Brett Ingram talks with Barbara Turley, founder and CEO of The Virtual Hub, about the transformative power of virtual assistants (VAs). Barbara discusses her journey from the corporate world to creating a 350-employee enterprise focused on helping businesses optimize operations using VAs. She shares insights on the importance of outsourcing, building operational frameworks, and the benefits of integrating VAs into your business. The conversation also covers the common challenges entrepreneurs face when hiring VAs and how The Virtual Hub addresses these issues.
Key Points in the Conversation with Brett Ingram of the optYOUmize Podcast:
- 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 a virtual assistant
- Challenges and mindset shift required for entrepreneurs to delegate tasks
- Range of tasks that virtual assistants can handle
- Training process for virtual assistants
- Ensuring VA Commitment to Clients
Key Takeaways:
“I think operational framework is where a lot of companies actually stumble when they're trying to scale because what I've learned over the years of doing this is, the operational framework is one thing. You need systems and processes and if you really nail that and you master that, you'll figure out pretty quickly what you can automate, what you can delegate, and then what you can actually have virtual assistants do”
"The problem with the word virtual assistant is people think it means all sorts of people who can do anything virtually, but they forget that the word assistant is in there, right? So we're talking about support layer assistance. No matter what anyone tells you about, Vas can do all this stuff. 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?"