Virtual Success Show

How to Create an Online Course for Free with Chris Badgett Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Barbara Turley speaks to Chris Badgett of LifterLMS about the process of creating your own online course and membership sites, and how this will help you and your business especially in the middle of a global crisis.Some key points include:Getting your course ideas out of your head and actually creating themThe minimum tech stack needed in order to start an online course or membership siteTaking advantage of the current crisis and developing your business online Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.  In this episode:02:11  How to create an online course for free06:22  SCIDL Method09:58  How to avoid getting stuck with the Tech Stack13:13  Taking advantage of the current crisis17:20  What does it mean to Pivot your Business18:30  Having the right Business Mindset this crisis19:44  Wrapping things up   Intro: Do you find yourself running out of time to accomplish your work? Are you spending time doing things that you're not that good at? There are effective ways to outsource these tasks so you can focus on your business. This is the Virtual Success Show. We bring the inside scoop on outsourcing success for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs. And now, here are your hosts, Matt Malouf, and Barbara Turley. Barbara Turley: Welcome everyone to today's episode of the Virtual Success Show podcast where today I am joined by Chris Badgett, who I've had on the podcast before, who's the founder of the LifterLMS membership site plugin. And we're here today to talk all about membership sites and why now is the best time ever for you to get your course out of your head onto a learning management system. Like something like Lifter and get it out to the world so obviously, I'm Barbara Turley, your host of the Virtual Success Show podcast and founder of The Virtual Hub. Chris, welcome to today's show. Chris Badgett: Thanks for having me, Barbara. I'm really excited to get into it with you today. Barbara Turley: Yes, so look, you know, I know loads of people over time have always wanted to create membership sites, online courses and you know as well as I do that people get stuck not just with getting the course out of their heads but getting it onto the platforms, the tech stops people and usually business stops people in that you're running the day to day running of your business stops you, so now is the best time I think, for a lot of businesses to try to pivot fast and go this route. We'll talk about kind of the best businesses that can do that in a minute but I was really inspired by your- recently you did a four day course creation boot camp, I think you'd call it online and with the idea of to help people to get a course out of their heads, get out of the weeds and actually get the course created. Can you give us the short and dirty version of how do we do that? And how do we make it less overwhelming? Because it's quite overwhelming to do it. How to Create an Online Course for Free Chris Badgett:  Yeah, well, first, I just want to acknowledge the huge problem and this isn't a new problem because if you think about it, if you're watching this right now, just raise your hand or smash the like button or whatever, if you have ever thought about writing a book, but you never actually wrote the book. This kind of- this is an age old problem right here too, with creative entrepreneurs and people who want to innovate and are really passionate about a topic or helping a certain type of person. So I see unfortunately, a lot of people get stuck in the weeds of like they're looking at the mechanism, they're looking at the course or the membership site, or the coaching program that they're going to put on the internet and they're really focused on it. But then there's this giant gap between, "Alright,

Office to Remote: The Tech Stack for a Seamless Transition with Peter Moriarty Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Barbara Turley speaks to Peter Moriarty of itGenius and discusses the how-to's of setting up your company fit for a virtual environment. They talk about creating the right systems and processes in order to effectively manage a remote team.   Some key points include:The tools that you need in order to have a great task and communication flow in your business.Challenges working in a virtual environmentWhy you should eradicate emailsWhat does it mean to have the right mindset shift  Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.  In this episode:02:02 Roadblocks when setting up Cloud Based System04:30 Important G Suite features07:40 Task Management, Systems and Processes 11:58 Working in a Virtual Environment15:22 Why Task Management by Email never works19:21 Tips in getting through this remote setup successfully26:28 Remote Business Playbook28:09 Wrapping Things Up  Tools Mentioned:AsanaTrelloPodioG SuiteDropboxZoomSkypeSlackZapierOntraportActive Campaign  Intro: Do you find yourself running out of time to accomplish your work, are you spending time doing things that you're not that good at? There are effective ways to outsource these tasks so you can focus on your business. This is the Virtual Success Show, we bring the inside scoop on outsourcing success for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And now, here are your hosts Matt Malouf and Barbara Turley.  Barbara Turley: Hey, everyone, welcome back to another special edition episode of the Virtual Success podcast where we're now taking it live online to cope with this COVID-19 crisis that we're currently all in right now. Today's guest, I'm talking to Peter Moriarty from itGenius and he's given me so many tips already before we've even started this show. But really what I want to talk about is so many companies have been scrambling to try to move people into a remote or work from home situation over the last few weeks. Me included, I at The Virtual Hub had to move 110 staff very quickly into work from home situations and it was something apart from the issue of not having computers, the actual online or the systems, part of it was very easy because I had actually set it up that way. But I know a lot of companies have been scrambling trying to do this and not really getting it right. So, Peter's here with us today to talk specifically about how to set your company up to make sure that the next time, hopefully, we never have to do this again. But if you do, you can move fast and that your systems are portable. So Peter, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us.  Peter Moriarty: Thank you so much for having me. I am thrilled to be here.   Barbara Turley: So to kick off, can you tell me, I'm sure you see this all the time in your experience with working with companies. A company who comes to you and wants to be more cloud-based or wants to be more nimble in terms of moving people around, what are the major roadblocks and problems that you see in their setup? To kick off.  Roadblocks in Setting Up a Cloud-Based System  Peter Moriarty: Yeah, I'd say it's always people. But people are always the roadblocks. It's either processes that are in place, or ways of thinking they're in place, which are the biggest blockers. And technology change requires people change. And so when you're going through a process of you know, everyone's been through a bad technology change at one point in their life, whether that was you know, working in corporate and having someone implementing your system without training people properly, or just, you know, switching from a PC to a Mac, and the first couple of days, kind of not knowing where the buttons are, you know, the frustration and the the fear, it's not just a fear of change for stop, but it's certainly, you know,

Scaling up the Delegation Game with Nigel Bennett, Co-Founder of Aqua-Guard Spill Response  Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Barbara Turley speaks to Nigel Bennett of Aqua-Guard Spill Response about how to delegate effectively, how to grow your team, and avoid Business Owner Burnout.  Some key points include:The importance of having a business coachHow to manage business owner burnoutWhy you need to invest time and energy in training your peopleThe importance of systems and processes in your business  Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.  In this episode:02:18  Aqua-Guard Spill Response05:52  Business Owner Burnout11:38   How to Delegate more effectively18:38  Organic Growth in your Business19:58   Processes and Systems 21:12   The importance of Life Rhythm in your Business27:35  Who should manage the people and the teams in your Business28:38  Keeping in touch with your team during this pandemic32:19   Nigel's experience with Burnout Business Owners37:19   Fight, Flight, or Freeze40:34  Final thoughts42:23  Wrapping things Up  Intro: Do you find yourself running out of time to accomplish your work, are you spending time doing things that you're not that good at? There are effective ways to outsource these tasks so you can focus on your business. This is the Virtual Success Show, we bring the inside scoop on outsourcing success for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And now, here are your hosts Matt Malouf and Barbara Turley.   Barbara Turley: Welcome everybody to another episode of the Virtual Success Show podcast where I'm your host as always Barbara Turley. I do co-host this show with my co-host, Matt Malouf, who's not with us today. But my guest today, I'm joined by Nigel Bennett, who is the co-founder and owner of Aqua-Guard Spill Response. And also because I want to mention your book, also author of the book, "Take that leap, risking it all for what really matters" and he's also the founder of TruBeach. He's been a member of the entrepreneurs organization for 15 years, has won a whole pile of awards and not even gonna go into how many they are but I met Nigel on a mastermind call that I had the pleasure to be on a few weeks ago, when I heard his story about, how he has managed to not just delegate effectively, but has actually managed to remove himself pretty much completely from the day to day operations of his business. So Nigel, welcome to the show and thank you so much for joining me.   Nigel Bennett: Hi, Barbara. Thank you so much. It's, it's the pleasure. Pleasure to be on your show. I'm in. I'm in Whistler here in British Columbia, and you're in Chamonix, I guess. And Barbara Turley: Yeah, we're both in the ski slopes but there's no snow, we're not allowed to ski Nigel Bennett: No snow and we can't go out, Yeah, I know. Barbara Turley: During this crisis time and you know, like it's been really great connecting with so many entrepreneurs at the moment during this crisis time that we're currently in. But Nigel, to kick off just give us the quick you know, Aqua-Guard Spill Response and what I love about this company and about me finally interviewing you, is that it's different from most of the types of businesses that we've had on the podcast or that I've been talking to in that it's kind of, it's way off the charts from what I would normally be doing in the digital world or whatever. So give us the quick synopsis of what it is.  Aqua-Guard Spill Response   Nigel Bennett: Yeah, we're an emergency response company. If you go way back, right out of high school, I was working for my father's environmental mapping company. And next day after high school I was I was on a plane down to Venezuela. And I live in Vancouver, and I'd never really been out of the country very much. So I was. I was doing overflights over Lake Maracaibo taking photographs of the coastline for environmental mapping.

How to Hire A-Players Consistently with a Streamlined Recruitment Process Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Barbara Turley and her co-host Matt Malouf discuss The Virtual Hub's recruitment process, what makes it different from others, and the secret to hiring A-players in your business.  Some key points include:The importance of having a great recruitment processThree key things to remember when recruitingHow to determine A-players from B and C-players   Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.  In this episode:2:39 The Virtual Hub's Recruitment Process8:40 Recruitment Status in this Crisis11:05 How to avoid bringing in the wrong people14:20 Attitude vs Skill17:48 Three key fundamentals in Recruiting21:59 Wrapping things up  Intro: Do you find yourself running out of time to accomplish your work, are you spending time doing things that you're not that good at? There are effective ways to outsource these tasks so you can focus on your business. This is the Virtual Success Show, we bring the inside scoop on outsourcing success for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And now, here are your hosts Matt Malouf and Barbara Turley.  Matt Malouf: Hi, everyone and welcome to another episode of the Virtual Success Show where I'm joined by my co host, Barbara Turley. Hi, Barbara. How are you today?  Barbara Turley: I'm great Matt and you?  Matt Malouf: Yep, going really, really well... really well. Very excited to starting to see what we're coming out of lockdown through this pandemic that we've been going through and life is starting to get back to some form of normality. How is it on the; I'm in Australia today and your in France. How's it, how's things over in your neck of the woods?   Barbara Turley: Well, you know, I'm just excited too Matt because the restaurants are opening this week. So, you know, we're slowly opening up, but we can finally have a glass of wine somewhere else other than our house. So that's got to be a good thing. So but yeah, very slowly opening up, everyone wearing masks where we are. But I guess that's the right thing to do for now. But good to see us all opening up again.  Matt Malouf: And today's show, I wanted to actually spend some time interviewing Barbara, because we've been having a few conversations recently off air. And one of the most interesting things that we've been talking about is the recruitment process. And the hiring of VAs and how Barbara and her team are doing that process at the moment. But the, I guess, not just about the process, around, I guess the numbers behind how many VAs are the like you've got to go through or interview to get to a diamond and I wanted to share that with everybody today because I think it's an area of business that so many business owners struggle with, which is hiring a little and hiring their VA. So I wanted to spend some time just getting Barbara's insights and sharing that with you all today. So Barbara, I guess let's start with regards to hiring VA's and the like. What is the sort of process? Is it just a, do you just follow a traditional recruitment process? Or are you doing something a little bit different to test and find the right people?   The Virtual Hub's Recruitment Process  Barbara Turley: Yeah, great question, Matt. Because, you know, a lot of people would have different definitions of what is the traditional recruitment process, I suppose in most people's head, that is put out a job ad, get a load of applications, look at a few resumes, narrow them down, interview a few people and pick the one you like the most. Over the years, you know, you start off doing that. But really and I know we did a full show on this, you and I before where I dissected out our recruitment process, and it is a lengthy process that we go through that involves a lot of metrics.  And it is very, we only bring in the relationship piece at the very,

