Jennifer Orechwa: Hey, Shakers, and welcome to Worth Your Salt, the podcast that shakes up your marketing game in the health and wellness industry.

Worth Your Salt is brought to you every Thursday by Salt Marketing. Salt Marketing helps health and wellness practitioners build trust and authority to attract a steady stream of inbound wellness seekers. For more information, you can visit us online at saltmarketing.co.

I’m Jennifer Orechwa, StoryBrand Certified Guide, Marketing Strategist with Salt Marketing, and your host for today’s episode of Worth Your Salt.

My guest today is on a mission to eradicate overwhelm and remove the friction that stunts business growth by helping her clients, including health and wellness practitioners, optimize their operations through the use of virtual assistants, clever automations, and streamlined processes. With her operational efficiency and implementation teams, deep training, and ongoing career development, she’s transforming the way that professionals scale their practices.

Barbara Turley is the founder and CEO of The Virtual Hub. And if you’re thinking, “I don’t even know what I’d have a virtual assistant do,” well, we’re in this exploration together. Barbara’s going to show us how incorporating a virtual assistant can be a game changer.

Welcome, Barbara.

Barbara Turley: Thank you, Jennifer. Great to be here.

Jennifer Orechwa: So I’d love to hear a little bit about your story and your journey of how The Virtual Hub not only got started, but how it’s grown to where you are today.

Barbara Turley: Sure. Yes, it’s a funny story. I’ll try and give you the short version.

I was never the lemonade stand entrepreneur as a child. I was in corporate for many, many years, and that was what I wanted to do. I had a very successful corporate career in the investment banking arena. Actually, I was an equity trader for about eight years.

My accent, in case nobody can pick it up, is Irish, so I’m originally from Ireland. But I did move to Australia in my early twenties, and I’ve had most of my career down here.

Rolling forward, after 10–12 years of industry experience, I got into my mid-thirties and made the decision that I didn’t want to be a corporate mom. That was honestly the beginning of it. But I was also inspired by the idea of building a company.

That was about as far as it got. I had no real plan for what that would look like, but I liked the idea of creating something or working for myself.

An interesting opportunity came my way after the financial crisis in 2008. The industry was a real mess back then, and I got the chance to hop on the coattails of some very clever people who were about to take a business out of an investment bank and buy it out.

I got involved in that startup. It was brilliant because I got to see how a great company gets built. I was around some very clever people and got to participate as well. I became an early shareholder in that company, and I’m still involved today—15 years later.

Through that journey, I spent five years learning a lot about scaling a company—distribution, sales, and how to take a concept to market and grow it.

Then I decided it was time to do something myself. I didn’t have a clear plan, but I started business coaching, which many corporates do when they leave corporate.

That turned out to be a good idea because you get to talk to people and uncover problems—and that’s exactly what happened.

I was coaching smaller businesses, including a naturopath. Across all of them, I saw the same issue: businesses plateau.

You start out as the technician, doing everything yourself, maybe with a small team. But to grow, you need to step out of that role and hire. If you don’t, revenue stalls, and it becomes a circular problem.

Many businesses didn’t have the resources to hire locally. I knew about virtual assistants in the Philippines—mainly because I had read The 4-Hour Workweek.

So I hired one myself and started recruiting some of her friends to help my clients. Before I knew it, I was getting asked, “Can you get me one of those VAs?” more than, “Can you coach me?”

I accidentally found myself in a new business. It was very organic. I didn’t have a website or a business plan—I just enjoyed seeing the impact a good assistant could make.

Fast forward—we’re now eight years old.

Jennifer Orechwa: That’s a great story. I love it. It’s amazing.

So you were talking about the tendency to plateau and the need to hire in order to scale. What indicators do you often see business owners facing at that point? What are they saying when they reach out?

Barbara Turley: Smaller businesses usually feel overwhelmed before they make the call.

They’re answering emails at 11:00 p.m. after working all day in the business, and then lying awake at 2:00 a.m. thinking about marketing. This is especially true for technicians—naturopaths, yoga teachers, dentists, doctors.

In the early days, they had time to work on the business. But as it fills up, their time maxes out. They can’t go further, and sometimes they don’t have the time or resources to hire.

Jennifer Orechwa: So how can bringing on a virtual assistant help address those challenges?

Barbara Turley: Many businesses need staff of all types, but hiring is difficult right now across many countries.

The simplest way to think about it is this: every person in a business—even if it’s just you—spends about 20% to 50% of their day on recurring, process-driven, trainable tasks.

