Voice Actor: Do you find it hard to explain to friends and family what you now do? Are you wasting valuable time by attempting to figure out challenges on your own? We have created a community for ex corporate people running their own business who want to live a life they love whilst giving back to their community. This is the Build Live Show. We bring you first hand experiences of guests going through many of the struggles you face each and every day. We get real with no corporate BS. And now your host, Paul Higgins.

Paul Higgins: Welcome to the Build Live Give podcast, episode #7. I’m Paul Higgins, and I’m going to host for today. And today we’ve got a fantastic guest. Her name is Barbara Turley from Energize Group and VirtualAngel Hub. Barbara is not just a good friend, she’s also an excellent supplier to myself and a lot of the members of the community. And to be honest, she’s a real inspiration, and you will absolutely enjoy this podcast. She’s very open about her challenges of leaving a very successful, stressful corporate career and starting her own business, or starting a series of businesses. She also reveals the secret which very few people outside of a close family know. She also talks about how she’s rapidly grown a business whilst taking care of her new baby girl. And she also talks about the challenges small business owners face because she started as a coach and she deals with small business owners every day, and the great services that she provides under VirtualAngel Hub. She’ll also talk about her growing pains as she’s grown this global business and her team. And once again, she really peels back and talks on a first hand account as to how she’s managed some of those struggles. She also talks about her desire to give more and the fact that now that her business is in slightly better shape, she’s actually going to be doing that. And she also talks about what every small business owner should do, and it’s not what you think. She’s a ball of energy, she’s a seriously smart operator, and she’s got a fantastic accent, which really helps.

Paul Higgins: You want to listen to this. So grab your pens and paper, because Barbara really rocks this podcast and what’s happening in the Build Live Give community. We continue to grow it, and there’s lots of five star reviews coming in. So please continue to like it. If you love this podcast with Barbara and others, please leave a five star review so we can build the community up. And if you want to find more about joining the community, go to buildlivegive.com and you can find out how to join our free Facebook group. Anyway, that’s enough from me. Now over to Barbara Turley from Energize Group and VirtualAngel Hub.

How to Delegate Effectively
and Free Up Your Time

Paul Higgins: So welcome Barbara Turley, owner of Energize Group and VirtualAngel Hub, to the Build Live Give podcast. So Barbara, we’re going to get to know you more through this podcast, but I’d just love to hear a bit of your back story. How did you get to where you are today?

Barbara Turley: Hi, Paul, and thanks very much for having me on your podcast. I’m really delighted to chat to your listeners because I know there’s so many people that will have a journey that sounds a little bit like mine. So, you know, look, I spent years in the corporate world in investment banking, mainly in the trading floors of equity trading desks, which was very fast and dynamic and a lot of fun. But like a lot of corporates, after, I guess, years of doing that, I kind of started to question where my career was going and where I was going. And from there, I guess my entrepreneurial journey started just after that. I got an opportunity, funnily enough, through the financial crisis to invest in a management buyout of a business from Deutsche Bank, from Deutsche Asset Management. And that really was the start of me just doing this entrepreneurial thing. And I guess in a lot of ways I got lucky because that worked out very well for the group of us that did it. Six of us got together. Well, there’s about people in the end that got together and bought out, it was 1.6 billion of assets at the time from Deutsche Asset Management. And we bought the distribution rights to that in Australia. And that’s eight years ago now and has led me on a fabulous journey right through investing in companies and things like that and then starting my own thing today. So I’ve ended up in the true entrepreneurial journey, I guess you could say.

Paul Higgins: Fantastic. And what’s something that maybe your family or friends know about you that the listeners wouldn’t know about you?

Barbara Turley: That’s a good question. I love to dance, and I don’t really dance very much anymore. I’m sure lots of, you know, especially as corporates, we’re all very professional. And I think one of the things I miss a little bit in my life at the moment—in your 20’s you’re out partying and dancing quite a lot—and as we get older, we don’t really seem to dance so much. So yeah, I just love to dance around the house like nobody’s watching. I guess that’s my secret, little secret little thing.

Paul Higgins: That’s great. And the cheekiness in me wants to ask, that’s not Irish dancing, of course.

Barbara Turley: Sometimes, actually. I was a bit of a champion Irish dancer till I was, but no, I’d be more into the kind of move, shake the hips sort of thing.

Paul Higgins: Yeah, fantastic. And, you know, moving from a very successful equities career like you talked about and then that opportunity to do the buyout, was there anything at all that was holding you back from jumping into your own business or series of businesses?