Vital Business Cashflow Management with Matt Malouf Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Barbara Turley is joined by her co-host Matt Malouf to talk about How to Manage Cash Flow in a Crisis and Lead your Business to Survival and come out Strong.  Some of the key points include:What is cash flow analysis and how it is doneHow to survive in this crisis The difference between a Bookkeeper, an Accountant, and a CFOThe importance of numbers/data in your business  Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.  In this episode:02:06  Cashflow Analysis and Forecasting05:48  How to help business owners with their Cash flow statements08:48  Reacting vs Responding10:57   Importance of Cashflow analysis during this crisis18:39   90daycashflow.com22:03   Accountant vs CFO26:56   Importance of numbers in the business28:06   Wrapping things up Intro: Do you find yourself running out of time to accomplish your work, are you spending time doing things that you're not that good at? There are effective ways to outsource these tasks so you can focus on your business. This is the Virtual Success Show, we bring the inside scoop on outsourcing success for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And now, here are your hosts Matt Malouf and Barbara Turley. Barbara Turley: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Virtual Success Show where I'm finally rejoined again, I've managed to coax my co-host, Matt Malouf, back to join me on this show. I'm your co-host, Barbara Turley. Matt, thanks for coming back and joining us on the show again, Matt Malouf: No worries and yeah. So sorry, I haven't been, I've been so proud of all the episodes you've been doing and we should've been on there. It's just been one of those crazy times at the moment. Barbara Turley: Absolutely. I know if, we're you know, as we're recording this today. We're sort of right in the middle of this Coronavirus situation that's going on. But it's a very interesting time for the show Matt. And you know, the concept of remote working and virtual teams. And we've actually seen a massive uplift in people interested in actually the podcast. And the stuff we've been talking about for the last three years on this podcast has all of a sudden become even more important than ever before. So what I wanted to talk to, I'm getting Matt back on the show specifically to talk today about cash flow. It's not really a virtual team kind of topic, but it's important in the environment that we're in right now. And Matt, you've been out talking a lot about cash burn, cash flow forecasting, managing your cash and being lean in this environment, but not so lean that you can't come out strong. So I want to dig into this topic with you. First of all, let's start with talking about cash flow analysis and forecasting and watching your cash. Can you start at the beginning and talk to us about what do we actually do to do that? Because lots of us don't even know how to do that. Cashflow Analysis and Forecasting Matt Malouf: Let me start with I think the importance around cash flow is that it's more than just looking at your bank account. And I was, I did a presentation this morning. I think one of the biggest mistakes so many smaller, medium business owners make is their key report that they rely on in their business is an ATM receipt, to tell them what's going on in their business. And the reality is that cash in your business is like oxygen to a human, where you can only last a very short period of time without oxygen and in a business can only last a very short period of time without cash.  And so, in normal practices, in normal and I'm using very common, as in normal times, we should be managing our cash flow. What does that mean, that means we should be predicting based on our leads and conversion, cash coming in. And we need to factor in things like, if our business invoices,

To Pivot or to Pause with Jenny Blake Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Barbara Turley speaks to Jenny Blake about the Concept of Pivoting. They talk about taking control of your business and recognizing the opportunities that are out there in the midst of the current global crisis.   Some of the key points include:How to pivot your business How far ahead should you plan when pivotingShould you pivot your business or should you hold off  Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.  In this episode:02:23 How to get the right mindset when pivoting05:11  How to listen more effectively08:55 Rising into a pivot from a negative mindset13:05  The Next Steps15:52  The Pivot Runway20:26 The Important thing about pivoting22:30 Final thoughts25:09 Wrapping things up Intro: Do you find yourself running out of time to accomplish your work, are you spending time doing things that you're not that good at? There are effective ways to outsource these tasks so you can focus on your business. This is the Virtual Success Show, we bring the inside scoop on outsourcing success for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And now, here are your hosts Matt Malouf and Barbara Turley. Barbara Turley: Hey everyone social medialand... Welcome to another episode of our special COVID-19 series of the Virtual Success Show podcast. I'm your host, Barbara Turley and today I am joined by somebody who has become somewhat of a friend. Jenny Blake is author of pivot, the book called “Pivot: The only move that matters is your next one” and she also hosts the podcast, Jenny what's the name of the podcasts? Jenny Blake: Pivot with Jenny Blake Barbara Turley: Yeah so welcome to the show, Jenny and she's here to talk to us today about this whole concept of pivoting, it's very easy to talk about it and everybody out there right now is talking about how in this crisis, that you know of course there's gonna be opportunity there's gonna be opportunity absolutely everywhere because in every crisis there is and those who know how to pivot, and those who can handle the pace of pivoting and pull it off can do quite well. From my own experience over the last what, we're five weeks into this whole thing, 5-6 weeks into this thing and what I have personally found difficult and I wanted to talk to Jenny about this today is, you know when you're coming out of saving your business in the initial stages of the crisis and then you have to try to shift very quickly into a different frame of mind, which is the creative side of yourself.   To try to pivot your business and get the animal spirits flowing again of entrepreneurship and it's hard to wake up every day and to try and get yourself into the right mindset to do it, when you've come out of kind of being you know, beaten over the head every day with your ops and trying to save your clients and save the business. So Jenny, welcome to the show and talk to us about you know, how do we quickly shift this mindset and how much of it is mindset, if you can talk to us about that.  How to get the right mindset when pivoting Jenny Blake: Well there's so much that you said there and I think one thing is giving ourselves permission to be on this roller coaster and have, that's really one we do train for us entrepreneurs, is that exact journey, that exact roller coaster, but right now during a global pandemic, a crisis, the volume to such metaphors, the volume on that station just got turned all the way up to a ten. So we're gonna, I feel that the highs are high and the lows are pretty low and what you described Barbara is so important is, I don't know about you but I also, simultaneous to all the stress I felt a lot of adrenaline tried to navigate every single day these first five weeks and I do a lot of keynote speaking and traveling for work, all of that was canceled, not all of it went straight to virtual.

The Power of Podcast Marketing with Interview Valet Founder Tom Schwab Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Barbara Turley speaks to Tom Schwab of Interview Valet about the rising relevance of podcasts especially with the current global crisis and the opportunities podcasts present to business owners everywhere.   Some of the key points include: How to leverage your business with podcast and podcast guestings When to become a podcast host and/or a podcast guest. How to repurpose old podcasts in order to get more traffic and attract more listeners.   Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.   In this episode: 02:09  Why Podcasts are a brilliant marketing strategy 04:10  How to capitalise on Podcasts 06:39  What makes a great podcast guest 09:17  How to be different with Podcasts 12:16  Content amplification and repurposing 15:11  Growth of the podcast industry 18:46  Wrapping things Up Intro:  Do you find yourself running out of time to accomplish your work? Are you spending time doing things that you're not that good at? There are effective ways to outsource these tasks so you can focus on your business. This is the virtual success show. We bring the inside scoop on outsourcing success for entrepreneurs, by entrepreneurs. And now, here are your hosts, Matt Malouf, and Barbara Turley. Barbara Turley: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the virtual Success Show where we are streaming live now online for our episodes of the show. I'm Barbara Turley, your host, I co-host this show with my good friend Matt Malouf. And today we're here to talk about the very topical topic right now of podcasts and I'm joined by, good friend and someone I work very closely with, Tom Schwab from Interview Valet, who is the go to guy if you want to be talking about podcasts, you know, getting on podcasts, getting guests on your podcast. Welcome to the show, Tom, thanks for joining us today. Tom Schwab:  Barbara, I am thrilled to be here. And there's a lot of problems in the world. But there is no better time to be alive. We look at the technology that we have. And still, we can reach customers around the world. Barbara Turley: Absolutely, yes. So you know, like, guys, you guys watching the Facebook Live, you know that we are in a major crisis right now. There are many crises that happened throughout time. I have to say I was thinking today to myself, I'm old enough now to say that this is not my first rodeo with crises like this. We've had the 2008 financial crisis, we had the tech bubble collapse, and in my career, I've been through a couple of these. So it's every crisis brings its own challenges, but I always feel that they're crises nonetheless and some things that we do in business are the same. Now in this particular situation that we're in right now. I feel podcasts are really gonna be it. So Tom, talk to us about, first of all, why podcasts, in general, are a brilliant marketing strategy for any business right now. But also why now specifically.     Why Podcasts are a brilliant marketing strategy Tom Schwab: Well, the way I look at it is that every business's biggest problem is obscurity, right? There are millions - thousands, millions of customers that you could serve right now, with your current product, your current offering, your current service. The only problem is they don't know you exist. Right now a lot of people talk about breaking through the noise. Honestly, I think that's like adding to the noise, right? The idea that I'm going to yell and somebody's gonna hear me, I think is laughable, right? So, if I can get in on the conversation that my ideal customers are already listening to, that's golden. If I can get introduced by somebody that is a trusted resource, a trusted friend of theirs, that's golden. And really, that's what podcasts and especially podcast interview marketi...

Do I Need a VA and a Bookkeeper? Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Matt and Barbara speak to Bean Ninjas founder and CEO, Meryl Johnston about why it's so important for companies to have a strong financial team, what that team needs to look like, and why financial reporting tools are the key to business stability and growth.   Some of the areas covered include: Meryl's journey from a consulting firm to global, systemized, online business and the perils behind bringing in virtual contractors before you have your processes in place.   Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.   In this episode: 1:50 Xero as a Platform 2:38 Aspects of Utilizing Virtual Teams 4:50 Boundaries 5:12 Key Roles Within the Finance Team 8:21 Cost-Effectiveness Medium 10:14 Bookkeeping Role vs VA Role 12:55 Differences with Bookkeepers and VAs 15:11 Stop Doing Book 16:42 Xero Cleanup 19:29 Reporting Practices 20:53 Where to Start 22:10 Building Skillsets 23:22 Next Steps Intro: Do you find yourself running out of time to accomplish your work, are you spending time doing things that you're not that good at? There are effective ways to outsource these tasks so you can focus on your business. This is the Virtual Success Show, we bring the inside scoop on outsourcing success for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And now here are your hosts Matt Malouf and Barbara Turley. Barbara Turley: Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Virtual Success Show. Where we dissect everything you need to know about how to outsource, how to get the right team members into your business, and how to do it all in the right order. Because today's show we're going to be dissecting a very common problem, and I'm going to be sharing a big trap that I fell into myself. But of course today I'm joined by my cohost, Matt Malouf. Hi, Matt! How's it going? Matt Malouf: I'm well, Barbara, and yourself? Xero as a Platform Barbara: I'm great, thank you. And I'm pretty excited that on the back of last week's show, we invited Meryl Johnston, who's the founder and CEO of Bean Ninjas back to the show to dissect this particular problem with me. So Meryl, welcome back to the show. Meryl Johnston: It's great to be back. Thanks. Barbara: So guys, I was chatting with Meryl after we interviewed Meryl around the growth of Bean Ninjas and her experience around managing a global virtual team. Because obviously, that's the genesis of this show. But in chatting after the show, I was sharing a story that I... A trap I fell into myself around using Vas, bookkeepers, accountants. And in the very early days, not that long ago, really, I decided in my wisdom that if I had Xero as a platform, which is your, you know the platform that everyone's using I guess globally for bookkeeping and accounting. And a good VA that I could show a few tricks of the trade to, that then I wouldn't need a bookkeeper. And I went that route, and needless to say it blew up in my face. Let's just put it that way. After a couple of years, and really cost a lot of pain. It wasn't the VA's fault. It was just a whole host of problems. And Matt, I'm sure as a recovering accountant yourself, this is making you chuckle because I'm sure you see this a lot. Aspects of Utilizing Virtual Teams Matt: I do. I do. You know, I think it's interesting. Barbara, you and I have talked about this in many aspects of utilizing virtual teams, but find it, yeah. People's expectations of that whole concept of the super VA that can do everything is still very, very prevalent in today's society, business community. Barbara: Absolutely. And you know, actually, I am still recovering, honestly, from that mistake myself. I was quite badly burnt. All my own fault. Completely and utterly my own fault. And Meryl, that's kind of what led me to your company in the end, to go, "Oh my God.

How Bean Ninjas CEO Meryl Johnston Built A Global Virtual Powerhouse Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Matt and Barbara speak to Meryl Johnston, the CEO, and founder of Bean Ninjas. Some of the areas covered include: Meryl's journey from a consulting firm to global, systemized, online business and the perils behind bringing in virtual contractors before you have your processes in place.   Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. In this episode: 1:20 Meryl Johnson the founder and CEO of Bean Ninjas 3:38 The power of systems and processes 4:29 Building a business to scale 8:38 Key Tools or Methods to manage your team 10:24 Wrike 12:06 Systems, tools, and Processes as the front driver 13:30 The Strength of the machine 14:01 Team Meetings 17:07 Concept of the Lunch and Learn 18:02 Virtual Christmas Celebration 20:43 Local knowledge vs Overseas Knowledge 24:39 Training Guide Procedures 29:27 Highlights of the show 33:14 External Leverage 35:09 Top 3 Learnings working with Virtual Team Intro: Do you find yourself running out of time to accomplish your work, are you spending time doing things that you're not that good at? There are effective ways to outsource these tasks so you can focus on your business. This is the Virtual Success Show, we bring the inside scoop on outsourcing success for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And now here are your hosts Matt Malouf and Barbara Turley. Barbara Turley: Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of the Virtual Success Show. I'm joined by my co-host Matt Malouf as always. Hey Matt. Matt Malouf: Hey Barb. How are you? Barbara: I'm good. And you? Matt: I'm excellent. Yeah, I'm enjoying a sunny day here in Sydney after what's been a very, very wet sort of week down here. Barbara: Yes, unusually so for Sydney. But the Sydney sun is back, which is awesome. Matt: It is, it is. Barbara: Yeah. So we're back, guys, doing one of our interview series, which we love doing. We love when we find interesting business owners that are building virtual teams and can really add value to our listeners and to ask quite frankly about how they're doing things. So today's guest is someone who's become somewhat of a friend of mine, Meryl Johnston, and she is the founder and CEO of Bean Ninjas, which is a bookkeeping, financial reporting, and education business. She's also a chartered accountant. She's host up her own podcast, the Bean Ninjas podcast, which I definitely can recommend listening to. And she's also a big surfer living on the Gold Coast, the beautiful Gold Coast here in Australia. So welcome to the show Meryl. Meryl Johnson the founder and CEO of Bean Ninjas Meryl Johnston: Hi Barb. Hi Matt. Great to be here. Barbara: Good. So listen, why don't you just give us the quick rundown, Bean Ninjas. What is it? Why did you start it? Meryl: Well, Bean Ninjas is a bookkeeping and financial recording business, and before starting Bean Ninjas, I was running a consulting firm, not very cleverly named MCJ Consulting, my initials. And I was doing project accounting work and quite quickly found the business difficult to scale. It was hard from a cash flow perspective, with project work being lumpy, and it was difficult to build a team. And I looked at some other business models out there and the kind of business that I wanted to build, which was recurring revenue, it would have processes so I could scale the business and I wanted it to have global potential. And then I looked at my skill set, which is accounting and thought about how I could marry the two together, my skill set and the kind of business that I wanted. And that's where Bean Ninjas was born. I founded the business with a co-founder who had a similar vision of creating a global business and a business that we could run from anywhere in the world. So that was where it started.

