Utilizing Assistants to scale your business
The Digital Velocity Podcast
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Episode breakdown
Barbara Turley’s mission is to eradicate business overwhelm and remove the friction that stunts growth by helping clients to optimize their operations using offshore teams of support assistants, clever automations and streamlined processes. The Virtual Hub makes this happen every day through support assistants who can aid with digital marketing, social media and administrative support plus consultants & system architects who optimize platforms and processes for growing businesses.
The Virtual Hub is a support assistant company with the added advantage of an operational efficiency consulting and implementation team. Rather than doing business “the usual way,” they actually create their own support assistant successes (and yours) through deep training programs (including software like Hubspot and Ontraport) as well as ongoing career development and customized coaching to best serve each of their clients.
Barbara proudly wears the label of Founder and CEO at The Virtual Hub as well as the titles wife and mom.
- What is a virtual assistant and what do they do
- How to hire the right people for your business
- How to manage expectations with assistants
- The most effective strategies for managing and scaling work
- How to utilize assistants to optimize business operations
- The importance of delegation
- When to hire a assistant
- How to facilitate a culture in a remote/hybrid environment
If you're a business owner, you're in the business of business building. You've got to get out of technician mode and think about how are we growing this business
In this episode
00:01 Introduction & guest background
The episode opens with an introduction to the Digital Velocity Podcast, its focus on digital strategy, marketing, and trends. Barbara Turley, founder and CEO of The Virtual Hub, is introduced as the guest. She shares her background, including her lifestyle working between Europe and Australia, and her belief in operational frameworks and distributed teams that allow for a location-independent business.
02:44 Defining and clarifying the role of virtual assistants
Barbara explains the evolution of the “virtual assistant” term, emphasizing that while the title has broadened, the critical word remains “assistant.” She clarifies misconceptions, distinguishing between task support roles and strategic positions, and advocates for strategically delegating recurring and process-based tasks to assistants.
07:03 Delegation, process mapping, and scaling with assistants
Barbara discusses the importance of process mapping for delegation and how business owners should invest time in this upfront to free themselves later. She shares how she scaled her company by constantly systemizing, delegating, and training assistants, even starting with small tasks and iterating.
13:30 Innovating remote work and operational frameworks
Barbara highlights how implementing objectives and key results (OKRs) significantly improved execution speed, reduced unnecessary meetings, and enabled asynchronous work in her remote organization. She stresses the importance of connecting daily tasks to company goals and building operational discipline to maintain performance in distributed teams.
18:42 Optimizing operations and freeing key staff time
The discussion turns to operational optimization using assistants. Barbara outlines how businesses should categorize tasks by department and identify activities that could be delegated to assistants. The goal is to free key personnel for high-impact, strategic work.
25:29 Managing scaling challenges and the high-low hiring strategy
Barbara introduces her “high-low strategy,” where assistants handle the bulk of operational tasks, allowing the business owner to manage strategy until it’s necessary and affordable to hire specialized roles or fractional executives. This phased approach avoids premature senior hires and strengthens delegation practices first.
31:21 Mindset shifts and giving permission to delegate
Barbara and the hosts discuss how entrepreneurs must overcome mental barriers around hiring support, focusing on the opportunity cost of staying in operational tasks versus growing the business. She encourages mapping personal and business visions to drive better decisions about delegation and growth.
35:13 Building culture and structure in a remote environment
The conversation explores maintaining company culture and operational consistency in a remote setup. Barbara emphasizes structured workflows, process documentation, and centralizing work management in platforms like Asana, while limiting chat apps like Slack to informal communication to reduce noise and increase clarity.
41:09 Final advice and takeaways
Barbara advises listeners not to get overwhelmed by the idea of scaling and digital transformation. She suggests starting with simple, small steps like delegating one process or adopting one tool. Incremental delegation and operational adjustments build momentum for larger transformations.
