Ways to grow your agency with Support Assistants
Build a Better Agency
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Episode breakdown
Before the ’08 recession, most agency owners couldn’t fathom the idea of remote employees, let alone working with a support assistant they’d likely never meet. But with sites like UpWork and elance teaching us that sometimes it makes good business sense to source work from with someone we’ve never met, the concept of working with support assistants has grown in popularity.
In my world, on both the agency and AMI side – we’ve found it to be a very effective way to get a volume of work handled effectively and efficiently.
This is definitely an ongoing topic of conversation with agency owners. How do we keep up with the needs and demands of clients in a cost-effective way, without putting quality or the client relationship at risk. For any agencies, support assistants are one of the answers to that question.
On episode #172 of Build a Better Agency, I talk with Barbara Turley of The Virtual Hub. She recognized the need for high-quality support assistant and decided to create a business around that need.
We discuss the many upsides of hiring one or more support assistants– like freeing up your most scarce resource: time. But we also discuss some of the pitfalls to avoid, especially around rigorous training and expectations on both the support assistant and the agency side. I found it to be a fascinating conversation and I hope it’s incredibly useful for you.
Barbara is the founder and CEO of The Virtual Hub – a business she started by accident that exploded in the space of 12 months to become one of the leading companies that recruits, trains, and manages support assistants in the digital marketing and social media space for businesses who need to free up time and energy so they can go to the next level.
- How to set expectations for a support assistant – and your agency
- Understanding the difference between hiring within your national borders and offshoring
- The right questions to ask about prior training
- How to share processes around tasks and check in
- Why you should consider a support assistant a permanent and integral part of your team
- How to integrate a support assistant into your team
- How to choose the right support assistant for the right tasks
- Your role as an agency owner as it relates to support assistants
- Which unwanted tasks you can hand off to a support assistant
If you can nail this offshore thing and have that mindset shift, your agency can put its people on higher‑value work, win more clients, and drive real business growth.
In this episode
00:00 - Introduction and Episode Context
Host Drew McClellan opens by welcoming listeners and explaining the podcast’s mission to help agencies grow, scale, and improve profitability. He introduces the topic of using support assistants to handle repetitive, low‑margin tasks, and welcomes guest Barbara Turley, founder of The Virtual Hub.
01:56 - Common Fears and Misconceptions
Barbara acknowledges that concerns about language barriers, time zones, reliability, and quality are valid in the open market. She explains these can be mitigated through structured recruitment, training, and management, but warns that finding and managing good support assistants is more challenging than many expect.
07:43 - Suitable Tasks for Support Assistants
Tasks well‑suited to support assistants include SEO link building, preparing analytics reports, social media scheduling, creating Canva graphics, and blog optimization preparation. These are process‑driven, repetitive activities that free higher‑paid staff for strategic work.
09:58 - Skills, Training, and Onboarding
Even experienced hires require onboarding into an agency’s systems and processes. Agencies should provide clear SOPs, break down complex jobs into smaller steps, and maintain regular engagement to ensure quality.
13:21 - Best Practices for Engagement
Support assistants perform best when given repetitive, well‑defined tasks alongside ongoing communication. Including them in team culture and maintaining regular check‑ins prevents disengagement and errors.
15:30 - Communication and Integration
Agencies should integrate support assistants fully into their systems, providing company email addresses, access to project management tools, and inclusion in meetings. Daily 10‑minute huddles are recommended during the first six to eight weeks.
18:55 - Common Mistakes to Avoid
Frequent errors include expecting immediate results without training, overloading part‑time support assistants, neglecting ongoing leadership, and assuming support assistants will bring their own processes aligned to the agency’s needs.
23:24 - Mindset Shift to Long‑Term Partnership
Barbara advises treating support assistants as long‑term team members rather than temporary contractors. This approach increases loyalty, quality, and scalability, and supports higher margins by reallocating senior staff to higher‑value work.
27:09 - Email Management Considerations
Before delegating email, agencies should first reduce and automate incoming messages. Support Assistants can manage FAQs and routine inquiries through structured processes, but matching brand voice in responses can take three to six months.
31:11 - When to End a Support Assistant Relationship
Non‑negotiables include attendance, meeting participation, and timely updates. Before terminating, agencies should review processes for gaps. Barbara recommends hiring for character and learning agility over hard skills.
36:50 - Tasks to Avoid Assigning Generalist Support Assistants
Specialist work such as long‑form writing, advanced graphic design, and coding should be outsourced to experts. Generalist Support Assistants can handle simpler design tasks like Canva images.
38:48 - Structuring Support Assistant Roles
Avoid scattering one Support Assistant across multiple bosses or departments, as this can cause conflicting priorities and silent overload, especially in cultures where confrontation is avoided.
40:31 - Benefits Beyond Cost Savings
Delegating low‑value tasks to support assistants can improve morale among in‑house staff, who appreciate being freed from repetitive work. For many offshore support assistants, such roles are prestigious and fulfilling.
42:25 - Final Tips and Closing Remarks
Barbara emphasizes preparation before hiring, realistic expectations, and the importance of leadership in sustaining support assistant relationships. She notes that while recruitment is challenging, getting it right can significantly enhance agency scalability and profitability. Drew closes by encouraging listeners to reconsider support assistants as a viable, long‑term solution.