The Quick and Effective Way To Assess The Success Or Failure Of My Virtual Assistant Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Matt and Barbara talk about the quickest way to assess your Virtual Assistant whether they're working out for you or not. Some of the areas covered include: The challenges of assessing an offshore VA, identifying the key areas you need to assess! Reviewing your onboarding procedure to make sure you are setting your VA up for success in their role. Continually reviewing and refining your processes.   Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. In this episode: 1:18 How do you assess your Virtual Assistant? 1:52 Biggest Challenges to Assessing Your VA 3:10  Identifying your Key Areas 6:55 Delivering Feedback in An Effective Way 7:42 Identify KPI ‘s 8:14 Assess Your Onboarding Procedure 10:17 Feedback 12:35 The Stop Doing List 14:46 Role Expectations and Communication 16:04 Monthly Assessments Intro: Do you find yourself running out of time to accomplish your work, are you spending time doing things that you're not that good at? There are effective ways to outsource these tasks so you can focus on your business. This is the Virtual Success Show, we bring the inside scoop on outsourcing success for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And now here are your hosts Matt Malouf and Barbara Turley. Matt: Hey everyone, and welcome to another show of the Virtual Success Show where I'm joined by my co-host, Barbara Turley. Hey Barb. Barbara:  Hey Matt. How are you today? Matt: I'm really well, and yourself? Barbara: Good, thank you. Excited about our topic that we're going to dissect into today? Matt: I am, I am. As always, meetings before the show are always interesting conversations and topics just pop up. This one, it was funny. We were halfway through a conversation, Barbara and I, and we went, "This is a show, let's start recording." So we did. Barbara: So here we are, to dissect what the problem I presented to Matt is… How Do You Assess Your Virtual Assistant? Matt:  And it is. I think one of the questions I get asked regularly is how do I assess or measure the success or failure of my virtual assistant? How do I know whether they're doing well or not doing well? It's a really interesting topic. I think there's many many different ways you can do this. But what we wanted to do today was open a discussion between Barbara and I because we were talking about this beforehand, and then we share some insights into this. I think one of the biggest challenges when trying to assess your virtual assistant is making it really complicated and then therefore hard to measure and be transparent. When you try to measure the success or failure of a role, you've got to make it really easy and transparent for both you and the persons you're assessing to understand how they're doing. There should be no surprises.   Biggest Challenges to Assessing Your VA Matt: The way that I've done this over the years with the virtual teams and even local people that I've had working with me, I create a list of the things that they are responsible for. For instance, they may be responsible for managing my calendar, managing my emails, booking hotels, booking travel. One for Barbara and I is the podcast, so actually taking the recordings and producing the show. You need to create a list of all of the key areas or key responsibilities that your VA has. What you then need to do is you need to get them to score themselves, let's say it's a scoring system out of five, and five is that they are completely competent, confident, and do this task exceptionally well, and one is that they're a novice at it, that they really don't know what they're doing and are struggling with it.   Identifying your Key Areas Matt: You get them to assess themselves in each of those areas as a score out of five.

How to Get Success Working With A VA Outside of Your Timezone Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Matt and Barbara talk about how to avoid frustration with Virtual Assistants who work in different time zones as you and how to keep everyone accountable. Some of the areas covered include: Tools to use for tasks and reporting Frustrations most business owners feel when their VA works in another country   Let us know in the comments below what your key takeout has been from this episode or why not join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. In this episode: 2:27 Timezones 6:21 Setting parameters and direction to avoid feelings of frustration 9:12 Loom and Asana 9:30 Designing a system that works 10:32 Stand up 15:06 Creating documentation for recurring tasks 18:21 Time, Patience and Attention to Detail Intro: Do you find yourself running out of time to accomplish your work, are you spending time doing things that you're not that good at? There are effective ways to outsource these tasks so you can focus on your business. This is the Virtual Success Show, we bring the inside scoop on outsourcing success for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And now here are your hosts Matt Malouf and Barbara Turley. Barbara Turley:  Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Virtual Success Show where I'm again joined by my co-host Matt Malouf. Matt, how's the going? Matt: It is. It is, and I had to think about that because we normally do these recordings in the morning but it's— Barbara:  Great, thanks. And as always we've come up with a fantastic topic again today that we think the listeners, you guys are gonna really love, common problem. I love how when we're just chatting in the planning of the show, we just come up with all these ideas that just come from our experiences with clients and, Matt you with coaching clients, me seeing people getting VA's, brings up the most interesting stories for us. Matt: Absolutely, and I'm really excited about today's show. Barbara: Yeah, so a common one and something that did come up for us recently, and I know a lot of people in the Virtual Assistant, virtual team game out there globally would have this problem, is how do you get success when you're working with a virtual team or a Virtual Assistant that is not in your time zone? So for example, you're in the US working, your business hours and you have a VA in the Philippines who works their business hours. So therefore, it's in the middle of the night for you, which sounds like the Holy Grail because the idea would be that you wake up in the morning, and all these amazing tasks have been completed overnight. But often we find that, while that does seem like the optimum solution, it doesn't always work out that way. So, Matt, I'm sure you've seen this with people who have offshore VA's and overseas contractors. Matt:  Absolutely, and I'm, and I'm like, I've even seen it to the extent of where Australians are working with Filipinos where there's only a couple of hours time difference. Don't get this right. So its- Barbara:  There's a couple of extra tricks I think to getting this right. The… Matt: I agree. Timezones Barbara: I think all of the things that we talk about on this podcast all still hold very true. But when you're working different shifts and different time zones from each other, you almost need to like crank up the fuel on all the things that we talk about and you need to be extra vigilant with so many things. Of course that means, using things we always talk about, project management tools like, Asana or Trello, whatever, using Slack effectively, making sure that you've got really detailed processes and task lists, et cetera. But there's a little bit more to it than that, isn't there Matt, to get this right? Matt: Absolutely. Barbara: Yeah, so we had a case of this, the reason this is an interesting one for us.

3 Crucial Tech Tools to Guarantee Success with VAs Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Matt and Barbara speak about the 3 most crucial tools you must have in your business to guarantee success. Let us know in the comments below what your key takeout has been from this episode or why not join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. In this episode: 1:25 - Technology that is crucial to succeed in your business 2:58 - Tool Number 1: Project Management 9:25 - Tool Number 2: Effective Communication 17:49 - Tool Number 3: Data Management 22:40 - Why having processes is also crucial to your business 23:40 - Benefits of these tools 24:26 - Bonus Tech Tool 27:03 - Wrapping Up Tools Mentioned: Asana Basecamp Trello Slack Zoom Skype G Suite/Google Drive Dropbox Loom Intro: Do you find yourself running out of time to accomplish your work? Are you spending time doing things that you are not that good at? There are effective ways to outsource these tasks, so you can focus on your business. This is the Virtual Success Show. We bring the inside scoop on outsourcing success for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs, and now, here are your hosts, Matt Malouf and Barbara Turley. Matt Malouf:  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another show of the Virtual Success Show where I'm joined by my co-host Barbara Turley. Good afternoon, Barb. Barbara Turley:  Hey, Matt from sunny Sydney. Is it sunny where you are in Sydney today? Matt: It is. It is, and I had to think about that because we normally do these recordings in the morning but it's— Barbara:  I know. It's nice to do it in the afternoon. Matt:  It is. It certainly is. How's everything going? Barbara:  Good, great. We're heading into a nice time of the year here, my favorite time of the year in Sydney. The weather gets a bit cooler, which is good. But excited about today's topic. I love how we pow-wow and come up with these problems that we see across business coaching and in what I do in outsourcing and gel them together and come up with these great topics. So what are we gonna talk about today, Matt? Technology that is crucial to succeed in your business Matt: As Barb and I were preparing, we were talking about the technology that's crucial to succeed and win when you're working with your virtual teams. I think there's so much technology at our fingertips these days and so much advice around, you should use this, you need to get that, you need to integrate it with this, it can be very, very confusing for many of us. I know technology is not something that has come naturally to me. It's something that I've had to learn and train myself with. But the key is that there are some crucial pieces of technology that you must adapt and adopt in your company to succeed with virtual assistants. Barbara:  Definitely. I mean, I echo those thoughts. You know, Matt, I'm someone who is into technology and I love integrating systems and everything, but my love of simplicity is bigger. Even though I love tools, I actually have very few. We recommend strongly that clients stick to a few key things. It was great when we were discussing this today to actually come up with three. There's lots of things we could talk about, but there are three that we would describe as the non-negotiable. If you want to get success with a VA or a virtual team, or, honestly, even if you have a company that just has a lot of people, there are three non-negotiable tech tools and setups that we've isolated to make this work. Matt:  Absolutely. Barbara: Let's kick this off, Matt. Tool Number 1: Project Management Matt: Okay. The number one that Barb and I were discussing was you need a project management tool. It may be a tool like Asana, Basecamp, Trello, or the like. Our preference and what we both use in our respective businesses, and I know Barb you highly recommend it with all of your clients, is Asana. What's the experience that you and your team have had arou...

How To Successfully Recruit The Right VA Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Matt and Barbara talk about the importance of recruiting the right virtual assistant for your business.   During this episode, we talk about the in-depth process you need to have when recruiting from Overseas.   Some of the areas covered include: Barbara's personal recruiting process Why taking your time during the hiring process pays off in the long run Why you need to define the culture of your business so you can identify the characters that will thrive in your workspace Why it's important to have strong systems in place for your staff Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. In this episode: 1.17 - Recruiting the right VA 3.23 - Biggest fears around hiring an offshore VA 4.05 - Barbara's personal recruitment process 5.18 - Steps to successful recruiting 14.58 -Why a trial period is so important 15.43 - Hiring an expert to recruit your staff 18.02 - staff character and work culture 25.27 - Local insights into what's important when hiring a VA from the Philippines 27.10 - Recapping of the major steps 27.59 - Wrapping up Intro:  Do you find yourself running out of time to accomplish your work? Are you spending time doing things that you're not that good at? There are effective ways to outsource these tasks, so you can focus on your business. This is the Virtual Success Show. We bring the inside scoop on outsourcing success for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs, and now, here are your hosts, Matt Malouf and Barbara Turley. Barbara Turley:  Hey, everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Virtual Success Show where I'm joined by my co-host Matt Malouf. Hey, Matt, how's it going? Matt Malouf:  Excellent, Barb. And yourself? Barbara: I'm good. Now, where in the world are you today? Because I know you're traveling a bit at the moment. Matt:  I am. I'm in the beautiful sunshine coast of Queensland ... Barbara: And is the ... Matt: ... up in Noosa. Barbara: The weather? Matt: It is, it is. I went for a beautiful walk this morning along the river there and it's balmy and humid as Queensland is this time of year. Recruitment Barbara:  Yeah, Noosa is an amazing spot. Well, I'm based in my hometown of Sydney at the moment so it's kind of wet and windy here today. Today's show look, I'm really excited about today show because it's a topic that's close to my heart and it is we're gonna tackle the difficulty in getting offshoring right and specifically the difficulty about recruiting because that is literally the first step to get right. I know I hear it all the time with clients coming to our business who sort of say, look I tried, I failed, you know, how are you different? That's kinda what they ... They're burnt out from the experience of trying this and I know, Matt, you've had some stories like this as well. Matt:  Even just yesterday. A lot of the business coaching that I do we're obviously trying to help people grow their business but also increase their margins and their profits and so using Virtual assistants is one great way of doing that. Getting great people to do things. Yesterday I'm in a meeting and as soon as I broached the subject the callers like, "Stop." He actually put his hand up, stop. I've done it, it doesn't work for me. I looked at him and I was like, this guys been in business for a long time. I'm like, "What do you mean it doesn't? I've tried it, I've tried it, I've heard it all, I've read the books, it doesn't work for me." Barbara: Absolutely, yeah. Matt: I think what we want to really get out of this episode today is to dispel this myth because Barb and I have a belief that it can work for everyone. It's simple but not easy. Barbara: Yes, and I guess what I really want to show today, is you know, I'm running ... We've got almost 120 employees now in the Philippines and I can t...