Barbara Turley: Oh yeah. Look, you know, for people out there that have just done this or are thinking about it, I mean, I’ll confess, it took me a long time. I mean, I was thinking about, you know, that I’d like to do something else, or I don’t even know if I had actually thought about working for myself. But I knew I wanted to be a little bit more autonomous and I wanted to kind of drive my own path. And I didn’t really know what that looked like for a very long time. And before we did that buyout, I actually did decide a couple of years prior to that I was going to start my own business, and that was just—I was adamant. And in my wisdom, I left my high paying job at Merrill Lynch in Sydney and I went off travelling with my now husband, who was then my boyfriend, and we headed off around Australia and, you know, not a care in the world. And by the time we came back from our campervan trip around Australia, the whole world had fallen apart and the financial crisis had really rumbled through. So all our plans of starting our own business were completely kiboshed, and I panicked and thought I needed to go back and get a job. And then I could not get a job in the financial industry for love or money because there was everybody being fired, Lehman Brothers collapsed. I mean, it was just a total calamity, the whole thing. So I did take a contract at Deutsche Asset Management, which was a maternity leave contract. And that was kind of where I took a slightly different direction. And then this opportunity came up to basically buy a business out of Deutsche. So it was me taking that opportunity, I guess, that led me on this path.

Paul Higgins: Great. And what were some of the key fears as you went through taking that opportunity? What was sort of running through your mind at the time?

Barbara Turley: Well, it was an interesting time for me actually, because the fears were, you know, I think when you’ve got nothing left to lose—and I was sort of in a situation at the time, I literally had nothing left to lose. So I’m sort of financially running out of money, emotionally broken from two years of, you know, just this whole thing rumbling on. So I think it was that whole thing of having nothing left to lose helped me to make the decision. There were less fears because I thought to myself, well, what’s the worst thing that can happen right now? I do this, I go into it for a year, and basically next year it doesn’t work, and I’m in the same situation again anyway. So I was willing to sort of take a chance on that.

Paul Higgins: So as you made that transition from corporate into your own business, what were some of the greatest fears that you came across?

Barbara Turley: Yeah. Look, the first time I thought about it, I definitely had a huge amount of fears. I mean, the whole fear of failure, I guess, because in our corporate careers most of us have been quite successful. And then to go out on your own, the last thing you want to do is leave the big corporate, the big daddy kind of looking after you, and then go out and fall on your face. So I definitely had a lot of those fears. I know a lot of listeners will resonate with that. But by the time I kind of took the jump and did that management buyout situation, I was kind of in a situation where the world had really gone to hell in a handbasket and there was nothing left to lose. And that actually helped me to dissipate my fears anyway. So by the time I made that jump, I had literally had very few fears left because I guess the biggest fear I had was, if I don’t take this move, then what’s going to happen? So it helped me to actually make the decision to take probably the biggest risk I’ve ever taken in my life, financially and emotionally, and that it paid off the highest.

Paul Higgins: Look, and it’s a great point, and a lot of our listeners struggle with when is the right time. And I know there’s sort of two schools: to do the hustle and continue to do your job, and other people take the leap where you just do what you did, take the leap and you had no choice, but others with that choice—so there is no turning back. And I know if I listen to a lot of the top sports coaches, they say when the best performance is when there’s no other option but success. And it looks like that has definitely played out in your favor.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, that played out in my favor. But just for people who maybe have a lot to lose, I mean, there is a point at which you do have to jump. But I’ve often, you know, I’ve coached a few people through this actually as well that have started their own business. And I’ve also said that some people will say, oh, there’s never a good time, you just got to jump. I would say that actually the first thing that everybody needs to do—and this sounds very basic, but most people get it wrong—is to be extremely ruthless with their expenses, their personal expenses. Because when we’re in the corporate world, we get used to the big lifestyle—you know, we’ve got big mortgages, big living—and you really have to work hard to pare that back, I would say for a long time before you leave so that you get used to not having, you know, the luxuries for a little while while you get a business going, and then you’ll be more successful.

Paul Higgins: Yeah, look, I think that’s great advice. And someone once said to me, “It’s going to take four times the time and four times the money to get there.” And I must admit, for me, it was like leaving uni again, and that’s the way I treated it. I remember my first hotel stay in Sydney. It was—I don’t know what they were doing in the room next door, but it wasn’t something I’d be doing—and it was, you know, I think $50 a night, and I’d gone from 5 star Coca-Cola to like $50 a night near the airport.