Those tasks can be delegated. If you free up even 30% of your time, you’ve effectively created a third of yourself again.

Jennifer Orechwa: Absolutely. I love what you said about tasks and processes rather than thinking of roles. That’s really interesting.

Barbara Turley: Yes, a lot of people think, “I need to hire a content manager” or a specific role. Those can come later.

A great generalist virtual assistant can handle admin, social media, and operational workflows. That’s often the best way to free up time.

Jennifer Orechwa: And it’s so easy for us as entrepreneurs to think, “It’ll be faster if I just do it myself.” What would you recommend we delegate first?

Barbara Turley: That mindset is true—initially.

But you need to think in terms of return on time invested. If you slow down now to document a process—even just bullet points—you can speed up later.

Most processes—about 80%—are trainable. Start by asking, “Could someone else do this?”

Jennifer Orechwa: That’s really good advice. What sorts of tasks can be handled by a virtual assistant?

Barbara Turley: I call it the “support layer,” and I break it into three buckets:

1. Admin:
Email, calendar, formatting documents, answering phones, research.

2. Marketing support:
Social media, podcast distribution, blog formatting, updating websites and YouTube.

For example, I just show up to a podcast. My team handles everything after that—snippets, posting, distribution.

3. Technical/tools:
Managing CRMs, automation tools like HubSpot or Ontraport, Shopify, and other platforms.

These are more technically minded VAs.

Across all three, they execute processes and can help build them collaboratively.

Jennifer Orechwa: That’s fascinating. I feel like I’m already seeing the light.

Barbara Turley: It’s enormous, yes.

Jennifer Orechwa: I do have to take a quick sponsorship break. When we return, I want to talk more specifically about how to find the right virtual assistant team. Stay with us.

Voice Actor: The Worth Your Salt Podcast is grateful to our partners and sponsors, including the Wellness Pro Workshop.

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Jennifer Orechwa: I’m back here on the Worth Your Salt podcast with Barbara Turley, owner of The Virtual Hub.

Barbara, let’s talk systems and processes. What role can virtual assistants play in managing and streamlining administrative tasks for health and wellness practitioners, and how can that impact the efficiency of the entire practice?

Barbara Turley: Sure. So just starting off with this concept of systems and processes—when you’re working with a virtual assistant, you will be vastly more successful if you have systems and processes.

But that can become a real friction point for business owners listening, who think to themselves, “Well, I can’t get a virtual assistant because I don’t have systems and processes yet,” or “I do have them, but they’re in my head,” and this sort of thing.

A VA can also help you map the systems and processes, get them out of your head, and get the system moving. The two of you can work together on that.

The easiest way to do that is to quickly record yourself doing something. So next time you have to do a task, use a tool like Loom—L-O-O-M—or ScreenCaster. Record yourself doing it, or simply write bullet points. It doesn’t have to be fancy. It can be the back of an envelope—just take a photo and start there.

The next step is to ask the VA to help turn this into a process. They can watch the video and map the steps. After that, have them actually do it.

At this stage, you want to watch for mistakes. Those mistakes will show you where there are gaps in the process. There may be steps where you have knowledge in your head that the next person doesn’t have, and you’ll need to train that.

That’s how you refine the process over time, together. And when you have a VA helping you, they can take some of the heavy lifting off you while getting to know you better.

So I hope that helps to make it simple. Just keep it simple.

Jennifer Orechwa: Yeah, and I think a common misconception about VAs is that no one will be as dedicated to what I do as I am. I think that can be particularly true in health and wellness.

Can you speak to that and any other myths people have about hiring a VA?

Barbara Turley: Sure. I think that problem usually arises when people try to get a VA for just a few hours a week.

Maybe you’ve hired someone part-time, and they didn’t show up or didn’t deliver on time. Those problems are real. But when someone is only working a few hours a week, there’s no real commitment on either side.

At the end of the day, you’re trying to do it cheaply, and they’re trying to make a bit of money. That’s usually the issue.

It’s a bit like dating—if you’re not going to take it to the next level, who’s really committed?

I find it’s much better to bring someone fully into your business. Bring them into your vision. Share the role they play and onboard them like you would a proper employee. Integrate them into your business.

Yes, hiring people is hard. Recruiting is hard. Managing people is hard—no matter where they are. But when you’re dealing across countries and remotely, there’s another layer of complexity.

I know this because I run a company that does this—and we still see these challenges.

You need stronger structures—what I call controls, although I don’t love that word. What I mean is having a solid operational framework to place people into.