I Don't Know What My VA is Doing Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Barbara and Matt talk to listeners about a common anxiety felt by many business owners who work with VAs - “I don't know what my Virtual Assistant is doing” – and the strategies they can put in place to ensure they are always across tasks that their VA is working on.   During this episode, we take a look at the importance of communication and the setting of clear expectations within your team, to ensure that business owners and their VAs always know what each other is up to.   Some of the areas covered include: The importance of managing your team and flow of work Set clear expectations around what the deliverables are of each task How important project management tools are in keeping communication open and transparent Building solid systems within your business and ensuring you have the right systems and processes in place for your team Let us know in the comments below what your key takeout has been from this episode or why not join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. In this episode: 01:36 - “What is my VA working on?” 02:17 - How do I manage my VA? 02:45 - Set clear expectations 03:57 - Use project management tools 05:50 - Keep communication open 06:58 - Set clear deliverables 08:09 - Build a solid system 10:58 - Have I got the right systems and processes in place? 15:15 - Working within your ‘genius' 17:08 - Refining your systems and processes 20:58 - Wrapping things up Barbara Turley:  Hey everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Virtual Success Show where I'm joined by my fabulous co-host, Matt Malouf. Matt, how is it going? Matt Malouf:  Excellent, Barb. How are you today? Barbara:  I'm good. Thank you. Loving doing this show as always. I'm always amazed of how many times we think we have no more topics to cover. Then, we go, "What about this question?" So many things to talk about. Matt: Absolutely, absolutely. We would come up with a list of I think half a dozen in the prep for this show. Barbara:  Exactly. I know. So, guys, what are the things we're going to talk about today on today's show? It's a very simple topic, but it's one I actually see quite a bit not just with clients, but people online talking about VAs, and the question that I get sometimes is... It's not really a question. More of an observation or a fear. "I don't know what my VA is working on," which is a tricky one. So, people feel a little bit almost disempowered because they feel like, "Well, I think my VA is working, but I don't actually know what they're doing." Now, Matt, is it just me, or do you hear anything similar in your coaching practice, right, your retreats, or any of your masterminds? “What is my VA working on?” Matt:  Yeah. It's very common. I hear, "I'm not clear or sure what they're doing," or it's, "How will I know if they're working all the time at their desk?" So, it's very, very common. Very common. Barbara:  Yes. Yes, and I think what happens is people start to feel, like I said, a bit disempowered, and then the fear comes in, and I even talked to our VAs about this actually. I say it's very important that you don't let yourself fall into this trap because the client in the back of their head won't be able to help themselves, but wonder, "What are they doing?" So, you got to try to be visible, and you got to try to be demonstrating what you're actually working on. How do I manage my VA? But at the same time, it does... I feel it comes back to the client and the way the client is managing their team and managing the flow of work that's going on in a business, which really is the responsibility of the owner or the person managing... You might have an operations person that's managing this. It's really their responsibility to know this kind of thing. So, Matt, what would you... As a coach, what's your take on this? What's your advice? Set clear expectations

Top 10 Tasks A VA Can Do For Any Business Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Barbara and Matt share with listeners the virtual assistant tasks that they feel a VA can do to help you in your business. During this episode, we take a look at how every minute you can save in your business and put into a direct income generating task, or something else important in your life, is a minute that is valuable to you.                                                                                         Some of the areas covered include:   Calendar management – whilst this may seem like a simple task that you can do yourself, if you had your VA managing this for you, you gain valuable ‘minutes' to spend on your business. Newsletter creation – this can be a timely exercise, so passing this task over allows you to focus on other important tasks, whilst making sure you have the ‘final sign-off' on the newsletter Managing social media channels – this task can be quite tedious as different channels have different specs for text limits and image sizes. Let us know in the comments below what your key takeout has been from this episode or why not join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. In this episode: 02:37 - Task #1 – Research 04:10 - Task #2 – Calendar Management 05:54 - Task #3 – Formatting documents 08:27 - Task #4 – File management 09:16 - Task #5 – Create and send newsletters 11:37 - Task #6 - Blog posting 12:57 - Task #7 – Audio transcription 14:35 - Task #8 – Manage social media channels 16:56 - Task #9 - Reporting 21:09 - Task #10 - Invoicing 24:21 - Task #11 – Travel arrangements 27:15 - Task #12 – Appointment confirmations 29:04 - Wrapping things up   Matt Malouf:  Hey everyone, welcome to another show of the Virtual Success Show where I'm joined by my co-host Barbara Turley. Good morning Barb. Barbara Turley:  Hey Matt, how are you today? Matt: I'm excellent. Yourself? Barbara:  I'm pretty good. I'm happy that my voice isn't sounding as husky as it was earlier because I have a bit of a cough at the moment, but yeah, good radio voice, good radio voice for today. Matt: Very good, very good. Well, I'm really excited about this show today for no other reason than its simplicity. And as Barb and I were preparing for today's show, we sort of were talking about various different topics and I sort of suggested why don't we just share…what are the top 10, or 10 easiest tasks that you could have a virtual assistant do for you. One of the regular questions I get asked as a business coach is, "Okay, you've given me this concept of a virtual assistant, but what would I have them do?" And so, what we wanted to do today was put a very simple show together just highlighting what Barb and I believe is the 10 easiest tasks you could have a virtual assistant do. And this can apply to any business. Barbara:  Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I hear that a lot too, Matt. And I think sometimes it's sort of... I get a bit thrown off by that question because I'm so deep into the virtual assistant thing that I'm almost too far into it to kind of be able to get back to that simplicity again. So, when we were running through the list, it was actually you coming up with more of the top 10 simplest tasks than it was me. So, I'm even excited because I can now talk to other people about this when they ask me that question. Matt:  Yeah. I know, I know. And it's going to sound sometimes over simplistic when we go through this today. But honestly, these top 10 that we're going to give you, if you have somebody else do that, the time you'll save and be able to invest into other areas of your business, or in your life, for that matter, is just going to be phenomenal for you. So, let's rip into this. So, Barb, I think we had number one as getting a virtual assistant to do research for us. Task #1 – Research Barbara:  Yeah, that's such a great one because it can span so many different are...

How ManageFlitter's CEO & Founder Kevin Garber Gets Success with his Global Virtual Team Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Kevin Garber, CEO & Founder of ManageFlitter shares some great insights into his own personal journey with virtual teams, including the benefits of tapping into global talent pools vs local talent pools.   After developing ManageFlitter to satisfy a need of his own, Kevin has grown a highly successful company that has been built on the notion of ‘The quality of your team is everything!'.   Some of the areas covered include: The quality of your team determines so much about the success of your company Why communication is so important, both written and face-to-face, within a virtual team Don't make assumptions when it comes to ‘thinking' you know what someone else wants or needs Souring the right people for your team and ensuring they are a good fit, both for the job and the culture of your team   Let us know in the comments below what your key takeout has been from this episode or why not join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.   Resources mentioned in this show: www.manageflitter.com In this episode: 01:50 - What is ManageFlitter? 05:48 - Building the team 07:36 - The quality of your team is everything 09:20 - How to keep your team connected 12:19 - Keeping the communication complete 13:32 – Be clear in your communications 15:08 - Eradicate assumptions 16:54 - Bringing new team members onboard 19:00 - Guidelines around communication 21:32 - Sourcing the right people 23:02 - Incentivizing your team 25:46 - Offering your team flexibility 27:20 - Wrapping things up Barbara:  Hey, everyone, and welcome to another episode of the Virtual Success Show, where I'm joined by my fantastic co-host, Matt. Hey, Matt. How's it going? Matt:  Good, Barb, and yourself? Barbara:  I'm well. I'm well. I'm really, really looking forward to today's show, because I love when we have a guest on, so as all the listeners know, we tend to try and find guests that are running large virtual teams so that we can actually get that sort of inside scoop from them on how we actually can get more success with this and what the benefits of it actually are. Today's guest, I'm really happy to welcome Kevin Garber, who is the CEO and co-founder of a fantastic tool called ManageFlitter, which I am currently trialling at the moment. We'll get into what that is in just a second, and he's also the host of the It's a Monkey Podcast, which talks all things tech, entrepreneurship, scalable business. Kevin, welcome to the show. Kevin:  Thank you so much for inviting me on. I'm excited to be here. Barbara:  Yeah, and I know, we've talked before you've got some great insights to share, I guess, around the journey with virtual teams and the benefits, I guess, of global talent pools versus more local talent pools and all that sort of thing. Before we kick off into that, give us the ManageFlitter story. What is ManageFlitter, and why should we care? What is ManageFlitter? Kevin:  ManageFlitter is a set of search filtering and sort tools that sits on top of your Twitter account, helps you work smarter and faster with Twitter. We have paid customers from over 100 countries, although the bulk, at the moment, in the United States, and the bulk of our users are people that use social a lot. They use Twitter a lot. They use our product to clean up their account. They use our product to grow their account with the right followers, to search for people tweeting about certain topics and to easily follow them in a compliant way that keeps Twitter happy and keeps your account in good shape. It's a nice set of tools for people that use Twitter a lot. We've been around since 2010. The tool was actually built internally first for myself, so I discovered Twitter on a trip to San Francisco. I can't remember, it was 2008 or 2009 and I started using Twitter quite a lot,

How Testimonial Tree is Scaling Their Business With a Virtual Team Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, special guest and founder of Testimonial Tree, Jason Dolle, shares with us how he is scaling his business with the help of a virtual team. Jason, who has an engineering background, started the Testimonial Tree to convert customer feedback and experiences into powerful tools that can help business owners grow their business, and in the process has grown a successful business of his own.                                                                                         Some of the areas covered include:   More about Testimonial Tree How Jason has grown his company by bringing the right people onboard at the right time The ways in which Jason communicates with his virtual team to keep everyone on a path for success The importance of planning now, for the future Let us know in the comments below what your key take out has been from this episode or why not join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. Resources mentioned in this show: www.testimonialtree.com In this episode: 01:49 - What is Testimonial Tree? 03:26 - The power of stories 04:34 - How Testimonial Tree started out 06:55 - Funding helped grow the business 09:00 – Finding the right people… 11:49 - How do you run the company today? 13:12 - What is your communications plan? 18:54 - Have you had offshore staff? 20:25 - Tips for building a SaaS company 22:29 - Plan now for the future 25:35 - How long does it take to integrate a new recruit? 27:48 - Invest in your people 30:43 - How do I use VAs? 31:48 - Learn more about Testimonial Tree 36:04 - Wrapping things up Barbara: Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of the Virtual Success Show, where I'm flying solo today without my co-host Matt, but I've got an absolutely fantastic guest that I'm interviewing. Jason Dolle, who's the founder of Testimonial Tree. The beauty about this particular interview today is that Jason's background, he was actually an engineer, who started selling luxury real estate on the side. One of his clients flew in on a private jet and bought a $4.4 million home, and then flew out the same day. And Jason thought to himself, "How on earth do I get this guy to give me a testimonial?" Because testimonials are so strong. To cut a long story short, basically, Testimonial Tree was born out of that. From an engineer, it's now doing million dollar annual recurring revenue and has 95,000 customers with a 95% retention rate. And Jason's running a team of 10 people and is here to talk to us today about the challenges of growing a SaaS company and growing a team at the same time. Welcome to the show, Jason. Jason Dolle:  Yeah, thank you for having me. Barbara:  Cool. So, listen, Jason, give us a little bit of background first on Testimonial Tree. What is it? It's obviously a SaaS product out there in the market for people to get testimonials. But give us a kind of a feel of what it is. What is Testimonial Tree? Jason: Yeah, it's sort of evolved over the years. It started about 2013. I built it for myself just to mainly get my, like you said that one customer for example, to get him to share a testimonial on social media, because at least in US here, your licenced to sell real estate in a certain state, and you can't really do a lot of stuff outside the places you're licenced. So I was trying to get him to share his experience in a place where I normally couldn't get. So social media was the easiest way to do it. And that's how it started. And it's evolved since then, but what happened after that experience you just mentioned, some real estate broker here got wind of it, and said, "Hey, we can use this thing if you pay us." And it's grown exponentially since. Barbara:  Oh, so you had a business. Actually, it's a bit like Virtual Hope. Jason:  Yeah. Barbara:  I call it my accidental business. I didn't mean to launch it.