Barbara Turley: Oh yeah, and—

Paul Higgins: I took a video of it, thinking that one day I’ll look back on this and smile, but I certainly wasn’t at the time.

Barbara Turley: Well, I’ll give you a clue. I literally had no car for about two. I just got rid of everything because I wanted to do this so badly, and I just took everything I had, got rid of it all. I needed to come up with some money to actually do this management buyout, and I put in—how I actually did it was I put in a huge amount of sweat equity. So I got it that way as well. So I know it’s hard, but it’s that level of commitment that you want to do, and you have to take some pain.

Paul Higgins: Yeah, and I think it’s great advice and sharing. Make sure that everyone’s on the same page. I think for me, my learning was that I sort of did OK, but to have my wife and children all on the same page. So you say yes, and all of a sudden it was like no, and it took a while for them to adjust.

Barbara Turley: And that’s emotional. Yeah, that’s—did they ever? Yeah, I don’t know. But I think, yeah, your partner or your wife or your husband or whoever’s in your life definitely has to be on board with this decision, and you have to make it together because otherwise, you know, we will get thrown into arguments and stressful times and all that, and it can kibosh the whole thing. So yeah, definitely.

Paul Higgins: Would have friends—you know, friends just assume that you’re going to do everything that they’re doing, and I’m like, you know, I can’t now just fly on that golf weekend for $ because that’s not in my agreed budget.

Barbara Turley: And they also don’t want to hear “I don’t have the money” because you’re going to get sick of saying that. It’s embarrassing to keep saying it, you know, but that’s going to challenge you as well emotionally. So there’s all these things to think about. I guess those are the things that will affect you.

Paul Higgins: Yeah. And what sort of help did you get as you went through overcoming some of these things? Who did you draw on? You know, how did you solve some of this?

Barbara Turley: Oh, I’d love to say that I did draw on some, you know, help. But honestly, I think I just hid for a long time, which is probably not the right advice to give. But I sort of did sort of change my circle of friends a little bit, which is not the best thing to do, but I just felt the need to do that, and I just kind of cocooned myself a little bit. I just felt the need to distance, you know, and just get this right. I was working a lot anyway, so I guess that’s what I did, but that’s not the right thing for everyone. I think other people would have to make sure that they’ve got some close friends that are really going to support them in that, or the other great thing to do—I did actually make a few friends that were doing the same thing as me. They were entrepreneurial, and then we stuck together really closely because they understood my journey. So I would definitely advise that.

Paul Higgins: Yeah, look, I think that’s great advice, that mastermind, you know, because I think it’s not good to bottle it all up and always say this to your friends and your family because you don’t want them to worry. You say everything’s great, but deep down inside it may not be. But it’s great to have, you know, people that are going through a similar journey and share that with you.

Barbara Turley: Absolutely. Yeah, it’s—

Paul Higgins: Spot on. And, you know, if you sort of fast forward a little, how do you currently make revenue in your multiple businesses?

Barbara Turley: Yeah. So one thing I would like to point out to the listeners is, you know, my journey also was quite—was actually quite shaky after I did start my own business. So the first thing I started went OK. I mean, you know, I launched an online program and sold a few. But to be honest with you, I kind of broke even on it, and I, you know, emotionally found it very difficult to get through that period. And then I sort of shut down for a little while after that because I was making money as a business coach initially, which actually I will say is a great way to—not necessarily business coaching—but doing one-on-one consulting or coaching is a fabulous way to get started because you sort of see then where you can go next. And I wasn’t killing it, you know, doing that, and I wasn’t really enjoying it that much either. But I was sort of making OK money. But what I noticed during that was that most of the clients—in fact, all of the clients I was working with—the biggest problems they had was lack of time and not necessarily lack of ideas. So in my own business ventures, I guess—I don’t know why I knew this because there was no reason for me to know this—but I was always very into automation and teams. And I had hired virtual assistants to help me in the Philippines because I knew that they were cheaper over there, and I knew I was going to need help. So I hired two people straight away to help me with lots of different things. And then I started recruiting VA’s in the Philippines for some of my clients because I was like, look, you know, we can’t work on strategy unless we can free up some of your time because you’re doing all this stuff. And that worked exceptionally well. I got very good results for some clients that I was working with. And before I knew it, I wasn’t getting calls from people looking for a business coach. So it wasn’t like people were saying, oh wow, she’s an amazing business coach. I was getting calls from friends of theirs saying, I want one of those VA’s. When can you get me one? And I think there was a week—I must have got phone calls in the same week—and I was on holiday, and I said to my husband, do you reckon there’s a business in this? So people—I mean, I’m not even advertising this—and people are asking me, can they pay me money to do this? So to cut a long story short, VirtualAngel Hub was born within about two weeks, with no website, no name, nothing. We were just recruiting and managing VA’s for people. And look, we’re three years in now, and the business has completely boomed, as you know. So I ended up changing business completely. So now I’m in the business of recruiting and training VA’s in the Philippines. Like, who knew that that would happen?