If you have clear processes and you delegate them to a VA, it becomes very easy to see whether things are working or not.

If something isn’t working, you can ask:
Is this a skill issue, or a will issue?

If it’s a skill issue, you may be able to train it. If it’s a will issue, it’s behavioral—and that becomes clearer when your framework is set up properly.

You don’t want to wake up every day thinking, “I don’t have anything for my VA to do.” That becomes another stress.

Meanwhile, the VA is sitting idle while you’re overwhelmed.

Every business—no matter the size—has departments: marketing, legal, product creation, delivery, customer support.

Within each of those, there are recurring tasks and processes that keep the business running daily, weekly, monthly.

Those recurring processes are the first things you should delegate. Once they’re mapped and assigned, your VA has consistent work, and your business runs more smoothly.

Jennifer Orechwa: I love that advice about onboarding a VA the same way you would a full-time employee.

But how do we find the right virtual assistant—for our needs, our personality, and our working style?

Barbara Turley: There’s a lot to unpack there.

My philosophy—after years of experimenting—is this: at The Virtual Hub, we don’t recruit for clients. We’re not a recruitment agency.

Instead, we hire for ourselves. We have recruiting teams bringing in 10 to 30 people per month. We train them internally, and only when they’re ready do we introduce them to clients.

That’s why our success rate is so high.

We focus on the support layer, and we know what clients need—people who show up, get the job done, and take pressure off.

On the personality side, we learn a lot about clients during onboarding and sales calls. We assess their style and match them with suitable VAs.

We don’t just introduce one person—we let clients meet a few. And our first-round match success rate is about 99%.

We call it a “meetup,” not an interview. The goal is to assess personality fit. We’ve already handled skills and training.

If you’re not using a service like ours, it’s trickier. You need to give candidates real tasks and deadlines. Anyone can say anything in an interview—you need to see how they perform.

And you should also interview for cultural fit.

Jennifer Orechwa: That makes perfect sense. I love that model—it feels like a consulting approach for hiring VAs.

I’d love to hear some success stories. What kind of results are your clients seeing?

Barbara Turley: We’re very focused on feedback and systems. We collect feedback constantly.

For example, just yesterday, we received feedback saying, “Great VA—it’s been a game changer.” That’s actually very common.

What clients report most is the value of the time they get back. The return isn’t just from what the VA does—it’s from what they can now do with their freed-up time.

Some clients say they get a 10x return because they can focus on higher-value activities.

Others want lifestyle freedom—like picking up their kids from school every day—and that’s perfectly valid too.

Another common result is that things that were never getting done are now happening—especially in marketing.

One of our proudest success stories is with Verne Harnish, author of Scaling Up and founder of the Entrepreneurs’ Organization. He became a client and one of our biggest advocates.

He’s said that the return from freeing up his time—and his team’s time—has been about 10x. That was a huge milestone for us.

Jennifer Orechwa: I love those stories. There’s so much opportunity here.

All right, it’s time for another quick break. We’ll be right back.

You’re listening to the Worth Your Salt podcast, and today I’m talking with Barbara Turley of The Virtual Hub about how virtual assistants can help you grow and scale your health and wellness business.

We’d love to hear your thoughts, so be sure to join Salt Marketing on Instagram, LinkedIn, or Facebook and let us know what you’ve been able to accomplish with the help of virtual assistants.

So Barbara, what advice would you offer to practitioners who are hesitant about outsourcing tasks—especially those concerned about the learning curve or having to redo work?

Barbara Turley: So the first thing I would say is those fears are real. And, you know, if you want to get over them, it’s good to sit for a second, acknowledge them, and take a deep breath and go, “It’s okay to feel that way.”

Of course you feel that way—your business is your baby. And particularly for health and wellness practitioners, they are the ones doing the work, not just building a company.

The training demands are real. Having to redo work is real. If you’re going to do this yourself, you’ll need very clear process maps and clear guidelines around expectations and results. You’ll also need to train the person in your specific way of doing things.

Here’s another important point: train the person, then be clear on your expectations for delivery, and define three things:

• What does success look like?

• What does a mediocre result look like?

• What does failure look like?

For example, if it’s a social media image, show examples that are on-brand. Then define what “okay” looks like and what “not acceptable” looks like—like grammar mistakes, for instance.

If the person comes back with those issues, then you can assess: is this a skill issue or a will issue?

Regardless of where you hire, you’ll have to deal with that anyway. The problem isn’t outsourcing—it’s getting comfortable with letting go and accepting that things might go wrong, and you may need to hire again.