The Stepping Stone to Hiring an Operations Director with Sarah Noked, OBM — Part 3 Want the transcript? Download it here. During this episode, we take a closer look at the role of an Online Business Manager and whether this a seat you want to be filling in your own business.                                                                                         Some of the areas covered include:   Understanding the role of an Online Business Manager (OBM) The key differences between what a VA does and what an OBM does When you should consider bringing in an OBM to help you grow your online business Knowing when to replace an OBM with an Operations Manager Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.   This episode is the last part of a 3-episode series. You can listen to the previous parts here: Part 1: Do I need a VA, Project Manager or Operations Manager…or all three? Part 2: Right People, Right Seats, Right Time In this episode: 02:12 - What is an Online Business Manager? 04:58 - The difference between VAs and OBMs 06:56 – When you should consider bringing in an OBM? 09:25 - OBM versus having someone physically working next to me 11:26 - Online presence vs. offline presence 13:28 - Knowing when to replace and OBM with an Operations Manager 15:05 - Choosing the right team member for the right stage of business 19:19 - Having team members play to their genius 20:50 – Sarah's Top 3 Tips 24:00 - Wrapping things up Barbara: Hey, everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Virtual Success Show where I'm joined by my co-host, Matt Malouf. Hey, Matt, how's it going? Matt: I'm excellent, Barb, and yourself? Barbara: I'm good, thanks. I'm good, thanks. I'm trialling out a new space today in Sydney. I'm at the beautiful WeWork Co-Working Space in Sydney recording this podcast. Matt: Very cool. Very cool. Barbara: For today's show, guys, we're going to do the third in a three-part series that Matt and I are quite excited about. The three-part series where we talk about VA versus project manager versus operations directions, or more of an operations manager. The first show we did, it's worthwhile listing to that, where we dissected each of those roles and where they fit in your business. In the second part of this three part series we looked at getting the right people in the right seats on the right bus. Sometimes you got the right people, but they might be in the wrong seats and that can destabilise things. Often you see people just getting rid of staff rather than just figuring out whether that is the issue. In this third part we really want to get into this operations project manager piece. Barbara: I've brought on a very good friend of mine and someone who helps me out a lot in my business too, Sarah Noked, who is a certified online business manager and trainer. She's one of only three people in the whole world who is actually able to train people to be online business managers. She runs an amazing agency of OBMs from Tel Aviv and she's joining us today, very early in the morning, from Tel Aviv. Hey, Sarah. How's it going? Sarah: Hey, I'm fabulous. Thanks for having me on. What is an Online Business Manager? Barbara: You're very welcome. Look, Sarah, to kick things off, can we just talk about ... You run OBMs which are online business managers. Let's just explain to the listeners, break it down, what is an online business manager? What's the sort of definition there? Sarah: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah, a great question that I get asked quite often. Basically, an online business manager deals with the management piece of an online business. Project management, people management, operations management, and resources management. You'll often find an OBM in the place working alongside the business owner where the business owner comes to the table with the "what". You know,

In the final episode of this three-part series, Barbara and Matt chat with Sarah Noked, who is the successful owner of Sarah Noked – Online Business Management. As a certified OBM and trainer, Sarah shares her wisdom and insights into the world of online business management and helps listeners discover if, and when, this role […]

Right People, Right Seats, Right Time — Part 2 Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Barbara and Matt take a closer look at some of the human resources roadblocks that business owners may come up against when taking on the task of growing their business. During this episode, we take a look at the importance of not only finding the right people for roles within your business but making sure they are the right fit for the role and bringing them onboard at the right time. Some of the areas covered include:   Understanding which seats you are going to need and when you are going to need them The importance of mapping out your organisational chart and understanding not only where your business is now, but more importantly, where you want to take your business in the future – and planning for this Deciding whether you have the time and resources to train up an existing employee or bring on board someone who already has the skills you're looking for Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.   This episode is the second part of a 3-episode series. You can listen to the other parts here: Part 1: Do I need a VA, Project Manager or Operations Manager…or all three? Part 3: The Stepping Stone to Hiring an Operations Director with Sarah Noked, OBM In this episode: 01:02 – Right people, right seats, right time 02:14 – Right people 04:24 – Skilled people vs training people 05:58 – Right seats 07:15 – Which seats you need to fill and when 13:00 – Right time 16:13 – It's easy to do and easy NOT to do 20:18 – Wrapping things up Matt:  Hey everyone. Welcome back to another show of the Virtual Success Show. I'm joined today by my co-host, Barbara Turley. Hey, Barb. Barbara:  Hey, Matt! How's it going? Good to do another show with you. Matt:  It certainly is, yeah. It's such a beautiful winter's day here in Sydney today. Barbara:  It is. Matt:  It's clear blue skies and can you believe, 23 degrees in the middle of July, or beginning of July. Barbara:  I have to admit, I love… The Australian blue skies are just to die for. You get blue skies all the time, pretty much all the time here. It's very rare that it's not blue skies. I just love that. Right people, right seats, right time Matt:  Certainly is. And it's a really exciting day to be doing this topic as well, titled ‘Right People, Right Seats, Right Time,' and this is a follow-on show from the last show we did where we talked about VAs or project managers or ops manager, which should you choose? And it was really interesting conversation that Barbara and I were having as we were preparing for these shows, and this topic sort of just popped out for us, because what we've been finding is so many of our respective clients have the mindset that they need to put people in their businesses to help them grow, but they're not taking enough time to number one, choose the right people for what they need done. Secondly, putting them into the right roles or seats in the business, but also then it's about the timing of all this, and that's what we wanted to talk to you today. So, let me get started. Barb, right people. What's your experience as far as right people in your business and some of the challenges you've had over the time? Right people Barbara:  Yeah. So, look, a lot of the things that I share on this podcast I learned myself through the hard way and not having anyone really to sort of advise me on it, but I guess a lot of these things you do learn by experience. So, in terms of the right people, I think… Look, with VAs, I felt it was a bit easier for me, because I was very clear on that boundary of what a VA does and what a VA doesn't do. Barbara: When I tried to… I had some VAs though that were very, very good and I realised I needed, sort of, project management help and I thought, “Well, they can do it. I mean, they're really good.

In this episode, Barbara and Matt take a closer look at some of the human resources roadblocks that business owners may come up against when taking on the task of growing their business.   During this episode, we take a look at the importance of not only finding the right people for roles within your […]

Do I need a VA, Project Manager or Operations Manager…or all three? — Part 1 Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Barbara and Matt take a closer look at what really defines the role of a Virtual Assistant, Project Manager and Operations Manager and when you may need all three roles in your business. During this episode, we explore all three roles and the importance of business owners taking the time to delineate each role to ensure the lines are not blurred in order to avoid any problems arising. Some of the areas covered include:Understanding the skill sets required for each role and ensuring you have the best person for the jobDetermining whether your VA can confidently carry out the tasks you require or if you need to bring in a Project Manager and/or Operations Manager to fill the skill gapPlanning for the future and ensuring you bring the right people onboard at the right time, and not when it's too lateThe importance of seeing each member of your team as investment, rather than an expense Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. This episode is the first part of a 3-episode series. You can listen to the next parts:Part 2: Right People, Right Seats, Right TimePart 3: The Stepping Stone to Hiring an Operations Director with Sarah Noked, OBM In this episode:00:45 – Do I need a Virtual Assistant, Project Manager or Operations Manager?02:49 – What is a Virtual Assistant (VA)?04:38 – Common VA tasks04:56 – VAs managing social media content05:38 – VAs and content management06:18 – General VA tasks08:07 – The role of a Project Manager10:33 – When should I bring in a Project Manager?12:34 – Confusing the role of a Project Manager with a VA13:46 – The role of an Operations Manager17:39 – Part-time or full-time roles?19:25 – Investment vs expense20:20 – In our next couple of shows…21:05 – In summary…22:45 – Wrapping things up Resources mentioned in this show:The Stop Doing List Barbara: Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of The Virtual Success Show, where I'm joined today by my co-host, Matt Malouf. How's it going, Matt? Matt: Very good, Barb. How are you going? Barbara: I'm great. Excited to be getting back into these shows and producing some more epic content for our listeners. Matt: 100%. 100%. Do I need a Virtual Assistant, Project Manager or Operations Manager? Barbara: So guys, look, today, Matt and I wanted to delve into a topic that we've been… we've sort of been hashing out this topic for a long time, because we think there's a lot of value in defining parts of roles that you need in your business. Today, what we're going to be talking about is, do you need a Virtual Assistant, a Project Manager or an Operations Manager, and when is it time to have all three? It's really important that we define each of these roles, because what we're finding is sometimes, clients, there's blurred lines between each of these roles, which is okay initially, but it can lead to problems when we're not clear about what the roles are and how to progress to the next one. So Matt, I'm sure you see this in your coaching businesses all the time as well. Matt: I do. I'm really excited about this topic, Barb, because so many of the clients I work with need help and like the idea of a Virtual Assistant but they get very confused very quickly, I think, with being able to clearly delineate roles, so I think this is going to be really, really helpful for our listeners today. Barbara: Yeah, and we often talk about expectations management. I know we did a full show on this. What I find is where people sometimes get disappointed is when they get a Virtual Assistant, but they don't realise that possibly what they were looking for or what they need might be more of a Project Manager or, dare I say, an Operations Manager, which is a whole other thing. And when you try and make a Virtual Assistant do certain things that real...

In this episode Barbara and Matt take a closer look at what really defines the role of a Virtual Assistant, Project Manager and Operations Manager and when you may need all three roles in your business.   During this episode, we explore all three roles and the importance of business owners taking the time to […]

When Should You Fire Your Virtual AssistantWant the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Matt and Barbara talk to listeners about the often-avoided topic of when to fire your Virtual Assistant and help business owners understand the situations when it may be necessary. This episode focuses on the some of the tough situations business owners may find themselves in with their VAs and why letting them go can be the best outcome not only for them, but their business as a whole. Some of the areas covered include: Avoiding the Churn & Burn – hiring and firing VAs over and over againThe importance of having sound systems, processes and tasks listsAssume nothing, clearly communicate everythingThe need for meeting rhythms and clear accountability criteriaSetting clear parameters around what your ‘non- negotiables' are Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. In this episode:01:16 – When should I fire my VA?02:26 – The Churn & Burn03:08 – Flawed task lists03:40 – Effective communication05:53 – Setting your VA up to win07:09 – Holding your VA accountable08:04 – Meeting rhythms09:41 – Making the decision to fire a VA10:40 – Getting clear on your standards13:06 – What are your ‘non-negotiables'?16:53 – Wrapping things up  Resources mentioned in this show:Asana  Matt:  Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the Virtual Success Show, where I'm joined by my co-host, Barbara Turley. Good afternoon Barb. Barbara:  Hey Matt, how are you? Matt:  I'm excellent. How are you? Barbara:  Good thanks, good thanks. Matt:  Good. I'm really really excited about today's show, and the reason I'm excited about it is because I think it's one of those topic areas where a lot of people avoid the conversation, and the conversation we want to be having with you all today is understanding when to fire your VA. When is it time to let them go? And I'm excited about this only because it's one of those areas that often is not discussed until it's too late. When should I fire my VA? Barbara:  Absolutely yep, and I see that happen a lot within our business, you know, for clients it's a difficult area … And also there's sort of two things I want to touch on with this topic. There's when to fire your VA. Sometimes people fire them too early as in you sort of get into this churn and burn cycle of they're not good enough, get a new one, they're not good enough, get a new one. And then other people we find, try really hard and probably allow things to go on way too long until the point in which they're getting railroaded by someone. So, sometimes, I mean obviously by the nature of my business, I'm very pro-VAs on these podcasts, but I'm also very aware that sometimes you have done all the right things, you've followed all the things that we talk about, and you actually just have a person who's not either good enough for the role, or who is actually doing the wrong thing by you as an employer. And that's a tricky thing to face. Matt:  Which one are we going to start with Barb? Let's start with the churn and burn. The Churn and Burn Barbara:  Yeah, because this is a common problem. So, when … Often we see people hiring someone and they just decide very quickly after two weeks, oh they're not good enough, it's just not going to work out? And really I think there are boxes to tick before you make the decision to fire someone. There's actually a lot of boxes to tick. Sometimes … I mean there's so many shows we've done on this, sometimes it's people who you're … You've no processes in your business or you've no systems and you've tried to kind of just offload a task list on someone and they don't even know how to find your files or navigate your business. So that's the kind of … The most basics of major problem. Flawed task lists Other times we do see people, and you'll see this as well Matt, people who have got processes, or task lists, but they're too vague.

In this episode Matt and Barbara talk to listeners about the often-avoided topic of firing your Virtual Assistant and help business owners understand the situations when it may be necessary.   This episode focuses on the some of the tough situations business owners may find themselves in with their VAs and why letting them go […]

How Often Should I Talk To My VA? Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Barbara and Matt cover a question that they are both asked all too often…”How often should I talk to my Virtual Assistant?” And if you yourself are asking this very question, then the answer is ‘start communicating more'. This episode is full of insights into not only how often you should communicate with your VA, but also the ways in which you can communicate effectively.   Some of the areas covered include:  Common barriers to communication, including geographical location and time zones The importance of establishing communication protocols and meeting rhythms Constantly evaluating your communication style and frequency to ensure it is working for you and your VA/ team There is no such thing as ‘over communicating' Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. In this episode: 01:24 – How often should I talk to my VA? 01:52 – Barriers to communication 04:03 – Establishing communication protocols 05:43 – Setting a meeting rhythm 09:22 – Matt's ‘Bat Signal' 12:35 – Re-evaluate your communication style and frequency on an ongoing basis 15:23 – There is no such thing as ‘over communicating' 17:28 – Wrapping things up Resources mentioned in this show: Asana Barbara: Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of the Virtual Success Show where I am joined by my co-host Matt Malouf. Hey Matt, how are you? Matt: Hi, I am well Barb, and yourself? Barbara: I'm good, thank you. Good, thank you. Enjoying all these shows always and learning all the time from everything we talk about on the shows. Matt: Absolutely, absolutely. And I must say also I'm also I'm loving the warmer weather we're having here in Sydney at the moment. Barbara: Yeah, that helps. Winter has finished. Matt: It has. Barbara: We are now into summer. For those in the northern hemisphere you're heading into your winter now, we don't envy you. So look guys, today's show we've been getting a lot of questions actually, which is great, from a couple listeners and some of our clients that actually listen to the show about stuff that they'd really like us to address on the show. So, today one of the biggest questions that I get asked and Matt gets asked a lot is how often should I talk to my VA? How often should I talk to my VA? Now, it sounds like a simple question but like I said, we get this one a lot and people actually are quite confused about it and even when they figure out how often should I talk to my VA, how should I do it, and how should I make it effective? So, Matt, I know with your coaching and in your Stop Doing book and in all the stuff that you teach you've got this concept of a meeting rhythm, which I thought would be really good for us to delve into today to address this question. Barriers to communication Matt: Absolutely, and just as a preface before we get into meeting rhythm. I think one of the most important things with communicating with your virtual teams, your virtual assistant, etc., is to try and act as if it's no different than if they were sitting next to you in the office. Now, you want to be mindful of that because it's not that you want to be picking up Skype and the like every five seconds to ask a question. But I think too often we have this separation in this, they're over there and I'm over here, maybe I'll just message them rather than talking to them etc. We create these barriers of communication, and I think it's really really important to have rules around communication. And for me, this is whether you're in an office working with people or in a remote kind of environment. It's knowing when to communicate and in what form to communicate, I think, is critically important. Barbara: You know what struck me as you were saying that, I don't know but people who have…and you would know the answer to this because it's probably more...

