VoiceActor: From the AMFM 24/7 Radio Network, Clearpoint Financial Solutions presents the Small Business Administration award-winning School for Startups Radio, where we talk all things small business and entrepreneurship. Now here’s your host, the guy that believes that anyone can be an entrepreneur because entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk, or passion: Jim Beach.

Jim Beach: Hello everyone, welcome to another exciting edition of School for Startups Radio. Today is Tuesday, November 20th, 2018. We got a great show for you today, sort of a theme show. Everything we’re going to be talking about today is virtual outsourcing, freelance, the entire idea of a virtual hub where you get everything done. You can outsource everything, the whole 4 hour work week idea myth perhaps. We’re going to dive in and talk about it today. Got a great show, and we’re going to get started with my first guest. Her name is Barbara Turley, she is the founder and CEO of a company called The Virtual Hub out of Sydney, Australia. But this is so cool for this company. It doesn’t matter where it is, you’re still going to want to do business with Barbara. She is also a speaker and a podcast host, and you can find her at Virtual Success Show over on that Twitter thing. She had a very productive career in the financial industry working for banks and also for Merrill Lynch as an equity trainer. But about 3 or so four years ago, she started The Virtual Hub, and it exploded, growing incredibly quickly. We’re going to hear that story. Barbara, welcome to the show. How are you doing today?

Barbara Turley: I’m great. Thank you. Thank you for having me on the show.

Jim Beach: Tell us about the first 12 months of The Virtual Hub. It just did amazing. Tell us about it and why you think it did so well.

Barbara Turley: Yes, it did do amazing, but the interesting thing was, I think on the front end of it, it did well from a sales perspective and from the perspective of people. I realized that people really needed and wanted help with this particular service of outsourcing. People were very, not everyone, but a lot of people out there running business are quite nervous about going offshore. They don’t really know where to start. And also, some people realize that even if they weren’t nervous, it’s a huge job and a big task to actually go and find the right people, even in your own country, let alone trying to do it offshore. But on the flip side, in the back end, I learned a lot of lessons in that first year where, when something grows very quickly and it looks great from the outside, if the structure that you have on the inside of the business is not, is a bit shaky, it’s a very stressful experience. So you sort of think, well, when sales explode, surely that’s a good problem to have. But at the same time, you can have problems exploding in the background that nobody else sees. So it was extraordinarily successful, but also quite stressful and a big learning experience for me.

Jim Beach: All right. So now what are the basket of services that the Hub offers today? What would I get and what kind of benefits could I accrue from that?

Barbara Turley: Sure. So we are quite specific about what we do. So outsourcing, the thing with outsourcing is, you know, the word virtual assistant, it has been bandied about a lot in the last 10 years, and it is a very broad term. It can mean anything from someone who can type to someone who can build a website. So it’s very, very broad. We’re quite specific about what we do. We have 3 levels of virtual assistant. We do general admin. We do our level two, people who are more into doing some social media content management, blog content management, a little bit of SEO, that kind of stuff. And then our Level 3 CAs tend to be trained on platforms like Infusionsoft, HubSpot, Ontraport, Active Campaign, these marketing automation platforms that a lot of businesses are using, and we specialize in those platforms particularly so.

Jim Beach: Or a huge chunk of your employees in the Philippines, India, the same places we would find other outsource people.

Barbara Turley: I specialize in the Philippines. A couple of reasons. Look, people have asked me why wouldn’t I branch out to India, Vietnam, and honestly, I think it’s hard enough to get one country right. That would be my feeling. So I’ve decided to specialize in one country. And also, the English is really high level in the Philippines. It’s probably the best that you can get in that Asia region. And you know as well, their culture is very, very Western. It’s quite an Americanized culture actually. So culturally, they’re very aligned with the West. So it’s an easier one, I think, to get it all right.

Jim Beach: Right. Well, I would agree with that. I’ve had success there as well. I love how this and how you are proposing that this is an extension or a new version of the lean business model. So explain what you mean by that. I thought that was a really smart idea.

Barbara Turley: Yes, look, firstly, offshoring, the concept of offshoring is not a new one, but I think when Tim Ferriss wrote his Four Hour Workweek book, it sort of exploded within the startup and the entrepreneur community. Whereas big corporates, institutions have been using offshoring to these countries for many means like decades really. But in the last 10 years, it’s really exploded in this world of the startup and the entrepreneur, and technology has obviously made that possible. Now, if you think about being a small or even a medium-sized business, to be able to scale a business, you need two things apart from a product that sells. You need very slick systems and processes, and you need real efficiency there. But you also need people to run those systems and processes if you are planning, as a business owner, to really run a company and not a glorified job doing everything yourself. So you need very, very streamlined systems and processes. You need to cut the fat out everywhere, and a lot of small businesses and even medium businesses really wouldn’t be able to afford, in those early stages, to hire somebody locally to be running systems like that. So it’s a very cost-effective solution for that end of the market. Now, even if you can afford to hire somebody locally, what I’m finding is once you have nailed your processes and you have that lean business model, the people you’re hiring locally, you should probably be looking at people who are salespeople, people on the ground that you need to do. I hate to use the word more high-value work because that devalues what they do in the Philippines, but different roles. I think it’s more cost-effective to actually nail this offshoring strategy and get it right. Now, a lot of people, we get a lot of success for clients, but it can never be 100% because we are in the people business. And what I find is the clients that focus on getting this right and have a mindset commitment to getting this right will nail it. The ones that come in with a mindset where, oh, I don’t know about this strategy, I’m going to try to sabotage it, and it can fail really easily. So those are just a couple of tips around how to get this right and why you want to get this right from a scalability perspective.