That’s part of the process.

It comes back to slowing down now to speed up later. If you want to grow your business, you need to free up your time. So a lot of this is mindset—but also being clear on expectations so you’re not just reacting.

Jennifer Orechwa: You’ve built such a tight system. How does The Virtual Hub tailor its VAs to unique needs, like health and wellness practitioners? Do you train for that, or is marketing just marketing?

Barbara Turley: My view is that marketing is marketing. The processes are largely the same.

The messaging changes, of course, but a VA isn’t creating strategy—they’re executing processes. So things like brand messaging, audience, and positioning are not decided by the VA.

Jennifer Orechwa: That makes sense. And you mentioned tools like CRMs—HubSpot, Keap, and others. With so many platforms out there, how do you provide training and support?

Barbara Turley: Yes, that can be challenging—you can’t train every VA in everything.

So here’s how we’ve evolved our model:

We have a base training program that every VA goes through. We hire people on full salaries and benefits from day one, so we invest in them early.

Our training identifies natural strengths, regardless of prior experience. Interestingly, sometimes the most experienced candidates don’t perform the best.

We focus on three general areas:

• Admin-focused (organization, Excel, documentation)

• Creative (design, social media, content)

• Technical (tools, automation, integrations)

Once we understand their strengths, we classify them. Then, when a client comes in, we create a personalized training roadmap for that VA based on the client’s needs.

We handle that training outside of the client’s time, and we have results coaches working with both the client and the VA to ensure goals are met and issues are addressed.

That’s how we drive success—we build it deliberately.

Jennifer Orechwa: That’s fascinating. I can see how you’ve been so successful.

Tell me about your operational efficiency consulting and implementation teams. How do they work alongside your VAs?

Barbara Turley: Over time, I noticed that while VAs are powerful, the fastest results come when businesses also have strong systems and frameworks.

Clients kept asking if we could help with systems and consulting. For a long time, I said no—I wanted to focus on building the company.

But eventually, I brought on one of our early clients who had exited his business and was brilliant at systems.

Now we offer this as an additional service for our clients.

For example, if someone is using Asana but not effectively—we’re now a certified Asana partner—we can rebuild their system. We also help with CRM setups, process improvements, and workflow redesign.

VAs operate at the support layer, but this team works at the systems level. We have system architects who can step in, refine processes, and improve efficiency across the business.

Jennifer Orechwa: Brilliant. I’m sold.

So finally, if someone wants to learn more about you or The Virtual Hub—or get started—where should they go?

Barbara Turley: I’m quite active on LinkedIn, so you can find me there—Barbara Turley.

If you’d like to learn more about us, visit thevirtualhub.com. We have lots of content there, and you can book a call with one of our strategy consultants to see if we’re a good fit and what to expect.

Jennifer Orechwa: Very nice. And of course, links to everything Barbara mentioned will be available at saltmarketing.co.

Now it’s time for our lightning round questions. Barbara, are you ready?

Barbara Turley: I’m ready.

Jennifer Orechwa: First question: What’s the best book you’ve read recently? 

Barbara Turley: One of the best business books I’ve ever read is Scaling Up by Verne Harnish. It really helped me understand that a business is a system, and I’ve built my company based on that methodology.

Jennifer Orechwa: Great recommendation. Next question: What is one thing about you that surprises people? 

Barbara Turley: I’m a pretty good skier.

Jennifer Orechwa: Interesting for someone who’s Irish and moved to Australia!

Barbara Turley: I know! I spent a few years living in Chamonix Mont Blanc in France. I’ve been skiing for 25 years. I learned as an adult, but my husband was a ski instructor, so I’ve had great coaching.

Jennifer Orechwa: What’s your favorite thing about the work you do?

Barbara Turley: Mentoring people. I love helping people grow and shine—that really lights me up.

Jennifer Orechwa: Last question: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Barbara Turley: My mum always said, “Feel the fear and do it anyway.” That’s been pivotal in my life.

Jennifer Orechwa: That’s fantastic. Barbara, thank you so much for joining me on this week’s episode of Worth Your Salt.

Barbara Turley: Thank you.

Jennifer Orechwa: And thank you to our listeners. If you’re ready for your Worth Your Salt debut, tell us about your expertise by emailing [email protected].

Be sure to subscribe on our website so you never miss an episode. And don’t forget to leave a review or give us a handful of stars wherever you get your content.

That’s all for this episode of Worth Your Salt. Be sure to join me again next time.

In the meantime, let’s get out there and shake things up.