In this episode Barbara and Matt cover a question that they are both asked all too often…”How often should I talk to my VA?” And if you yourself are asking this very question, then the answer is ‘start communicating more’.   This episode is full of insights into not only how often you should communicate […]

The Trials And Tribulations Anfernee Chansamooth Has Faced Whilst Building a Virtual Team of Specialists Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, special guest Anfernee Chansamooth, Chief Marketing Officer at Simple Creative Marketing, takes listeners through the challenges he faced when building a virtual team of specialists to support his rapidly growing business.   Anfernee, whose expertise lies in writing online content, takes us through his journey of assembling a team of specialists and how it's important to not only find the right people, but also have well thought out systems and processes in place to ensure everyone is set up for success.   Some of the areas covered include: Before you do anything else, work out what the core service is that you are delivering and then start to decode that first Building a virtual team isn't easy, but it's definitely worth it The importance of systems and processes as they provide the foundation to which you can then build a team around The need for good communication tools in order to systemise the processes used for communicating with your virtual team and/or clients   Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.   Resources mentioned in this show: Simple Creative Marketing Trello Podio Google Drive Google Docs Upwork In this episode: 02:15 – About Anfernee Chansamooth 05:13 – Getting started 06:32 – The challenges of building a virtual team 09:25 – Making sure you have the right people in your team 12:30 – A global team 14:16 – Tools for communication 15:33 – Team collaboration 18:09 – Shifting your mindset 18:35 – Constantly refine your processes 21:40 – Building a Virtual Team isn't easy…but it's worth it 22:50 – Advice from Anfernee… 26:18 – Key takeaways… 29:11 – Wrapping things up Barbara: Hey everyone, welcome back to another episode of the Virtual Success Show, where I'm joined by my co-host, Matt Malouf. Hey Matt how is it going? Matt: Excellent Barb, how are you going? Barbara: I'm good, I'm good. We've been punching out these shows recently. We've got a whole bank of amazing content up on the site virtualsuccessshow.com these days. So, I'm excited to keep going with this. Matt: Absolutely, very exciting for the community. Barbara: Yeah. So today's topic is quite a good one because I know that we're going to be interviewing a very good friend of mine who runs a business, who delivers content for people looking to do content marketingonline or any business looking to build content. And we all know that actually it's quite a big job to get content up. Writing blogs and doing this sort of thing. And a lot of people really don't enjoy it. But it's a really important part of your marketing strategy. So today we're going to be talking to Anfernee Chansamooth who is the Chief Marketing Officer at Simple Creative Marketing. He also has a podcast called Authentic Influence, which is a fantastic podcast, that I myself was on the other day. So, check that one out also. So, Anfernee, welcome to the show. Anfernee: Thanks for having me Barb and Matt. Matt: Welcome Barbara: So Anf, just to kick off, just give us the quick background of how you ended up… I love the offer that you have around people can sign up for a monthly offer basically to have your team, which is all a virtual team of writers, create their content strategy and deliver the blog strategy for them. What's the back story to how you actually ended up delivering that offer? About Anfernee Chansamooth Anfernee: Well, we go back about four years, I was the Marketing Manager at one of Australia's largest co-working communities. And so I was actually writing a lot of the content for the company at the time. And then what we realised was we had a distributed team of about 12 people across Australia. And we struggled, even with a team of that size,

In this episode, special guest Anfernee Chansamooth, Chief Marketing Officer at Simple Creative Marketing, takes listeners through the challenges he faced when building a virtual team of specialists to support his rapidly growing business.     Anfernee, whose expertise lies in writing online content, takes us through his journey of assembling a team of specialists […]

Is a Virtual Assistant Really What You Need? Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Barbara and Matt take listeners through the necessary steps for business owners to take to determine whether they really need a Virtual Assistant or the help of a specialist. This episode takes a look at some of the key questions business owners need to ask themselves in order to determine who they need help from and how they can go about getting the right person for the job.   Some of the areas covered include: Determining whether it's a VA that you need, or a specialist Understanding what your business needs are in order to make the right staffing decisions Slowing down and taking the time to map out your business needs will actually allow you to speed up your business Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. Resources mentioned in this show: The Stop Doing List In this episode: 02:00 – Do I need a VA or a specialist? 06:25 – Understanding what your needs are 08:44 – Slowing down in order to speed up 12:08 – Wrapping things up Barbara:  Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Virtual Success Show, where I am joined by my co-host, Matt Malouf. Matt, how are you?   Matt:  Barbara, I'm excellent.   Barbara:  Good, how's all your brood?   Matt:  They're well, they're all good. They're on school holidays at the moment, so they're back in school next weekend I'm sure my wife will be very, very happy about that.   Barbara:  Yeah, all the mums are like, “When is school coming back?” I'm not into that phase yet, I've just got my almost one-year-old, well she's nearly 11 months, so I'm a bit off the school holiday thing yet.   Matt:  Nah, it's all good.   Barbara:  Yeah, so today's topic guys, is again, a sort of a scenario that Matt sees and I see. I probably see a bit more than Matt, actually, in my line of business at Virtual Angel Hub, where we had a particular case and we've seen this a few times, where a client will come in, all revved up, excited about getting a VA, get a VA and then it just doesn't work, right? And then we get in and try to see what the problem is, get another VA in there, still doesn't work and in one particular case I said to the team, “Can you ask the client to send us a very detailed brief of exactly what it is that they're really looking for?” Just so we can get a better sense. We just had this feeling that we're missing something. So the client very kindly sent a very detailed briefing, which was fantastic for us to see, because the whole team sort of collectively, virtually online went, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.” Do I need a VA or a specialist?   Because what was laid out would actually…really what this client actually needed was kind of a marketing agency and they were trying to get a part-time VA to do things that really are way outside the scope of what a VA is capable of doing. So I thought this would be a great topic to discuss. When is a VA really not necessarily not the right choice, but maybe not the first choice you should make or you need something more developed alongside the VA. Otherwise, you are actually going to waste time and money. So Matt I was interested to hear your thoughts on this. Would you see this happen a lot? I mean you're on the coaching side- Matt:  Yeah—   Barbara:  So presumably, we'd actually recommended that this client go and get a strategist or a marketing person to sort of lay out what they need first.   Matt:  And I do see this regularly. I think when I wrote the stop during this book and put the tool together, I actually put one of the questions to ask, as you go through the tool is, I'm just going to read it, so I get it exactly right – Are special skills required for the task? And so, as you're unpacking all of the things that you want to stop doing and categorising them into your excellence,

In this episode Barbara and Matt take listeners through the necessary steps for business owners to take to determine whether they really need a Virtual Assistant or the help of a specialist.   This episode takes a look at some of the key questions business owners need to ask themselves in order to determine who […]

My Amazing Virtual Assistant Just Resigned …What Do I Do Now? Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Matt and Barbara discuss the reasons why business owners should never become dependent on any one person in any specific role and the common traps many fall into in this area. This episode focuses on some of the key areas that business owners need to stay on top of to ensure there is minimal impact to their business when that superstar VA leaves.   Some of the areas covered include:  The need for up-to-date and current systematisation and documentation Understanding that you need to slow down, in order to speed up your business It is the responsibility of the business owner to build and create the systems to ensure business success Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. Resources mentioned in this show: The E-Myth by Michael Gerber   In this episode: 00:54 – My VA just resigned… 02:05 – Creating a turn key business 02:56 – You must document tasks 05:05 – Everybody is replaceable, including you 06:28 – Slow down to speed up 10:40 – Key takeaways 12:57 – Wrapping things up   Barbara:  Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Virtual Success Show, where I'm joined by my co-host, Matt Malouf. Hi Matt, how's it going? Matt:  Well Barb, and yourself?   Barbara:  I'm really well, thank you. We've been flat out busy, both you and me in the last few weeks, up-leveling.   Matt:  Absolutely. And braving that it's very chilly here in Sydney today, but …   Barbara:  It is.   Matt:  But we've got a hot topic that we're going to be talking about. My VA just resigned…   Barbara:  Yes, definitely, definitely. One of the questions … I mean, I hear this quite a bit at Virtual Angel Hub, but I also see it online and I've heard it from people I've spoken to, who've had VAs or virtual teams before, what if my … Let's say you have an amazing VA, that just does epic work for you, is a massive asset to your business, and then they tell you that they're resigning for whatever reason, they may be going back to study, or whatever. They've announced you that they're resigning and you go into this total panic mode of, “Oh my god, what am I going to do now?” because this person is such a huge part of my business and knows all the processes and what we do.   And I find this really interesting, because in my business, I often move people around, I promote people. Thankfully nobody's ever really left me, but people often very quickly have to be moved into new roles, which means that I can't have a situation where they're indispensable in the previous role. So Matt, I'm really interested to talk to you about this as a business coach. How can people not fall into this trap of having somebody who is indispensable, I guess, in their business, and then you're left in chaos if they leave? Creating a turn key business Matt:  Yes. It was a really interesting conversation we were having just before the show, but I think that the person that put this best is probably Michael Gerber in The E-Myth, about you've got to create a turn key business. A business that can operate without you.   And I think that anytime in business, where knowledge is held with a person, without documented systems or processes, it's risky. And I know Barb, what I see, a lot of these business owners holding a lot of the IP in their head, and doing things just naturally in the natural course of business. Then they bring a team member on, and what they do is they download their brain into the team member's brain, without getting it all documented. So really what you're doing is transferring the risk, as opposed to de-risking the business. You must document tasks Barbara:  Yes. And you know what I find as well? Sometimes when a client comes to us, and we have a very high success rate as you know,

In this episode Matt and Barbara discuss the reasons why business owners should never become dependent on any one person in any specific role and the common traps many fall into in this area.   This episode focuses on some of the key areas that business owners need to stay on top of to ensure […]

How to Integrate a Virtual Assistant into Your Business Successfully Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, we take a look at how to integrate a virtual assistant into your business successfully and the importance of having a sound on-boarding process. This episode is full of insights from Matt and Barbara into answering the common question of “What do I do to get my VA started?” Some of the areas covered include: The importance of a strong onboarding process Clearly communicating your expectations, in order to set your VA up to win Building a strong ‘human connection' with your VA from the outset Being clear on your preferred communication style Learning your VAs strengths so as to encourage them to work in their genius Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. Resources mentioned in this show: VSS – How To Get Your Virtual Team to Ace Your Expectations In this episode: 01:02 – Integrating a VA into your team 03:07 – A strong onboarding process 05:14 – Communicating your expectations 07:50 – Being properly prepared to welcome your new team member 09:15 – Building a human connection with your VA 10:16 – Be clear on your communication style 12:18 – Learning your VAs strengths 13:46 – Process for onboarding your VA 15:55 – In summary… 16:56 – Wrapping things up Matt: Hey everyone. Welcome back to another episode of the Virtual Success Show. I'm joined by my co-host, Barbara Turley. Hey Barb. Barbara: Hey Matt. How's it going? Matt: Excellent, yourself? Barbara: Good, thanks. Good, thanks. I'm excited about today's show. Got another great case study style topic to cover. Matt: Absolutely. Absolutely. Hey, just before we get started, how's that little Ruby of yours? Barbara: She's great. She's just started walking, so for all of those people out there with young babies, well the fun has started. She's running around the house. Integrating a VA into your team Matt: Fantastic. Fantastic. Barb and I were just having a chat before the show and what came up in our conversation… I was just recently working with a client who was bringing on their first virtual assistant into his business. He's got a team of seven in his office, but it's his first virtual assistant. We were having a coaching session and he said, “Matt what do I do to get them started?” He was really puzzled and really unsure. It was like, he'd never onboarded a virtual assistant before. This guy's got an amazing business, an amazing team, and it was … I was actually just saying to him, I said, “What would you normally do with your current staff if someone was joining your office?” It sparked this conversation, and we're going to go through it today, but it's so interesting the mindset I see so often, and Barb I'm sure you see it as well, where we … there's this, a virtual team member is there and our team is here and because they're not in physical proximity there's this huge difference that needs to happen. It has to be done in a different way. Barbara: Well they don't even see … For example, we often see clients getting all excited through our on-boarding process and they interview the VAs and they're like, “Wow.” They pick someone and then we're like, “Okay. Over to you guys,” and then they're like, “What now?” We're just like, “Well, you start to forge a relationship and you're bringing someone in.” I think people still see … they just still don't see it as someone in their business. It's them and us, and that could be because of the distance and the virtual thing, I'm not sure, but it's … I guess I've got experience doing it now but I can remember when I got my first VA, I do remember feeling the same way, and I had no idea where to start on day one. It is a common problem. Matt, what did you advise this client to do? A strong on-boarding process Matt: What's interesting, I think this is a common problem whether it's ...

