Leveraging your virtual teams, both locally and overseas, to co-ordinate successful projects
Virtual Success Show
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Episode breakdown
In this episode, we are given insight into a real-life project and how leveraging your virtual teams to coordinate these in a time efficient manner.
- Why it’s important to have a clear project plan from the get-go?
- How important clearly defined roles within the team really are?
- Why it’s of benefit to have ‘specialists’ fulfilling particular roles and not expecting your support assistant to be a ‘jack of all trades’?
- Why investing the time in your ‘specialists’ upfront to understand you and your business can really pay off in the end?
- Making sure you have a project management system that is the ‘glue’ to ensure everyone communicates effectively
- How important is it to have clearly defined project goals and check-in points?
- Why it is paramount to lead the project team in order to set them up for success?
Make sure that the person feels supported and that they know what they're supposed to be doing every day and where they play a part.
In this episode
00:00 - Introduction
Matt and Barbara open the show with a discussion about an event Matt recently organized. Matt explains that his virtual team handled nearly all aspects of setting up the event, and Barbara expresses excitement to learn from his experience since, despite managing large virtual teams herself, she hasn’t run an event using them yet.
01:16 – Project background
Matt describes how he came up with the idea to host a local business event in his community. After mapping out everything needed—venue, landing pages, payments, marketing—he realized the workload was overwhelming, especially with only six weeks to prepare. To manage it, he clarified the requirements, identified who could handle each task, and brought in his sister, an experienced events professional on maternity leave, to coordinate the event from home.
03:05 – The right person for the role
Barbara points out the advantage of Matt involving a trusted family member with event experience, noting that organizing events can be stressful and having someone skilled to coordinate makes the process much easier.
03:30 – A clear project plan
Matt explains that his sister’s event expertise was more valuable than just being family, since she could work independently. He shared his vision by sending her a photo of his whiteboard along with an 8-minute Camtasia video explaining the event’s goals and feel, which gave her clear context. Barbara agrees that adding voice and explanation prevents miscommunication. Matt adds that having someone local was essential for coordination, and stresses the importance of matching roles to people’s strengths and level of guidance needed.
05:55 – Clearly defining roles within the project team
Matt explains that after assigning his sister Rose to lead the event, he introduced her to all team members and clarified her leadership role. He stresses the importance of maintaining leadership even with a virtual team, rather than just handing tasks to a support assistant without structure. To organize the project, he connected Rose with his assistant Vanessa, who put tasks into Asana for clarity. Matt also involved Alex, a support assistant from Romania who specializes in slide preparation, highlighting how he set clear agreements with him for efficient and consistent results. Barbara reinforces that clarity in team roles is critical to avoid confusion and gaps in responsibility.
10:06 – Different people have different skill sets
Barbara highlights the importance of recognizing different team members’ specialized skills instead of expecting one support assistant to handle everything. She points out Alex’s expertise in creating slide decks and asks how long it took for Matt to align him with his style. Matt replies that it only took 2–3 projects for Alex to fully understand his preferences.
10:46 – Investing the time upfront to get it right
Barbara stresses that creative work like slides or images takes trial, feedback, and patience, not instant perfection. Matt shares that by providing clear explanations through mind maps and audio, revisions are minimal and outsourcing saves him significant time and money. He recalls that while the first project required more revisions (30–40%), Alex’s openness, effort to understand, and willingness to communicate made him a valuable long-term partner. Both agree that investing time upfront in training and communication with team members pays off massively in the long run, regardless of cost.
15:00 – Setting clearly defined project roles
Barbara recaps the roles of Matt’s team: Alex on slides, Rose on project management, and Vanessa managing Asana. Matt explains that while he was on a week-long family holiday, his team made major progress—shortlisting venues, setting a copywriter briefing, drafting a landing page, and preparing tasks. When he returned, he only needed to finalize the venue, brief Alex, and focus on filling the room. Barbara asks how expectations were set before his holiday, and Matt explains everything was clearly outlined in Asana.
16:55 – Don’t make assumptions…
Barbara highlights that Matt’s success came from clearly leading and setting his team up, rather than assuming they’d know what to do. She stresses that many people fail by making assumptions, which can be dangerous.
17:15 – Have clear project milestones
Matt explains that before his holiday, he set clear expectations with Rose, Vanessa, and the copywriter, including scheduled meetings and deliverables. Barbara emphasizes the importance of distinguishing real meetings from casual chats, highlighting that Matt provided clear agendas and milestones. Both agree that effective leadership means defining deadlines and success criteria for support assistants, whether for big projects or daily tasks.
18:52 – Don’t just have a deadline, have check-in points as well
Barbara stresses that leaders shouldn’t just set deadlines but also establish milestone check-ins to catch issues early and keep projects on track. Matt agrees, sharing that after his briefing, he set clear deadlines with the copywriter, finalized the venue, and created marketing emails. Vanessa executed the email campaigns targeting their database, LinkedIn, and local contacts. Both confirm that the team collaborated in Asana, with Matt assigning tasks and Vanessa carrying them out.
21:19 – Driving the strategy
Barbara and Matt emphasize the importance of expectation management with support assistants. Matt confirms that he drives the strategy while his support assistant executes, rather than expecting her to be a strategist. Barbara shares a personal lesson where unclear role definitions left her support assistant feeling overwhelmed and inadequate, highlighting the need to support support assistants with clear responsibilities. Matt adds that experience has taught him to align team members with their strengths or “genius,” which makes projects run smoothly—like an orchestra working in harmony.
24:55 – Dealing with project curve balls
Matt shares that the only “hiccup” during the event was the room being too small due to high turnout—a positive problem that Rose quickly solved by offering alternatives. He praises her professionalism, noting how she sent a detailed pre-event email outlining every step, which impressed him. Barbara points out that this level of detail comes from Rose’s experience, not something to expect from every support assistant. Matt emphasizes that the event ran smoothly because each person played to their strengths, and surprisingly, the total labor cost for organizing the event was only AUD $230, showing the value of skilled support.
27:36 – Being a leader
Barbara stresses that while Matt had a team in place, he still drove the strategy and acted as the “conductor of the orchestra.” Delegating doesn’t mean abandoning leadership—it requires guiding the team. She explains that being an effective conductor takes expertise and experience, and early on, delegation can feel like more work before the real time-saving benefits show up. Matt agrees, adding that once you know how to lead correctly, the effort becomes minimal and highly effective.
29:27 – How to be a GREAT leader
Matt explains that being a great “conductor” in business starts with having clarity on what success looks like. It’s also about making sure the right people are in the right roles based on their skills, using a proper project management system like Asana or Trello instead of relying on email, and breaking projects into smaller tasks with clear milestones and check-in points. Barbara adds that success comes from giving each person a clear role, defined responsibilities, and ensuring regular reporting.
They both emphasize that leading effectively is a learned skill, not something people are born with. Matt admits he once struggled with lists, milestones, and meetings but grew through practice, while Barbara credits her corporate background for her structure. They agree that building systems, processes, and leading teams is what truly separates successful entrepreneurs from those who only achieve mediocre results.
34:57 – Wrapping things up
Barbara closes by stressing that many entrepreneurs settle for mediocre results because they avoid the hard work of building systems and skills. Outstanding results are achievable if you commit and follow the formula consistently. Matt agrees, adding that using virtual teams effectively can save both time and money when managed well. They wrap up by reflecting on what they’ve learned from each other, encouraging listeners to apply the insights and tune in for the next episode.
