David Barnett: So if anyone’s going to own a business, they need to know how to delegate.

Hey everyone, it’s David Barnett from davidcbarnett.com—the blog site, YouTube channel, iTunes, SoundCloud, Google Play, Amazon podcasts—where I talk about buying, selling, financing, and managing small and medium-sized businesses.

Today, we’ve got a very special guest. This is Barbara Turley from The Virtual Hub, a company that helps people set up and use virtual assistants all around the world. Today we’re going to be talking about delegation.

Barbara, how are you today?

Barbara Turley: I’m great. Thank you, David. Yeah, thanks for having me on the YouTube channel—very excited.

David Barnett: Well, no problem. Barbara is this month’s special guest speaker in the Business Buyer Adventure group coaching program. Over there, we had an hour-long conversation where we talked about the opportunity in outsourcing or using virtual assistants based in the Philippines to help companies, no matter what kind of company it is, anywhere in the world.

But I wanted to have her come onto the main YouTube channel to have a discussion with us specifically about delegation because it’s something that anyone who is ever involved in business—and wants to grow beyond simply themselves—has to figure out how to do properly, or else you’re never really going to unlock the potential of how employees can help you. Isn’t that right?

Barbara Turley: Absolutely, yeah. I think it’s one of the big skills out there, and it is a skill that’s not talked about enough in the entrepreneurial community as the bit that trips so many businesses up. They’ve got the right product and right everything else, but they haven’t mastered this delegation skill and problem.

David Barnett: Why don’t we look at this from the point of view of the employee? What are they looking for in leadership from the business owner in order for them to feel good about coming to work every day?

Barbara Turley: Yeah, I mean, look—any employee, it doesn’t matter at what level they’re at—but most people will tell you what they really want. People love to come into a machine where there’s a balance between strong leadership, strong direction, and strong strategy, but there also is room to grow, room for ideas, and room for people to expand themselves.

But then you do need a certain level of process management and, you know, not chaos. Nobody wants to join a company that’s in chaos. Sometimes business owners think, “Well, I just want to hire A players and let them at it.” And that’s OK if you’re at that level, right, where you’re allowing, let’s say, a head of sales or a department to build out a machine.

But the problem is that most people want to work for something that is quite enjoyable, where everyone knows what they’re supposed to be doing and there’s no confusion as to who’s doing what and how you do something. That’s in my experience.

David Barnett: Well, in my experience, I’ve found that when you have that kind of chaos going on, a lot of smart people will realize, “Hey, the prospects for the future of this thing may not be so solid if they don’t quite know what they’re doing.” And with that doubt constantly eating away at people, it means that they’re more open to looking for other opportunities, maybe. You can end up with all kinds of problems if people don’t feel that it’s a secure, well-run machine.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, and I think when people listen to me talking about this, they’re probably thinking, “But lots of people don’t want to work in a highly processed, told-what-to-do scenario.” That’s not actually what we’re saying.

What we’re saying here is clear guidelines around how we communicate as a company, how we do things, how we attack projects, how we run meetings, and how everything kind of flows. That’s the basis of the framework that you need in order for delegation to then be successful.

But many people just want to— I hear it all the time—“I just want to hire A players and let them at it.” I’m like, well, yeah, but there needs to be cohesiveness and leadership across an entire business. Even if the business has only two people, like a solopreneur and an assistant, it doesn’t matter. There has to be a cohesiveness of how we’re doing stuff here.

David Barnett: What are some examples you’ve seen, or some common mistakes people make where they’re just not getting it right?

Barbara Turley: Yeah, I think one of the big ones is there’s no onboarding of new people. People go, “Hey, great, you’re employed. OK, here’s what you need to do,” or “Here, do this for me.” It’s very ad hoc.

Now, it’s difficult because usually—particularly in smaller businesses—we’re all in chaos anyway because we’re trying to grow, and the growth stage is quite painful and busy. But people need to take a step back and go, “Right, if you’re employing someone or bringing anyone on board, you’re obviously thinking long-term-ish. You’re not thinking about the next month.”

So it’s OK to spend onboarding time and say, “We need to settle back for a minute and take a step back so that we can move forward faster later.”