In this episode we take a look at how to integrate a virtual assistant into your business successfully and the importance of having a sound on-boarding process.   This episode is full of insights from Matt and Barbara into answering the common question of “What do I do to get my VA started?”   Some of […]

 How Brian Casel, Founder of Audience Ops, Has Built a Virtual Team of Specialists to Help Grow His Online Content Marketing BusinessWant the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, special guest and founder of Audience Ops, Brian Casel, shares with us his experience of building a virtual team of content marketing specialists and how you may not always get it right the first time. Brian reveals that in order to grow a successful business in today's constantly evolving marketplace, business owners must remain responsive and ensure their own businesses continue to evolve. Some of the areas covered include:The initial challenges faced when building a virtual team of specialistsWhy systems and processes are so important in building your team up for successThe need for effective communication tools within your virtual teamEnsuring you have a sound onboarding and training process for new recruits Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. Resources mentioned in this show:Audience OpsCasjamSlackTrelloHelp Scout  In this episode:02:28 – Who is Brian Casel?05:57 – Initial challenges with building teams09:55 – The importance of systems and processes12:14 – Do you need a VA or someone else?13:04 – Firing yourself from business processes14:48 – Business processes are constantly evolving16:50 – Brian's business processes22:30 – Challenges of bringing new people into your team25:42 – Getting the onboarding process right26:36 – How to deal with an underperforming team member27:48 – Have your team suggest ways to improve processes29:56 – Outsourcing a task that requires talent or expertise33:18 – The need for good online content35:37 – Brian's #1 tool that has streamlined his business40:20 – Wrapping things up Barbara:  Hey everyone and welcome to another episode of the Virtual Success Show, where today I'm flying solo without my co-host Matt Malouf. When we have guests on the show, which we do today, often we find it's easier to get really good guests if we can split the shows up and not have our own schedules getting in the way, so on today's show I'm really excited because I'm talking to Brian Casel, who is the founder of Audience Ops and also has a fantastic podcast called… it's called the Productize Podcast, Brian is it? Brian:  Yeah actually I have two podcasts, but yeah Productize Podcast and the other one that I co-host with Jordan Gal is called Bootstrapped Web. Barbara:  Oh fantastic, fantastic! So guys today we're going to talk all about all things content and managing team's when it comes to content and how to get content up on your site without it overwhelming you. I know one of the questions I get a lot Virtual Angel Hub is clients who have VA's through us will say, “Well how do I get a consistent stream of content?”, particularly when the VA's able to do quite a lot of work with that content but one of the challenges is trying to actually get consistency in this area. So Brian's going to talk to us all about this today and his own journey with managing teams in this area. So Brian, welcome to the show. Brian:  Well thanks Barbara. It's great to talk to you. I just love talking about this stuff, whether it's outsourcing, working with a team, collaborating, managing people, growing, yeah. Barbara:  Me too because I think one of the key things to actually growing or scaling is getting this right, cause so many people can't nail this and it will trip you up if you can't figure out how to manage a team once you start to grow, as you and I've just been talking about off air Brian. Brian:  Yep, absolutely. Barbara:  The whole challenge of it. Okay so to kick off the show, give us first a quick Audience Ops, the Productize Podcast, all about you so give us the quick what are you doing these days with your businesses. Who is Brian Casel? Brian:  Sure. Yeah I tend to like to work backwards in this story.

In this episode, special guest and founder of Audience Ops, Brian Casel, shares with us his experience of building a virtual team of content marketing specialists and how you may not always get it right the first time.   Brian reveals that in order to grow a successful business in today’s constantly evolving marketplace, business […]

The Stop Doing List – Part Three: How to Actually ‘Stop Doing' Want the transcript? Download it here. In the final episode of our three-part special on The Stop Doing List book, author Matt Malouf takes listeners through the final step in the process – how to actually ‘stop doing' those tasks that are not in your genius. During this episode, Matt focuses on the importance of the KRC model – Knowledge, Responsibility, Control – as without knowledge, we actually are unable to effectively be responsible or control any aspect of anything. Some of the areas covered are: Understanding that without knowledge, we actually are unable to effectively be responsible or control any aspect of anything In order to start imparting knowledge and enable somebody else to take responsibility, there needs to be training systems and technology, and a blend of these, with systems being at the center of this To avoid tasks boomeranging back to you, you must invest time and money in the on going training of your team The importance of reporting and accountability once a task has been delegated   In this episode: 02:00 – How to actually ‘Stop Doing' 03:02 – The KRC model 04:38 – Linking the KRC 08:22 – Reporting and accountability 11:33 – Managing delegation 18:23 – Wrapping things up Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.   Resources mentioned in this show: The Stop Doing List – www.stopdoing.com.au Barbara:  Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another show of the Virtual Success Show where I'm joined by my co-host, Matt Malouf. How are you, Matt? Matt:  I'm well, Barb, and yourself?   Barbara:  Good. Thank you. Good. Thank you. Really enjoying this series that we're doing on your book, The Stop Doing List. I learn a lot every time I do this show, but it's about refining things. Although I've gotten quite good at all these steps of delegation, and systems, and processes, and teams over the last few years I've been doing this, there's always little bits that I learn more of when we do these shows and particularly from this series about The Stop Doing List.   Matt:  Yeah. It's interesting. I started writing the book two years ago. Obviously, we published it three months ago now. As you go back, and you remember, and you go, “Oh, yeah. We put that part in there.” I was also preparing for the show, you know, there's things you forget that you put into the book, so it's really great for me to go back and reiterate what I actually put in here as well.   Barbara:  I think the point actually that it's a good point we make here, and I've often said to clients, “Processes are not a one-time thing like, none of this stuff is you just set and forget. It's a constant evolving process of mindset, ‘Stop doing. Stop doing. Stop doing.'” Okay. Today, we're going to tackle part three of the book, which I think is probably one of the most important areas to get right and one of the areas we see a lot of clients getting tripped up in, which is actually how to stop doing. How to actually ‘Stop Doing'   When you create your task list, you've got all your processes and systems in place, and you delegate, and you got the VA on board, and you've done everything you were told to do, and then this is the area where people often fall down. First of all, Matt, can you tell me why is that? What happens in the actual process of how to stop doing? Matt:  Yeah, and this was one of the most interesting parts to writing this book because I think many of us, myself included, have delegated and passed tasks on before, and it seems like that boomerang effect where they keep coming back to us. I was just intrigued and kept asking, “What is it? Why do these tasks keep coming back?” Then, in my research, I stumbled across what's called the “KRC model,” the Knowledge, Responsibility, Control. It's a model that is part of the Harvard Management System.

In the final episode of our three-part special on The Stop Doing List book, author Matt Malouf takes listeners through the final step in the process – how to actually ‘stop doing’ those tasks that are not in your genius.   During this episode, Matt focuses on the importance of the KRC model – Knowledge, […]

The Stop Doing List – Part Two: Unpacking and Creating Your Stop Doing List So You Can Step Into Your Genius Zone Want the transcript? Download it here. In the second episode of our three-part special on The Stop Doing List book, author Matt Malouf talks about the key to understanding where you are spending your time and how to categorise those tasks to get clear on where you should be spending more time – your Genius Zone.    During this episode, Matt explains that the more time you spend in your ‘genius zone', the more you'll love your business, the more profitable your business will be and the more freedom you will have long-term. Some of the areas covered are: The importance of determining the value of your time – your hourly rate – and the process to do so Understanding your genius zone – those tasks and activities that you love doing, that you do really well and that have a positive financial return to you and the company How to filter your tasks through the focus funnel in order to determine which tasks you should, delegate, automate or eliminate to create your ultimate Stop Doing List   In this episode: 02:30 – Unpacking and creating your Stop Doing list 03:55 – Understanding your genius zone 08:00 – Calculating your hourly rate 10:25 – Determining your opportunity cost 12:35 – Wrapping things up Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.   Resources mentioned in this show: The Stop Doing List – www.stopdoing.com.au Barbara:  Hey everyone and welcome back to the Virtual Success Show where I'm joined by my co-host, Matt Malouf. How's it going Matt?   Matt:  It's going well Barb, and yourself?   Barbara:  Really good, I'm very excited about today's show, and to delve into part two of our three part series on your The Stop Doing List book, which has just been a pivotal book for me to read recently. All the things that- I thought I knew lots about this but I've just learned so many things from delving into your book again.   So guys, last show we did was part one of The Stop Doing List, where we talked about the mindset- and it's such a detailed show on the specific steps and the specific mindsets that you need to get into in order to actually stop doing, and then in today's show we're going to talk about actually unpacking and creating your stop doing list, which- one of the key questions we get at Virtual Angel Hub is “how do I know what to put on my list to give a VA?” So it's a really big question that we get asked, and I'm sure Matt, you get asked this question all the time as well. Matt:  Absolutely and also those that are wanting to grow their companies, this is the starting point. Everyone's looking for what I need to do, I need to do more, do more, but unless you let go of some of these things first, and utilise a virtual assistant, or even employing technology and the like to help you with this, it'll just burn you out.   Barbara:  Yeah, and you don't have the space and time to strategise and move forward. You actually need to free up your time effectively first, it's like the number one thing you need to do, I think, before you start trying to grow and scale.   So, now, we did a show- a couple of shows back we did a show that we delved into quite a lot of what this second part of the book talks about so Matt, can you just run through- I think it was the show called, “Think You've Only Got Five Hours to Delegate? Think Again.” So it's a great show on how to figure out how much you're actually doing that you need to stop doing.   So Matt, can you give us- just kind of run through the key steps in this part of the book. Unpacking and Creating Your Stop Doing List Matt: Absolutely. So, this part of the book is really about you're starting to understand where you're spending your time, and then how to categorise those tasks to get clear on where you should be spending more time.

In the second episode of our three-part special on The Stop Doing List book, author Matt Malouf talks about the key to understanding where you are spending your time and how to categorise those tasks to get clear on where you should be spending more time – your Genius Zone.     During this episode, […]

The Stop Doing List – Part One: The Essential Mindsets You Need To Unlock Your Entrepreneurial Freedom And Ultimately ‘Stop Doing' Want the transcript? Download it here. In the first episode of our three-part special, our very own Matt Malouf, author, business coach and co-host of the Virtual Success Show, talks us through his recently published book, The Stop Doing List, and the importance of adopting several specific mindsets in order to gain more time, more profit and more freedom in your business. During this episode, Matt explains to listeners the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone and letting go of negative mindsets in order to adopt the essential positive mindsets to ultimately ‘stop doing'. Some of the areas covered are: The importance of mindset, before strategy, before tactics Realising when you have stepped too far out of your comfort zone and how to reign it in Being aware of common negative mindsets and how these are holding you back from business success The five essential mindsets specific to ‘stop doing' which will ultimately unlock your entrepreneurial freedom   In this episode: 01:51 – The Stop Doing List book 03:25 – Mindset, before strategy, before tactics 05:00 – Three key areas of mindset 07:00 – Signs you've stepped too far out of your comfort zone 09:30 – Four most common negative mindsets 10:47 – Essential mindset #1 – Learn to say ‘no' 12:05 – Essential mindset #2 – Less is more 13:48 – Essential mindset #3 – Investment vs expense 17:18 – Essential mindset #4 – Adopting the 80/20 rule 19:30 – Essential mindset #5 – Don't sweat the small stuff 21:50 – Wrapping things up   Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.   Resources mentioned in this show: The Stop Doing List – www.stopdoing.com.au     Barbara:  Hey, everyone, and welcome to yet another episode of The Virtual Success Show, where I'm joined by my co-host Matt Malouf. Hi, Matt, how are you?   Matt:  I'm well, Barb, how are you?   Barbara:  I'm good, thanks. I'm good. What's been your week like, biggest learning this week for you?   Matt:  Yeah, biggest learning. It's a really interesting week, and I think the biggest learning is that as business owners and entrepreneurs, sometimes we need to have a recovery week to allow our energy to come back up. I had a big week, three weeks on the road and presenting and the like. I came into the week feeling a little bit low, and I've had a really great week. I've just allowed myself to recover. Energy's now flying again.   Barbara:   Yeah, that's so true. Actually, for me, it's interesting, the show we're going to do today on your book, The Stop Doing List, I've had a week where … Or probably a month, really, where I've been pushing very far outside my comfort zone, because there's some business decisions that I've had to make. I've been really grappling with the emotional turmoil that that can often bring. It's just interesting that today's show, we're going to talk quite deeply about that, because we're going to discuss your book.   Matt:  Yes, absolutely. It can actually be detrimental to be too far out of our comfort zones for too long, because it's very draining. The Stop Doing List book   Barbara:  Just for the listeners, Matt has written an amazing book, The Stop Doing List, which I would encourage anyone … I've been diving into it. I've read it about twice already, because there's still so many nuggets of things to learn inside. What I wanted to do was actually interview Matt on the three very distinct sections that are in the book. What we're going to do is we're doing a three-part series on The Stop Doing List. Show one today, we're going to talk about the mindset that you need to get into and the challengesyou're going to face mindset-wise when you start this stop doing list exercise. Part two, then,

In the first episode of our three-part special, our very own Matt Malouf, author, business coach and co-host of the Virtual Success Show, talks us through his recently published book, The Stop Doing List, and the importance of adopting several specific mindsets in order to gain more time, more profit and more freedom in your […]