Paul Higgins: Right. And I don’t know—in other podcasts we’ve talked about the importance of the ideal client—and I, you know, I think it’s great that you knew your ideal client and they told you what they needed, and you’ve just provided that, which is, you know, the typical MVP. And you know about finding your ideal clients. Now, how do you go about continuing to find the right people for your virtual assistant business?

Barbara Turley: Well, look, digital marketing was a major, and I got deeply into that after I left the corporate world. And I guess a lot of the places that we find the ideal client—a few different places—we do a lot of content marketing. So we write content in a certain way and drive traffic to it so that we know our clients are kind of the right client for us to look for online. And then we also use referral partners. So we’ve got a few great partners that have the right client for us, and they typically send clients our way and recommend us so that we do very well that way. And then I do quite a lot of webinars. So I haven’t done one for a while now, but last year I did quite a few at the beginning part of last year. So webinars have been very good for us as well as driving traffic to our business.

Paul Higgins: Great. And as far as live versus automated, what’s your view on that with the webinars?

Barbara Turley: Oh, you know what, I’ve always done them live. I have no issue with automated webinars. I’d love to get my automated webinar strategy going. I just haven’t managed to do that yet. But look, you know, I’ve been on automated webinars myself. And really, if the information is something I want to know, I actually don’t care if it’s live or not. I just want to know the information. So I wouldn’t stress about this automated versus live thing. I’m not a digital expert by any stretch, so I’m sure the digital guys will tell you the opposite. But honestly, if somebody wants the information that you have, they want to listen to it now. They don’t want to wait a week for a live.

Paul Higgins: Yeah. Now look, that’s great advice. And, you know, over the three years you’ve obviously grown the business extraordinarily well. What are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced whilst growing it?

Barbara Turley: Oh yeah. So look, in the beginning, I think, you know, one of the tips that I would give anyone is you absolutely have to find—like, if you want to make a lot of money and get a business that really works for you—you have to find something that people will literally fall over themselves to pay you to do. So you’ve got to find a problem. And I know this is this whole problem-solution gap thing that everybody talks about, but I had read about it and knew about it. But until I found the actual problem that my clients and my ideal people were having, I didn’t quite know exactly how pivotal that point is, that you have to find a problem that people are having right now. So, for example, I was selling a programme, a wealth programme, for a while. And although people told me that yes, they wanted to create wealth and yes, they wanted all these things in their lives, I realized that that was something they wanted in the future. Right now, what they actually wanted was time. And so that’s where my idea came from. So I started the business on that premise. But very quickly then I realized that was the first problem. But what you’re going to find is there’s so many problems after that, and you have to keep pivoting and evolving your business. And I found that quite challenging in the beginning because just when you think you’re on to something and everyone’s delighted with your service because you’ve solved the first problem, then the second problem raises its ugly head. And our second problem was that we discovered very quickly that a lot of people didn’t really know how to delegate effectively. They didn’t really know how to communicate effectively with an offshore VA. They sort of were confused about how to make it work. So that caused a lot of problems, and we had to rebuild the whole business around that problem. And then of course, the third problem raised its ugly head of HR issues, like genuine HR issues in the Philippines. So, you know, I think you just have to say to yourself that there are going to be challenges, and you’re going to have got very upset about so many challenges. Looking back now, I think, well, I should have just said to myself, OK, how do we remove this challenge from our process? How do we fix our process such that this challenge goes away? So that would be the best advice I could give, having gone through it.

Paul Higgins: Fantastic, and that’s great advice. And we move now a little on to the live part of it. Obviously you’re a new mum to Ruby, which is fantastic. You know, balancing motherhood, running a VirtualAngel Hub, plus other interests—how do you go about doing that? I don’t like the word balance, but how do you sort of manage that new lifestyle?