Now, people think when you’re hiring higher-up roles that it should be faster. I would actually hazard it’s the other way around. In my experience, hiring a head of operations or a head of HR—there is like a six-month onboarding experience for a lot of those people because they’ve got to get in under the hood, look at what’s already being done, get to know the culture, the whole vibe, get to know you, and understand how everything works—and then rebuild, usually. That can take six months.

So I actually think getting a VA onboard is faster. That’s like a six-week kind of onboarding experience.

David Barnett: What’s interesting is I just made the connection as you were speaking—talking about a higher-level manager and somebody who’s buying a business. What I often see is that when someone buys a business, there’s a transition period with the former owner, and then there’s another period—I call it the normalization period—where the new owner knows what they need to keep things running day to day.

Then they do exactly what you described: they examine how everything is operating and start planning changes. I usually tell people not to make a major change for the first year because you need to figure out why it’s being done that way. Is it tradition, or is there an actual reason?

Barbara Turley: Exactly. There could be a good reason, or it could just be legacy—and you won’t know that for a long time.

I also got some advice a few years ago: don’t hire big roles more than once every six months because, as the owner, you can’t onboard a head of learning and development, head of ops, and head of HR all at the same time. It’s quite difficult.

Unless you’re starting from scratch, you’ve just got to be careful and allow things the time they need to get right.

David Barnett: So let’s fast forward. I’ve hired someone, onboarded them, they’re aware of the culture and mission, and they’ve gotten to know me. What should I be thinking about when I want to start assigning them chunks of work?

Barbara Turley: It depends on the level. Let’s say it’s someone in a higher-up role with expertise. You still want to hand over processes—unless it’s a blank canvas.

Sometimes a whole department is a blank canvas with a couple of people thrown together. That’s OK, but then you need to give them a mandate—your goals, vision, and what you’d like them to achieve—so they can build processes, systems, and team structure.

If you already have processes, you hand those over and say, “Have a look under the hood and report back with your thoughts and what we should change.”

Now, that’s a higher-up role. Hiring a VA is totally different. People get confused. They think VAs come in and say, “I’ll look over your process and tell you what’s wrong.” That’s actually a strategist.

David Barnett: Some kind of consultant, yeah.

Barbara Turley: Exactly—that’s a totally different thing. With a virtual assistant or someone in an execution role, you need to already have a machine or processes built, plus a clear training and onboarding plan.

Then let them at it, but also give them the mandate that you’ll have huddles—maybe with leadership—where you’ll discuss their feedback over time. Give them time first, then they might come back and say, “This process is two years old. I think we could improve this step.”

You might get some of that, but don’t expect too much. They’re execution people. And I think that’s where people make mistakes—confusing who builds the process and who executes it.

David Barnett: So it almost sounds like some people are fully on board with empowering employees, but they try to offload creativity and strategy onto lower-level employees who may not be qualified or interested.

Barbara Turley: Exactly—they’re not qualified to do it. You might get the odd unicorn—someone amazing—but that’s rare.

If you do find someone who can build, evolve, and execute processes, they should probably be promoted, and you should offload execution to someone else.

What I often see is people in the U.S. using 40% of their time on execution work that could easily be handed over to a virtual assistant in the Philippines. That frees them up to manage, evolve, and improve processes instead of getting bogged down in doing.

So yes, you might find someone who can do both—but from a cost-effectiveness point of view, should they? Probably not.

David Barnett: Yeah, well, it makes sense. And in the conversation you and I had before, I had mentioned that I know people now who are getting virtual assistants for their assistants for exactly that purpose. As their assistant develops and gains more skills and abilities, and gets trained to do more complex functions, they’re saying, “Do I really want this person managing the mail merge of the Word and Excel thing?”

Barbara Turley: One hundred percent. And then it’s about looking at your budget. Every business looks at budgets for each department, except we don’t really do it very well when it comes to people. I hate using the term “human capital,” but when you look at your team and all the hours you’re paying for—if you’ve got someone amazing, like an account manager, you might be paying someone $100,000 a year, and 40% of their time could be spent doing work that’s essentially a $10-an-hour job offshore.

You could free up their time—what could they do for your company if they weren’t bogged down in the doing? If you ask any executives, they’d say, “I wish I could get rid of this, this, and this,” but they haven’t processed it. It’s all in their head. These are all the issues around delegation and how you make it cost-effective.

