without constant personal oversight.
18:49 Accidental Beginnings of a Business
Barbara shares her journey from the corporate world to accidentally founding The Virtual Hub. Initially starting as a consultant, she stumbled into the support assistant business due to client demand. Her story illustrates how identifying and solving a common problem can organically lead to a viable business model.
20:40 Starting Lean and Focusing on Sales First
The conversation highlights that you don’t need branding or a website to start a business. Barbara emphasizes finding a problem people will pay to solve and focusing on generating sales before investing in branding or infrastructure.
22:33 Planning, Speed, and Mindset in Business Growth
The discussion turns to the importance of planning, execution speed, and mindset. Setting clear goals and understanding the journey helps entrepreneurs avoid unnecessary delays while still moving quickly and effectively toward their vision.
25:24 Business is Business – The Universal Skillset
Barbara explains that building a business is a universal skill that transcends industries. Whether you sell products or services, the foundational skills—particularly operations and systems—are crucial for sustainable growth.
26:49 The Value of Internal Leverage
The concept of internal vs. external leverage is explored. While many focus on marketing and sales, Barbara points out that operational efficiency is where real profit lies. A broken delivery system can nullify gains from increased sales.
28:36 Planning and Scaling Through Assistant Support
The need for planning when hiring support assistants is discussed. Entrepreneurs often seek help too late and without preparation. Slowing down to establish proper systems ensures smoother scaling and long-term success.
30:08 Sustainable Growth Through Team Building
Mario reflects on his experience with rapid client growth and the realization that he needed help to sustain it. The discussion reinforces that business owners must plan for scalability early to prevent breakdown and burnout.
30:44 Client Success Story and Business Transformation
Barbara Turley shares a compelling client success story involving an e-commerce business that scaled from using a single ineffective support assistant to a high-performing team of 17 support assistants. The transformation was driven by simplifying processes, strategic delegation, and ongoing consultation, resulting in a multi-million dollar enterprise.
32:36 Balancing Business Growth with Parenthood
Barbara discusses how she built a thriving business while raising two children by mastering delegation. She emphasizes the importance of investing in recruiting and developing strong systems to enable business growth without personal burnout.
34:28 Avoiding the Chaos Trap in Hiring
The conversation turns to the importance of preparation before hiring. Barbara explains that if a business is chaotic, adding staff won’t help unless there are clear systems in place. She advises taking time to slow down and plan for long-term success rather than rushing into hiring.
35:37 Relaxation After Delegation
Barbara describes the satisfaction and relaxation that comes from seeing a well-delegated team perform efficiently. For her, relaxation includes enjoying simple pleasures like listening to podcasts, doing yoga, or sipping a glass of Australian Shiraz while appreciating the results of her hard work.
37:44 Imperfect Action Round: Rapid Insights
In a series of rapid-fire questions, Barbara shares key insights:
- The fastest path to cash is solving a current, monetizable problem.
- The biggest client mistake is misaligned expectations when hiring supports assistants.
- The best customer lifetime value strategy is focusing on client success.
- An optimal model combines expensive strategists with cost-effective implementation teams.
43:11 Most Impactful Business Book
Barbara names Scaling Up by Verne Harnish as the most pivotal book for her business. It led her to significantly restructure and scale her company, and she continues to use its strategies for ongoing growth.
44:00 Resources and Next Steps
Listeners are directed to visit thevirtualhub.com/expert-authority for valuable resources, including a guide on avoiding support assistant failures and a free course on scalable success. The page also offers the option to schedule a consultation.