Barbara Turley: Yeah. I mean, obviously that’s a unique challenge. And look, I think whether you’re having a baby or you just—you know, I mean, most people have kids and things at this stage or partners or things they want, or like hobbies that they just love to pursue. So for me, you know, I’m probably tooting my own horn here, but for me the massive thing was getting delegation right and firing myself from as many processes as possible in the business. So I’d have actually managed to pull that off pretty effectively and have a business that grows with—not totally without me because I think that’s kind of unrealistic. What I do only oversee things these days. And most of my time in terms of work is taken up with sort of guiding my team or mentoring them or just driving the sort of strategy of the future part of the business forward and being on these podcasts and things like that. So I would, you know, urge anyone to sort of get delegation right and get processes and systems, which I know you talk a lot about, Paul. Getting this stuff right—if you want to scale a business and free up your time—this is crucial, and loads of people avoid it because they don’t really want to face it. It’s crucial, though.

Paul Higgins: Yeah, spot on. And, you know, if you look back—and I’m sure you still have got friends that are in corporate and, you know, that equity side—how do you think it’s different, the way that you’ve structured your family life now, versus what may have been the case if you had not chosen that sliding door and stayed in that?

Barbara Turley: Oh yeah. So, I mean, it’s just a cat—it’s worlds of difference. Because, you know, if I was still in that role, I probably would—I’d be exhausted, number one. But I think, you know, you’re talking about getting up every morning excruciatingly early, dropping children at quite a young age to childcare, probably at 7 o’clock in the morning, going harder all day and trying to kind of play the game, basically. And then picking up children late at night, coming home and trying to kind of, you know, be a wife, be a partner, be a mother, be a corporate, be everything to everyone. And I know me—probably I’d be totally exhausted. I mean, I work 2 hours a day at the moment, and I manage to run a large, very large business that’s growing fast. And there’s no way that you could ever do that in the corporate world. Never.

Paul Higgins: No, look, I did a post in the community yesterday where I was down the beach, you know, doing a little bit of work while my son and his friend were having a swim. And the post was about the fact that, yes, I used to do it now and again in corporate. And to be honest, my wife said, well, when did you ever do it? And I said, OK, good point. But I didn’t feel guilty. It was just part of my normal day, you know, like why can’t I just jump on Zoom? I had a couple of calls and did a little bit of work, and I was down the beach, and, you know, and then I went for a swim, and it was just such a fantastic free lifestyle versus, yeah, the 10–12 hour meetings, the flights, international, you know, all of that that comes with corporate. And I respect people that are still in corporate, but I know which side of the ledger I’d definitely prefer.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, and look, it’s not for everyone. I mean, I’ve got some friends who love—they love the whole corporate lifestyle. I think that’s a choice you have to make. For me, it was over though. I mean, the minute I got into my early 30’s, I just said it’s just not for me. Yeah. And really, you know, even after we did that management buyout from Deutsche, I was still very much in the corporate world. Now, I loved the job, but I hated the structure. And I always said that that was the problem. Even though I was a shareholder and kind of a quasi business owner, I wasn’t really because I wasn’t running my own time. And that was the decision then to kind of finally leave that and do my own thing completely. And that works for me now.

Paul Higgins: Yeah, and lots of clients, including myself—who’s a client—I’m definitely glad you made that decision. The next part I want to sort of talk about, the give component, the last component—and, you know, is there a cause or a community that you’re passionate about, and if so, why?

Barbara Turley: Yeah. So actually it’s funny you asked this now, and I promise the listeners we haven’t talked about this prior. The last little while I’ve always said that I wanted to build a business that had a kind of social and giving part to it, but I’m quite passionate that, you know, I want to do that, but I think you have to build the business first. I think too many people try and give in the early days when their business is not really established enough to do that. So it’s in my plan. We’re not there yet, but we’re coming up to it. So recently, like an area that I feel very passionately about is just the whole child sex slavery thing globally is something that just makes my blood boil. Always has. And it’s something I’ve always felt, you know, I’ve been to Vietnam, I’ve been to all these places, and it just makes me very sad about this whole thing. And recently I saw that Ashton Kutcher actually has a software—I just saw this the other day. If you look it up on YouTube, it’s unbelievable. Ashton Kutcher—it’s called Thorn. And basically they’ve built this technology that is actually—their plan is to eradicate, you know, the child sex slave industry through technology and spotting this stuff online, and you can donate to that. So that’s one thing I’m really looking at because I like him as a person. I think he’s done great things. I like that particular idea. And the other one I’ve found recently—I’m also a passionate believer in education. So, you know, you’ve freed some of these kids from these problems, but you also have to try and provide a future. So education is the thing that unlocks the world. So there is another group I’m looking at called doread.org, and it basically talks about the impact on children’s lives who can’t read and the change they’re trying to make. So those are two areas for me. We haven’t done it yet, but I would love to kind of be able to give back in that way and support those two causes or those two, I guess, missions—not necessarily through those particular foundations—but those particular areas where I’m interested in.