David Barnett: Now, Barbara, I’ve worked in sales organizations my whole life, and everyone knows the $100,000 account manager does the high-value work during business hours and the $10-an-hour work at night after supper.

Barbara Turley: I don’t know why they don’t have virtual assistants. I mean, you might go on Upwork, sure—but therein lies the problem. What you find happening is that when people are unhappy in their job, or when you try to get feedback from your team, you think, “I don’t understand why they’re unhappy. They’re getting paid well.”

Then you dig in and realize they’re up till midnight every night doing work they don’t want to do—but they feel they have to do it to keep the job. That leads to burnout and unhappy people because they’re doing things they don’t enjoy.

David Barnett: This is bringing back so many memories. One of my first careers was with the Yellow Pages, and some of the older guys I worked with had trained their spouses to do paperwork.

Barbara Turley: That’s actually exactly what we’re talking about. They were clever because they trained their spouse to do it. But what if every business was strategic about this and said, “Let’s hire an assistant”?

The next step, though, is managing change. If you don’t handle that conversation correctly, your higher-level people might think you’re trying to replace them or offshore their role. You’ve got to be careful with how you manage that. I’ve fallen into that trap myself. But again, this is all part of delegation.

David Barnett: Right. So basically, to encapsulate the conversation we’ve had, it’s about figuring out exactly what you want the other person to do and being able to guide and lead them so they understand it clearly. Then, of course, you need some sort of measurement or follow-up to ensure it’s being done correctly, and to give them feedback so they know if they’re doing a good job.

Barbara Turley: Yeah. People say things like, “I’m afraid of giving away control.” And business owners are control-oriented—it’s our baby. But there is a way to give away control and still maintain it.

That’s when you have strong systems, processes, reporting lines, and clarity on who’s doing what. The whole thing becomes a streamlined machine. When problems occur, it’s usually because of communication gaps, confusion, or misunderstandings. Those are actually process holes that can be fixed.

It’s like managing chess pieces on a board. It’s leadership, yes—but I call it delegation. Delegation is more than leadership; leadership is just one element of it.

David Barnett: And one of the biggest things I see is that people just don’t want to let go. Entrepreneurs often feel like they’re the only ones capable of doing things properly.

I remember taking a program years ago on effective personal productivity, and one of the biggest lessons was that just because something isn’t done exactly the way you would do it doesn’t mean it’s unacceptable. Even if someone does it at 80% or 90%—

Barbara Turley: You do the other 10%.

David Barnett: Exactly. If it costs a quarter of the price to get it done at 90% satisfaction, it might be perfectly fine.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, and sometimes that extra 10% is just something you tweak. For example, I used to write all my own copy because I was good at it. Then I trained my team to do it. It took a while—back and forth—but now they write it, and I just tweak it. It takes me about 15 minutes instead of starting from scratch.

So you can take something that’s 80% done and either refine it yourself or give feedback so it improves over time.

David Barnett: Well, whoever wrote your words for today did a great job.

Barbara Turley: Yeah, I was thinking in my head—who wrote that?

David Barnett: Sorry, couldn’t help it. All right, Barbara—if people want to learn more about your company, The Virtual Hub, and how you help people get virtual assistants in the Philippines, how can they contact you?

Barbara Turley: Sure. I don’t do much social media, but you can find me on LinkedIn—Barbara Turley. We also have a special link for you guys today: thevirtualhub.com/DCB.

David Barnett: Those are my initials—David C. Barnett, DCB. I’ll put that link in the YouTube show notes, so if you’re watching there, you’ll find it below.

Barbara Turley: Yep. On our site, we have tons of content. I also have a podcast—shameless plug—which is quite tactical. It’s branching more into delegation now, but it covers VAs, communication, and how to work with them.

On that special page, you can download a guide called Why People Fail with VAs and How to Fix It. It covers the five common mistakes. There’s also a “Scalable Business Success Formula” e-course, and you can book a call with our team to see if we’re a good fit and how we can help.

David Barnett: Awesome. Well, thank you, Barbara, for spending some time with us. It was a great conversation, and definitely a skill that anyone will need to work on if they want to grow as a business owner.

Barbara Turley: Thanks for having me.

David Barnett: All right, have a great day. And for everyone else—if you enjoyed the video, don’t forget to give it a thumbs up. It helps with the algorithm on whatever platform you’re watching.

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Thanks, everybody—we’ll see you next week.