Jim Beach: Again, we are speaking with Barbara Turley, the founder and CEO of The Virtual Hub. Barbara, let me tell you about my outsourcing world. I counted this morning because of this interview, and I have right at 10 outsourcing things going on right now that I’m personally doing, to the point—and I’ve made this joke before—that I need to outsource my outsourcing, right?

Barbara Turley: Yes, I was just thinking, oh my God, 10 people reporting to you. You’re getting into the difference. It’s going to a different level for you now.

Jim Beach: I need a virtual assistant.

Barbara Turley: Yes, probably. All right, talk to me about your—what are the 10 people doing? Are they contractors doing projects? Are they specialists, or are they developers and graphic designers and all this sort of thing?

Jim Beach: All of the above. It’s a mixture of data scraping, data management, a little bit of data research, so digging to find particular things, a little graphic design, a couple website builds, things like that.

Barbara Turley: And they’re all reports? Are they a few hours here and there, each of them, or are they full-time people with you?

Jim Beach: All of the above.

Barbara Turley: Yes. So you probably feel like you’ve taken on a whole new role of just having people reporting to you, managing the deliverables. You’re the project manager essentially now.

Jim Beach: Yes, but you know what, I love how much work they’re getting done for me. I have a to-do list, and some of the stuff on there has been there a year, to be honest, and that got done. You know how nice it was to cross that off, you know, so.

Barbara Turley: Yes, I love it. Yeah, but I know that. So one of the things you’ve obviously made a commitment to getting this right, but I think as a business owner—

Jim Beach: No, no, no. I’ve made a commitment to do it. I haven’t made a commitment to do it right. We don’t know that yet. This could blow up in my face.

Barbara Turley: And it can. It’s people who underestimate the amount of work to get it right, to really nail it. So where are the challenges for you now?

Jim Beach: Oh, I feel fairly comfortable with it, other than the fact that it’s just taking up time, and it would be nice just to make the whole thing just disappear, you know. So I spent—

Barbara Turley: Meaning that when you say the whole thing, you mean managing the 10 of them.

Jim Beach: Yes, I would like to be able to have one conversation with one person and say, here are the things that are to be done, and bye, and then that person goes to the website.

Barbara Turley: Yes, yes, you need a sort of a—it’s like a—look, I actually did a podcast show on this particular topic. That’s why I’m digging a little bit, because what we find is that sometimes people will hire a virtual assistant to act like a project manager. That can work, but what’s the difference? It can be?

Jim Beech: It’s dangerous. I’m not sure I understand the difference. Maybe that’s my problem.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, yes. So a virtual assistant is more the doer. So the virtual assistant is there to implement things, to get stuff done like your data scrapers. You’ve actually essentially got 10 virtual assistants. They’re just in different areas, and some of them are specialists within websites, for example. Some of them might be developers or whatever. When you’ve got a lot of people like that, you then need somebody to manage the team, to manage the deliverables that are coming back. And a project manager doesn’t actually do any of the doing, but they manage you, they take what you want, and they turn it into deliverables. And then they make sure that the people doing the doing deliver those things on time and to the brief. So they’re literally managing the people and managing all the deliverables and making sure that stuff happens on time without you having to chase everyone.

Barbara Turley: Yes, I was just thinking, oh my God, 10 people reporting to you. You’re getting into the difference. It’s going to a different level for you now.

Jim Beech: I need a virtual assistant.

Barbara Turley: Yes, probably. All right. Talk to me about your what? What are the 10 people doing? Are they contractors doing projects? Are they specialists, or are they developers and graphic designers and all this sort of thing?

Jim Beech: All of the above. It’s a mixture of data scraping, data management, a little bit of data research, so digging to find particular things, a little graphic design, a couple website builds, things like that.

Barbara Turley: And they’re all reports. Are they a few hours here and there, each of them, or are they full-time people with you?

Jim Beech: But all of the above.

Barbara Turley: Yes. So you probably feel like you’ve taken on a whole new role of just having people reporting to you, managing the deliverables. You’re the project manager essentially now.

Jim Beech: Yes, but you know what? I love how much work they’re getting done for me. I have a to-do list, and some of the stuff on there has been there a year, to be honest, and that got done. You know how nice it was to cross that off, you know, so.

Barbara Turley: Yes, I love it. Yeah, but I know that. So one of the things you’ve obviously made a commitment to getting this right, but I think as a business owner.

Jim Beech: No, no, no. I’ve made a commitment to do it. I haven’t made a commitment to do it right. We don’t know that yet. This could blow up in my face.

