Episode breakdown
Brett Ingram talks with Barbara Turley, founder and CEO of The Virtual Hub, about the transformative power of support assistants. Barbara discusses her journey from the corporate world to creating a 350-employee enterprise focused on helping businesses optimize operations using support assistants. She shares insights on the importance of outsourcing, building operational frameworks, and the benefits of integrating support assistants into your business. The conversation also covers the common challenges entrepreneurs face when hiring support assistants and how The Virtual Hub addresses these issues.
- Barbara Turley's journey from the corporate world to founding The Virtual Hub
- Benefits of outsourcing and the evolution of Barbara's business
- Optimizing operations and human capital
- Recognizing the need for an assistant
- Challenges and mindset shift required for entrepreneurs to delegate tasks
- Range of tasks that assistants can handle
- Training process for assistants
- Ensuring assistant commitment to clients
You've got to figure out: Is this an assistant role or is this a specialized role where I'm expecting that this person will come in with a specialized knowledge in a certain area?
In this episode
00:00 Introduction & guest background
Host Brett Ingram introduces the podcast theme about optimizing business operations and life through outsourcing and automation. He welcomes guest Barbara Turley, founder of The Virtual Hub, who shares her journey from a corporate career in finance to entrepreneurship. She describes how she accidentally transitioned into outsourcing while working as a business coach, identifying a gap where clients needed operational help more than strategy.
03:32 Starting The Virtual Hub & scaling challenges
Barbara explains the early days of founding The Virtual Hub and scaling it into a 350-person operation. She shares how her background in fast-paced equity trading helped her initially manage supply and demand but how she quickly realized scaling required strong operational frameworks, systems, and automation. She highlights the importance of optimizing business processes to scale effectively and cost-efficiently.
07:45 Operational frameworks & human capital optimization
The conversation shifts to how many businesses underutilize operational frameworks and misallocate human capital by having high-paid staff perform admin tasks. Barbara emphasizes the financial and operational benefits of refining systems to delegate and automate, advocating for businesses to better allocate tasks that can be handled by assistants.
09:39 Remote work vs. outsourcing — debunking myths
Barbara addresses skepticism toward virtual assistance and remote work. She distinguishes between outsourcing and integrating remote team members, emphasizing that proximity doesn’t guarantee productivity. The key is establishing clear operational processes, objectives, and communication systems. She critiques the term “outsourcing,” preferring to describe her services as a seamless business integration.
12:09 When entrepreneurs should hire an assistant
Barbara addresses skepticism toward virtual assistance and remote work. She distinguishes between outsourcing and integrating remote team members, emphasizing that proximity doesn’t guarantee productivity. The key is establishing clear operational processes, objectives, and communication systems. She critiques the term “outsourcing,” preferring to describe her services as a seamless business integration.
15:30 Common entrepreneurial misconceptions about delegation
Brett shares his own struggle with relinquishing control and hesitancy to delegate, fearing no one could meet his standards. Barbara advises breaking processes down, identifying which parts require your expertise, and delegating the rest. She stresses the value of processing and training assistants to execute tasks your way — even if it takes upfront work.
17:30 Scaling a team with assistants and avoiding early mistakes
Barbara warns against the common mistake of hiring multiple assistants without clear processes or training, sharing that many entrepreneurs overestimate what assistants can do without guidance. She highlights the importance of role alignment — ensuring you’re hiring an assistant for assistant-level work, not expecting specialized expertise without providing clear frameworks and expectations.
19:30 Types of tasks to delegate to assistants
Barbara outlines the broad range of tasks that can be delegated, particularly in marketing — from social media content creation and scheduling to blog post formatting, podcast repurposing, and light graphic design. She notes that the speed and productivity of an assistant depend heavily on the quality of the processes and systems you have in place.
21:30 Hiring and managing assistant performance expectations
The discussion turns to hiring pitfalls — entrepreneurs often mistake a assistant’s familiarity with tools for specialized expertise. Barbara stresses clarifying whether you need a true specialist (like a designer) versus an assistant comfortable using tools like Canva. Misalignment of role expectations is a common source of dissatisfaction.
23:38 Why assistants ghost or underperform
Brett shares experiences of assistants disappearing or juggling too many jobs. Barbara confirms this is a frequent issue when hiring independently and explains how The Virtual Hub addresses this through rigorous vetting, cultural fit assessment, and employing assistants directly with guaranteed payroll, benefits, and training before placing them with clients.
26:35 Maintaining assistant engagement and loyalty
Barbara explains how The Virtual Hub keeps assistants committed by focusing on culture, team building, and benefits. Even though assistants work remotely for clients, Barbara’s company maintains employee engagement through social events, bonuses, and a supportive community, ensuring assistants feel valued beyond their client work.
30:38 Building a strong company culture with remote teams
The conversation shifts to culture-building challenges in remote environments. Barbara shares how The Virtual Hub fosters belonging by balancing assistant connection to both client businesses and The Virtual Hub community. She reflects on the importance of continuously listening to employee feedback and iterating on company practices.
32:58 Operational model and cost optimization with assistants
Barbara discusses her decision to take on financial risk by hiring assistants full-time before assigning them to clients, allowing The Virtual Hub to assess character and skills internally. She highlights how this model reduces client turnover, ensures culture alignment, and protects clients from hiring mistakes and operational disruptions.
35:08 Are assistants a cost or an investment?
Addressing cost concerns, Barbara clarifies that while assistants don’t directly generate revenue, they free up entrepreneurs’ time to focus on revenue-driving activities. The real ROI comes from how founders leverage their own freed-up hours, making delegation an indirect growth engine.
37:15 Types of assistants offered by The Virtual Hub
Barbara outlines the three core categories of assistants they offer:
- Admin assistants (back-office tasks, document formatting, spreadsheets)
- Marketing Support assistants (social media scheduling, podcast and blog management, light graphic work)
- Systems Support assistants (tool integrations, CRM updates, workflow automation).
She emphasizes the importance of role-fit rather than lumping different tasks into a catch-all assistant role.
39:39 What sets The Virtual Hub apart
Barbara details how The Virtual Hub differentiates itself by removing the hiring and training burden from clients. They assign pre-vetted, trained assistants quickly, provide client success managers and results coaches for ongoing performance support, and maintain operational efficiency via a pod-account system.
42:26 Success stories and notable clients
Barbara shares client success stories, including one from Vern Harnish (author of Scaling Up) and other clients scaling from one assistant to full multi-department support teams. She highlights how clients often regret not hiring full-time assistants sooner due to the operational relief and growth impact.
44:22 Where to find Barbara and final success tip
Barbara directs listeners to connect via thevirtualhub.com and her LinkedIn profile (Barbara-Turley). Her parting tip: continuously ask what tasks you (and your team) should stop doing or delegate to optimize productivity and human capital.
