How to scale your business using a Support Assistant
Entrepreneurship Lab
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Episode breakdown
Barbara Turley, an investor, entrepreneur, and Founder & CEO of The Virtual Hub – a business she started by accident that scaled quickly to become one of the leading companies that integrates in-house trained support assistants into clients businesses. This strategy frees up time and energy so that businesses can focus on optimizing their operations further to achieve business growth goals.
- How Barbara Turley started The Virtual Hub
- How you can start working using an assistant
- What mistakes to avoid when working with an assistant
- What tasks you should delegate to an assistant
- How to create systems that will help you delegate more and scale your business
You should delegate. That's what I do. I mean, the minute I have to do something more than once or twice, I'm like, there's a process here. I'm going to process this up, systemize it, and delegate it, and then I'm gonna circle back
In this episode
00:02 Introduction and podcast overview
Nevena Bazalac introduces the Entrepreneurship Lab podcast, highlighting its mission to help entrepreneurs start, grow, and sell businesses while covering marketing, finance, branding, and scaling.
00:45 The importance of delegating and outsourcing
Nevena sets up the main theme of the episode: how delegating and outsourcing tasks is crucial for entrepreneurs, especially startups, to stay productive and focus on core business activities.
02:27 Barbara Turley’s entrepreneurial journey
Barbara shares her transition from corporate finance to entrepreneurship, the impact of the 2008 financial crisis, her accidental start in business coaching, and how identifying a client need for assistants led to founding The Virtual Hub, which now has 300 employees.
06:34 Challenges in delegating and outsourcing for entrepreneurs
Barbara discusses the classic entrepreneurial struggle: wanting to grow but being unable to hire staff before growth happens. She explains common mistakes, such as unclear delegation, unrealistic expectations, and poor training, and how The Virtual Hub addresses these issues through pre-training and operational frameworks.
10:54 Hiring for character and cultural fit
Barbara explains that while skills can be trained, traits like energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity are essential and non-negotiable at The Virtual Hub. She shares how these values drive recruitment success.
12:27 Managing expectations and initiative challenges
They discuss difficulties investors and entrepreneurs face with assistants who either overpromise or work too reactively. Barbara emphasizes setting expectations early, maintaining regular communication, and using support roles like results coaches to bridge gaps.
16:50 What to delegate first
Contrary to popular belief about delegating email, Barbara advocates delegating anything done repeatedly that can be systemized. She shares her approach to refining processes through mistakes and iterative training, encouraging entrepreneurs to see delegation as a long-term investment.
20:05 Maintaining control through systems, not micromanagement
Barbara challenges the belief that entrepreneurs must give up control to grow. Instead, she recommends maintaining control via structured processes, recurring task tracking tools, and performance feedback loops.
22:02 The first hire every startup should make
Barbara advises that a general assistant should be a startup’s first hire — someone who can assist with sales, marketing admin, and general support to free the entrepreneur to focus on revenue-generating activities before scaling operational systems.
24:03 Scaling businesses: Common growing pains
She describes how growing companies face overwhelm, inefficiencies, and unprofitable practices when systems and processes are lacking, even if sales are strong, stressing the need for operational structure before scaling aggressively.
25:57 How The Virtual Hub helps entrepreneurs
Barbara details The Virtual Hub’s model: recruiting and training their own assistants for operational roles, offering clients structured onboarding, and personalized training roadmaps. She also introduces their operational efficiency consulting arm to help businesses improve systems and processes.
28:16 Closing remarks and contact information
Nevena wraps up, sharing how listeners can connect with The Virtual Hub for support in hiring and operations, and thanks Barbara for her insights.