Barbara Turley: And it can, you know. It’s people who underestimate the amount of work to get it right, you know, to really nail it. So where are the challenges for you now?

Jim Beech: Oh, I feel fairly comfortable with it other than the fact that it’s just taking up time, and it would be nice just to make the whole thing just disappear, you know, so I spent.

Barbara Turley: Meaning that when you say the whole thing, you mean managing the 10 of them.

Jim Beech: Yes, I would like to be able to have one conversation with one person and say here are the things that are to be done and bye, and then that person goes to the website.

Barbara Turley: Yes, yes, you need a sort of a, it’s like a look, I actually did a podcast show on this particular topic. That’s why I’m digging a little bit because what we find is that sometimes people will hire a virtual assistant to act like a project manager. That can work, but what’s the difference? It can be?

Jim Beech: It’s dangerous. I’m not sure I understand the difference. Maybe that’s my problem.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, yes. So a virtual assistant is more the doer. So the virtual assistant is there to implement things, to get stuff done like your data scrapers. You’ve actually essentially got 10 virtual assistants. They’re just in different areas, and some of them are specialists within websites, for example. Some of them might be developers or whatever. When you’ve got a lot of people like that, you then need somebody to manage the team, to manage the deliverables that are coming back. And a project manager doesn’t actually do any of the doing, but they manage you, they take what you want, and they turn it into deliverables. And then they make sure that the people doing the doing deliver those things on time and to the brief. So they’re literally managing the people and managing all the deliverables and making sure that stuff happens on time without you having to chase everyone.

Jim Beech: All right, that’s a very useful distinction that helps a lot.

Barbara Turley: Now a virtual assistant, just so I can clarify that. So a virtual assistant can do that, but there is a mindset jump that’s required for a VA to do that. And I think it’s better if you have a VA that’s been working with you for a couple of years that understands your mindset. And then you’ve got to kind of mentor them up into that role, and particularly a Filipino VA where what I find is because project management requires them to sort of give orders and to delegate to other people. All of a sudden you’re asking someone to go from being delegated to delegating to others. And that’s actually a difficult transition for anybody. So it’s just good, it’s so that you don’t fall into a trap with that. It’s good to have made that distinction and make sure that you hire the right role for that particular job.

Jim Beech: All right, so very good advice. All right, so let’s assume, let’s pretend I was a potential client of yours. I had just called up. I heard this interview and I called and I said exactly what I just said. I have 10 of these, what you have now told me are virtual assistants. What is your advice? I feel like I’m fairly normal, though those amongst us who have become addicted to this outsource thing, and I feel like I’m addicted to it. I think I’m barely normal. Am I normal or am I weird? The people you run across that need help, Barbara.

Barbara Turley: Look, I think people can get addicted to it. I find there’s probably three camps, probably. You get the people who get addicted to it, and they’re great. They just go hell for leather and build a big team and get stuff done. And then there’s the people who come in very shaky and someone told them that this thing was a great idea, and they tend to sabotage themselves, to be honest. The mindset comes in wrong, and no matter what the VA does, it’ll be wrong, and they just tend to fail. And then the ones in the middle just get a part-time VA and never really go anywhere from that. They just get them to do it. They never develop them, but they keep them. It’s fine. So if you were coming to me with 10, I would first say to you, I would look to consolidate. I would really look into the 10 and see if you could consolidate some of those roles potentially into one person or two people who are full-time properly in your business. I’m not sure if that is the case. And then we would look at, well, I wouldn’t put a virtual assistant in to manage those people. I think what you need then is a project manager. Now we don’t do project managers, but I would probably advise you to have a look at how you’re running those people and whether first of all, you could use automation and systems to run them better. So for example, we’re big fans of Asana and Trello and various project management systems to run people correctly. But from my own experience of running large numbers of people, once you get to about 7 people reporting to you, it becomes you all of a sudden become your own project manager. And that’s the whole job. And it takes you away from growing your business because now you’re managing people. So you probably would get advice from us to, not to say go somewhere else, but to really think about your strategy and how you’re going to grow this company based on the people you actually need as opposed to just tacking on more and more VA’s. Does that make sense?

Jim Beech: Yeah, it does. Unfortunately, we’re out of time. How can we find out more about you? Follow you online? Hire the Virtual Hub? All of the above, please.

Barbara Turley: Sure. So we actually have a special link for the listeners here. So if you go to thevirtualhub.com/startups, we have a couple of freebies on there which are really going to help to expand out this discussion. So we’ve got a free guide on five reasons people failed with the VA’s and how to fix it. We’ve got a Scalable Business Success Formula E-course, which will be a real extension of what we’ve just been talking about here today. And of course, you can book a free call with one of our outsourcing consultants there if you want to follow me and get more of these tips. I discuss all of this on our podcast. I’ve got a co-host there who’s a business coach, and we literally give free strategies there. It’s called the Virtual Success Show, and you can get that on iTunes or you can also get it on our website, thevirtualhub.com. There you go.

Jim Beech: Thank you so very much, and we will be right back.