Paul Higgins: Excellent. And we’ll have in the show notes links to both of those that you’ve mentioned. So the last part is a little more actionable advice. So you’ve given some brilliant advice, but we want to go a little further, deeper, and a little more down the productivity route to give people action—to give our listeners actual advice. So what’s a productivity, personal productivity tip? And especially given the business that you run helping people save time, what’s a tip that you would give someone other than getting a VA?

Barbara Turley: No, no. Hands down, if you want to change your life—I mean, I know that you talk about Podio as the platform and there’s other ones, there’s Asana, there’s Trello, there’s all these different project management tools—please, please, please, if you don’t do anything else, please learn how to use one of those tools. They’re very easy and eradicate things like e-mail, and just manage your productivity and your task lists and your projects and your quarterly strategy meetings and everything—all the things you learned in corporate—and put it all into a platform like Asana, which is free. Podio has a free version, Trello has a free version. I have a sound on my phone, and it just completely has changed my life in terms of running my business from anywhere. So those who’ve never heard of these things before—I’m sure, Paul, they can talk to you about Podio—and I just can’t express enough how much it changed my life from a freedom perspective and keeping me on track.

Paul Higgins: Look, I couldn’t agree more. And your point earlier when you were a coach and the time was one of the biggest things that you saw—I completely agree. And I think that automation—so having the right platform and having virtual teams—I think is still the most successful component. And now, you know, in our club, they’re just mandatory. You’ve got to have those two things, and I’m yet to find someone that hasn’t been successful with them. And on your phone—so anything else that you couldn’t do without on your mobile phone?

Barbara Turley: That’s a good question. So the ones I use a lot are Asana. I’m just thinking of the things I jump into a lot. Asana is massive. Like, I mean, it’s just the main thing that I use. Skype I use a lot. Zoom that we’re on at the moment, I use quite a lot. The other thing is, I use a system called Ontraport. So I’m beginning to do automation as well—so marketing and business system automations. That might be a little a step too far for some of the listeners out there, but it just, again, can just take away so much pain from you and free up so much of your time—stuff that can be automated that generally we do kind of piece by piece and just waste so much time that we could be out building more revenue streams and bigger businesses and freeing up more of our time to do the things we love. I don’t think I can go anywhere without my phone. That’s the only thing—I have my phone. The phones these days, I think, have revolutionized how we can work, and anyone who’s thinking all these smartphones are just too much for me, change your thinking because it’s just amazing the things that you can do on there.

Paul Higgins: Yeah, look, I will, you know, often walk out the house without my wallet, but it’s—HubSpot’s a big, another big marketing sort of platform—but I’ll never leave without my phone.

Barbara Turley: Yes, you can then put your wallet on your phone. You don’t even need to.

Paul Higgins: Can get money from the teller ATM with it, so that’s great advice. What about podcasts? Do you listen—other than your fantastic The Virtual Success Show—are there any other podcasts that you’d recommend the Build Live Give listeners to listen to?

Barbara Turley: Yes, I do, actually. There’s one called The Growth Show, which is run by the guys over at HubSpot. So HubSpot’s a big, another big marketing sort of platform, but they’re a very large company, and they have this cool podcast where they get—I just find it good because they’re really talking about—and it depends, but my interest is always in building scalable businesses and platforms and things like that. So they get a lot of guests on and talk about a lot of companies that have done that. The other one I find very good is Perpetual Traffic, and it’s by the Digital Marketer guys in the US, and it talks about all the digital strategies—like the way to drive traffic to sites and how to get big followings and all these things that are a bit overwhelming—but those guys make it quite—they break it down into quite simple sort of steps. Those are the main ones I’m listening to at the moment. There are a couple of other ones that I’ve dipped in and out of, but I think those are the two that have stuck with me.