 Gordon Jenkins, aka The Visible Guy, Shares With Us The Results of His Global Survey and How Virtual Assistants Can Market Themselves in a Way That Clearly Differentiates Them From OthersWant the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, special guest, Gordon Jenkins, takes listeners through the results of a global survey he conducted aimed at people who have used, or are using, Virtual Assistants to get their feedback on exactly what they look for when engaging the services of a VA…and the results may surprise you! Gordon touches on some of the more stand out results from the survey and explains how VAs and their clients may need to shift their thinking in order to gain more success from the client/VA relationship. Some of the areas covered include:The importance of verbal communication – emails alone are not enoughJust because an employee is virtual, doesn't mean they aren't part of your teamAs a VA, client perception is your reality – so really understand what your client is looking forAs a client, be really clear on what your expectations are – so you can set your VA up for success Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. Resources mentioned in this show:The Visible Guy30 Different Ways to Network20 Different Ways to Differentiate Yourself  In this episode:01:45 – The Visible Guy…Gordon Jenkins02:59 – Surveying clients of VAs to find out what they really want06:40 – Stand out results from the survey08:06 – The importance of verbal communication13:51 – Just because your VA is virtual, doesn't mean they aren't  part of your team16:26 – Email shouldn't be your only form of communication with your VA18:15 – Top 3 tips to gain success as a client or VA20:50 – As the client, be clear on what your expectations are of your VA25:31 – Wrapping things up  Barbara:  Hey everyone, and welcome back again to the Virtual Success Show where I'm joined by my co-host, Matt Malouf. Matt, how's it going? Matt:  Excellent, Barb. How are you? Barbara:  I'm very good, thank you. How's your week been? Matt:  The week's been great. It's been busy but it's been really, really good, and having great conversations with many entrepreneurs out there at the moment. It's a really exciting time for business owners and entrepreneurs at the moment. Barbara:  Yeah, and how about your book? Is it starting to fly off the shelves, The Stop Doing List? Matt:  It is, it is, and we've recorded the audible version so that should be coming out in the next little bit, so very, very exciting. Barbara:  Brilliant. Brilliant. Well, listen, on today's show we've got a very interesting guest to talk about client feedback and a survey that he did with clients that are using, or have used, Virtual Assistants in the past. So my guest today, or our guest today, is Gordon Jenkins, who's actually called The Visible Guy. Gordon, welcome to the show. Gordon:  Welcome. Good morning, Barbara. Good morning, Matt. How are you? Matt:  Good thank you. Barbara:  Good. So, Gordon, just to kick off, can you just give us…you know, who The Visible Guy? Talk to us about who is the The Visible Guy and what does The Visible Guy do? The Visible Guy…Gordon Jenkins Gordon:  Sure, so a quick snapshot … The Visible Guy, in simple terms: we look at people and organisations and we look at what they are and then simply we go and tell the world what they actually do and the world is simply their marketplace, so it could be just the people in Melbourne or it could be we're going to take people globally and tell the world about exactly what they're doing. We do it in a way that is not talking about what's unique about the person or the organisation, but we look at what's the clear differentiations, and it's as simple as that. Barbara:  That's very interesting. When you recently, just for the listeners, Gordon was asked … he was a speaker at the Virtual Assistant … is it at the Virtual Assistant's ...

In this episode, special guest, Gordon Jenkins, takes listeners through the results of a global survey he conducted aimed at people who have used, or are using, Virtual Assistants to get their feedback on exactly what they look for when engaging the services of a VA…and the results may surprise you!   Gordon touches on […]

Think You've Only Got 5 Hours of Work to Delegate to a Virtual Assistant…Think Again! Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, Barbara and Matt talk listeners through some honest truths when it comes to deciding just how many hours per week you 'think' you can delegate to a virtual assistant.   This episode takes a look at the essential factors to bear in mind when deciding to onboard a VA and how, if you are truly committed, you could easily find at least 20 hours of work for a virtual assistant to do in your business, every single week!   Some of the areas covered include: The only way to really know what to delegate is understanding where you're spending your time The importance of changing your mindset to “Stop Doing” certain tasks, so you can focus on more of the things you love doing How putting ‘positive stress' on yourself can help your business grow faster Bringing in specialists for ad-hoc tasks can also help reduce your workload, freeing up valuable time for more important, revenue-generating tasks   Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.   Resources mentioned in this show: The Stop Doing List – www.stopdoing.com.au   In this episode: 00:55 – So I ‘think' I only need 5 hours a week from my VA 03:28 – If you think you've only got 5 hours, you're not committed enough 04:32 – Changing your mindset to ‘stop doing' 06:59 – Are you in business, or have you just created a job for yourself? 09:30 – How to ‘Time Log' 11:35 – Ask yourself – “How can I stop doing?” 14:30 – Positive stress 16:43 – Shifting your focus 17:45 – Pros of committing to a full-time VA 18:47 – Bringing in specialists for ad hoc tasks 22:51 – Wrapping things up       Barbara:  Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Virtual Success Show. I'm joined again, as always, by my co-host, Matt Malouf. Matt, how are you?   Matt:  I'm well, Barb. How are you?   Barbara:  I'm great, thank you. Great. Enjoying this a little cooler weather we're having in Sydney now, which is very nice. I love this time of year.   Matt:  I know. But its beautiful blue skies today. We've had a lot of rain over the last few weeks …   Barbara:  I know.   Matt:  … and so very interesting.   Barbara:  Very enjoyable. So I ‘think' I only need 5 hours a week from my VA   Listen, on today's show, everyone, we thought a really interesting thing that I've wanted to delve into on the show for a quite a while, actually, because we get quite a lot of customers coming to Virtual Angel Hub with this exact question. They'll sort of hit up our Facebook page, or our live chat, asking, “Look, I only need five hours or so a week with a VA. You have a minimum of 20 hours a week. Is there anything you could do for me?” What I find interesting about this question is that, for me, five hours a week, having worked with a lot of virtual teams and in various different businesses, five hours is actually not very much and, obviously, some smaller businesses will think, “I only need that much time.” My feeling is that well, I know that within a few weeks of joining Virtual Angel Hub, so many people who thought they would never fill 20 hours can't believe how quickly it got filled up when we actually helped them to sort of see what else they could be doing. Matt:  Yeah, and I think I'm just going to be real direct to our listeners straight upfront, is if you only think you've got five hours to delegate, you're not trying hard enough. You really aren't. Because I think too often these days, we get caught up in being busy and, so, we think that the busyness is important. Yet, in actual fact, a lot of the tasks that are causing the busyness are either not necessary, or not of high priority and can be done by somebody else. They need to get done, but they can easily be done by somebody else.

In this episode, Barbara and Matt talk listeners through some honest truths when it comes to deciding just how many hours per week you ‘think’ you may need a VA for. This episode takes a look at the essential factors to bear in mind when deciding to onboard a VA and how, if you are […]

How Entrepreneur and Blogging Expert, Yaro Starak, Is Embracing ‘The Laptop Lifestyle' and How to Break Free From Emails in the Process Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, special guest and online blogging expert, Yaro Starak,  takes us through how he has adopted what some may call ‘The Laptop Lifestyle' and how to break free from emails to focus on the things he loves. This episode is full of insights and tips from Yaro on how you can begin the process to ‘break free' from managing your emails and once mastered, can bring so much freedom and success to you as a business owner. Some of the areas covered include:Adopting The Laptop Lifestyle – having the right people on your team is paramount to making this happenThe importance of separating personal emails from business emailsHiring the right person to take on the task of your emailsThe value of setting up systems and processes for responding to emailsTips on training your new recruit Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.  In this episode:02:05 – About Yaro03:22 – The laptop lifestyle04:15 – Having the right people on your team08:20 – Yaro's blog: Break free from emails13:10 – Steps to break free from emails13:25 – Separating personal from business emails14:35 – Hiring someone to take over your emails15:56 – Creating systems for dealing with emails19:07 – Emotions experienced when handing over emails22:35 – Key competencies needed to take care of emails25:48 – Tips on training your new recruit35:41 – Wrapping things up  Barbara:  Hey everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Virtual Success Show, where I'm joined by my co-host Matt Malouf. Matt, how are you? Matt:  I'm well Barbara, how are you? Barbara:  I'm good thanks. You must be having a good week. Finally, your book has come out. Your book has launched – The Stop Doing list. Matt:  It has. It's been really exciting over the last … it's been out for about a month now. Getting some really positive feedback. So really, really enjoying the journey. Barbara:  Yeah and probably a bit of rest time after all the push that was involved with pushing the book out. Matt:   Absolutely, absolutely. Barbara:  I can imagine. Matt:  There was a few things that I might stop doing years from now. Barbara:  Yeah. Well, I'm reading it at the moment and I'm thinking “Gosh, there's so many things I can still stop doing.” Anyway, one of the things that I do need to stop doing is my own email, and our guest today on the show, I'm very keen to talk to today's guest about this because he wrote a fantastic blog post about this a while ago which triggered me to bring him on the show. He's not only a friend of mine, but he's very big in the online marketing space online. I would call him sort of the King of people who would want to start a blog and figure out how on earth to get traffic to your blog. And get going with your blogging journey. Yaro Starak, welcome to the show. Matt:  Welcome Yaro. Yaro:  Thank you guys. Love to be here and looking forward to talking about something I don't really talk about on podcasts very much. Barbara:  Yes, obviously you would usually be interviewed about online marketing, getting started in blogging. Tell us a bit about your background, tell the listeners a bit more about your background just to get things going. About Yaro Yaro:  Yeah, you're quite correct. I do normally talk about blogging on I'd say, 95% of the podcast interviews I do. Primarily because that's what I teach and what I'm known for, and I've been blogging myself for, we're in year 12 now of blogging. I started in 2005, so it's been a career. I've pretty much had an online entrepreneurship career my entire adult life. It's been great to me. I have to really thank the Gods for being born in a time when I can use the internet as a way to run a business, and I've pretty much made my living entirely online.

In this episode special guest and online blogging expert, Yaro Starak,  takes us through how he has adopted what some may call ‘The Laptop Lifestyle’ and how to break free from emails to focus on the things he loves.   This episode is full of insights and tips from Yaro on how you can begin the […]

Why a Virtual Assistant Can Be a Great Investment in Your Business Want the transcript? Download it here. In this episode, we take a look at the positives of bringing a Virtual Assistant into your business and how you need to look at your VA as an investment in your business rather than an expense. This episode is full of insights from Matt and Barbara into answering the common question of “Well, what can a Virtual Assistant do for me?” Some of the areas covered include: The importance of understanding the value a Virtual Assistant can add to your business Why you need to adopt the mindset of your Virtual Assistant being an investment rather than an expense Accepting that it takes time to transition your Virtual Assistant into your business Tips on speeding up the transition process Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group. Resources mentioned in this show: The Stop Doing List – www.stopdoing.com.au In this episode: 01:30 – What can a Virtual Assistant do for me? 03:35 – The mindset of ‘Investment vs. Expense' 04:34 – Will I get a return on my investment? 07:30 – Setting your Virtual Assistant up to win 12:26 – Misconception of the super VA 14:30 – Speeding up the transition process 15:45 – A bit about Matt's book – The Stop Doing List 19:04 – Wrapping things up Matt:  Hey everyone, welcome back to another show of the Virtual Success Show. I'm joined again by my wonderful co-host, Barbara Turley. Hey Barb!   Barbara:  Hey Matt, how are you?   Matt:  I'm excellent. How are you going?   Barbara:  I'm good, I'm good and loving all these shows we're doing, I've been this week listening back to a few of the older shows and some of the tips and stuff we've been talking about, because I'm actually revamping some of my own processes in my business and I just pick up such great stuff, even from the stuff that we talk about and some of the guests that we interview, so yeah it's been a good week for that.   Matt:  Excellent. Excellent. Well, I'm really excited about today's show too, Barb, as we were talking about just before we started recording and what we find in both Barbara's business and what I do as a coach is we're constantly asked, well what could a VA do for me? I think a lot of people like the idea and understand the concept of having a virtual assistant, but they're not really sure on what a VA can do for them or for their business. Barb, do you find this? What can a VA do for me?   Barbara:  Yeah. Yeah, a lot. You know we get, I'm actually to add to that one of the things that I hear quite a lot as well is, I'm not sure what a VA can do for me and then there's also a little bit of confusion about what a VA doesn't do. So implicit in that, sometimes people have an expectation that they can do, this superhero VA type thing, the myth of the superhero VA that they can do everything possible, from video editing to web design and all the sort of things in the middle. So it's a very broad topic and problem right there.   Matt:  Absolutely and I think what this leads into is people having a clear understanding of the value that a VA can bring to their business. Because one thing I see is people grappling with the decision on, well, okay … This is an extra cost in my business. Am I going to get my return? And I think if you start with that mindsetaround this, then in my experience you're actually setting yourself up to fail right from the start.   Barbara:  Yeah, so Matt, you know one of the things that we see as well, when people are booking calls with our ad sourcing strategy consultants at Virtual Angel Hub we ask them a series of questions because we're trying to get an insight into where they're at before the call and one of the questions we ask is, ‘what's your biggest fear about hiring a VA or working with a VA?' And often one we see, the comment is,

In this episode, we take a look at the positives of bringing a Virtual Assistant into your business and how you need to look at your VA as an investment rather than an expense.   This episode is full of insights from Matt and Barbara into answering the common question of “Well, what can a […]