Episode breakdown
Barbara is an investor, entrepreneur, and Founder & CEO of The Virtual Hub – a business she started by accident that exploded in the space of 12 months to become one of the leading companies that recruit, trains, and manages support assistants in the digital marketing and social media space for businesses who need to free up time and energy so they can go to the next level. Barbara is also Mum to her gorgeous daughter Ruby, wife to her best friend Eti, and an adventure lover with a passion for horses, skiing, tennis, and time out in nature.
- How Barbara Turley started The Virtual Hub by accident
- How to get the best out of your assistants
- What are the tasks that you can delegate to assistants
- How to manage an assistant
- Why people fail when working with assistants
- How to avoid failing with assistants
- The importance of delegating effectively
- What the best places are for the business processes to be managed actively
- How to succeed with virtual teams
You want to optimize the time and energy of the key people by taking the busy work off them successfully. So you need a framework for that...In addition, you want to make sure that you've optimized the business framework
In this episode
00:00 Barbara Turley’s entrepreneurial journey
Barbara shares her transition from a successful corporate career in investment banking and asset management to entrepreneurship. She describes the turning point when she realized she wanted to create something of her own, initially trying business coaching before accidentally discovering a niche in assistant services. The Virtual Hub was born out of increasing demand and has now grown to a 300-employee operation.
05:29 Building an effective assistant utilization model
Barbara explains the importance of strategically identifying tasks key team members should not be doing and reallocating them to assistants. Rather than hiring an assistant and figuring it out later, she emphasizes mapping out delegatable, process-driven work. She highlights the financial and operational leverage achieved by strategically removing 20-60% of non-core work from high-value team members.
10:07 For founders struggling to delegate and manage assistants
For founders unsure what to delegate, Barbara suggests a test, optimize, delegate, and scale framework. She encourages them to begin identifying processes as they develop, delegate portions collaboratively, and avoid an all-or-nothing mindset. Active management and expectation setting are crucial, with a focus on freeing the founder’s time for strategic work.
14:31 Common pitfalls with assistants and how to prevent them
Barbara discusses how many businesses fail with assistants due to misaligned expectations. People often treat assistants like specialists, expecting them to drive outcomes beyond their role. She recommends a high-low strategy: combining high-level strategists with assistants for execution, rather than relying on mid-level staff. This pairing optimizes both cost and outcomes.
21:40 Optimizing people and business structures for scalability
She details her philosophy on optimizing people’s time and energy, particularly A-players, by building systems that eliminate busy work and operational inefficiencies. This involves integrating processes directly within platforms like Asana, keeping SOPs dynamic, and limiting the number of tools to avoid fragmentation.
29:53 Operationalizing a business for growth and scaling offshore teams
Barbara explains how businesses can operationalize effectively to scale, using structured processes and centralized tools like Asana or Monday.com. She stresses the importance of aligning communication and task management policies to maintain clarity, especially within distributed teams.
36:52 Approaches for testing and process iteration
Barbara describes how her company uses continual feedback loops with employees and clients, treating every complaint or issue as an opportunity to improve processes and prevent future problems. She frames this as a way to incrementally evolve operations and customer experience.
41:09 Optimization strategies when initiatives fail
She provides a systematic framework for troubleshooting when initiatives don’t work. The process involves identifying whether it’s a people or system issue, distinguishing between skill and will issues, and ensuring that leadership addresses root causes rather than defaulting to replacing staff prematurely.
45:30 Scaling assistant teams and business growth stages
Barbara outlines how to effectively scale from one to multiple assistants, emphasizing the need for structured team leadership and centralized reporting. She discusses the danger of scaling marketing and sales without operational readiness, warning that this leads to profit and workflow failures.
48:02 Final thoughts and contact information
Barbara closes by advising founders to confront operational weaknesses before scaling aggressively. She invites listeners to connect on LinkedIn or through The Virtual Hub website for guidance on leveraging virtual teams strategically.