Paul Higgins: Fantastic. Once again, there’ll be links to those in the show notes. And if you sort of go back from when you left corporate and you started this wonderful journey—and I know you’ve come so far in such a short period—but what bit of advice do you wish you had received back at the start that you know now?

Barbara Turley: Yes, this is a great one. I heard this on a podcast, actually. I can’t even remember who said it. And there was a guy talking about marketing, and he said with marketing it goes: stop expecting marketing to work because 99% of the time it doesn’t. And he goes, it’s all about testing, trying, being unemotional, and moving on and testing the next thing. And when I left corporate, I think I was so emotionally attached to being successful because I didn’t want to fall on my face and embarrass myself that I took a very long time to launch anything. I wanted it to be perfect before anyone saw it, and then it kind of flopped anyway. And then I went into a hole of depression for about two months about that. So I just think if I could go back, I would say just don’t even worry about it. Just get out there. Find something that people want to buy from you—even a service. Find a problem that people are willing to pay you money to solve. And don’t even worry about logos and colours and websites and all that stuff until you’ve proven that people will pay you money for this thing that you’re about to launch. Because honestly, when I launched VirtualAngel Hub, there was not one person who asked me what our website address was. They were just like, I need a VA, where do I sign? How do I pay you? That was it. We had no name, nothing, and it just exploded by itself. So I wish I had kind of known those tips. You’ve got lots of ideas that will fail—you just have to keep launching ideas until something sticks and be unemotional about it. Don’t worry about it. It’s got nothing to do with you personally. It’s just the market.

Paul Higgins: No, I totally agree. And, you know, I came from my Coke days—we had, you know, billions of dollars in marketing spend—and I can tell you we had the exact same issues with my budget being thousands of dollars. It’s the same thing. We used to joke and say 50% of your marketing works, 50% doesn’t. The problem is you don’t know which 50%.

Barbara Turley: Exactly.

Paul Higgins: I think your advice is spot on. You just got to get out there and do it, and no one ever looks at your world the way you do. So we spend all our time looking at our world, but customers are that busy—it’s just a speck in their day, and, you know, they don’t.

Barbara Turley: They’re only thinking about themselves. They’re thinking, I’ve got this problem, who’s going to help me solve this? And they just want you to come in and solve their problem. They don’t care what color your logo is. So don’t spend dollars worrying about the color of your logo. Don’t even worry about it. Like, I have no business cards or anything. I go to events and people go, can I have your card? And I go, actually, I don’t do cards. I just haven’t got one for ages, and I just say connect with me on LinkedIn, and nobody has a problem with that. So there you go. I just think we worry about all the wrong things.

Paul Higgins: Sale.

Barbara Turley: Sales solve everything.

Paul Higgins: Exactly. And I’ve said this to listeners before, but Ready Fire Aim is a fantastic book. You’ve got to read that book, and that—yeah, there’s a nice way of summing up what you’re saying. Barbara, I totally agree. So how can people find out more about you and your business?

Barbara Turley: So if you want to connect with me personally, you want to find out about me personally, then jump on LinkedIn. That’s kind of where I connect with all my business associates. And virtualangelhub.com is where we hang out. We’ve got live chat there all day, so you can hit us up. You can book a call with one of our outsourcing strategy consultants if you’re interested in talking about some outsourcing. Where else? Yeah, LinkedIn is kind of where I do my own personal stuff, and you can find out a bit more about me over there.

Paul Higgins: Yeah, and look—and I challenge any listener to give me a really good reason why in today’s age you can’t have a virtual assistant. I just think they’re the tools of the trade. They’re no different from a computer—you’ve just got to have a VA. So that’s—and I think that runs a fantastic company and provides excellent service in that area. So look, thanks for sharing your wonderful insights today and really being open with us because, as you said, it’s never a linear journey. And, you know, I love the fact that you can so openly share, but you’ve also got some brilliant insights. So, you know, we wish you all the best in your continued success. And it’s great having you as a member of the Build Live Give community, and I’d love to thank you a lot. Thank you for being on the show today.

Barbara Turley: It’s been my pleasure. I’m so passionate about sharing some of these tips with people because I’ve been there, and it is hard when you leave corporate particularly. But, you know, hang in there and just listen to the people who’ve come before you and take the shortcuts that we’re giving you, basically.

Paul Higgins: Great. Thanks a lot, Barbara.

Barbara Turley: Thanks. Bye.

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