0169: Eradicating Business Overwhelm with Virtual Team Development with Barbara Turley

EA interviews episode 169, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the Imperfect Action Round. Seven days a week. Join Mario Ficcini for today's expert authority effect interview. All right, ladies and gentlemen, I am excited to have none other than the lovely Barbara Turley here today, founder of the Virtual hub. And I don't know about you, but have you ever had overwhelm with your business and just thought like there's all these great things you want to do but you're not sure how you're going to get it done? I know that I have and it's why I started building a team years ago and continue to grow it. And I am super excited to have her here because she is going to be sharing with you how you can build the team and how it's going to impact your business for the better. We're going to thank our sponsor and I'm going to bring her right up. How would you like to grow your wealth? Easier than you think. With the change you probably don't notice anyhow automatically. That's why I started the compounding interest snowball investing with acorns and advise you do too get started simply and easily today@EA interviews.com Acorns here she is, ladies and gentlemen, the lovely Barbara Turley from Chamonix, France. How are you doing, Barbara?

I'm good, thank you. Thank you so much for having me today, Mario.

I am excited for you to share because you are solving the problem that I would confidently say every business or some fact checker is going to say. 99.9999% of businesses have.

Absolutely. And you know, I'm apparently the best at it at delegation and eradicating overwhelm. But I still feel it myself. So overwhelm is just something that's. It's part of business. And you know, there are ways of eradicating it that we can talk about today.

Well, I'm glad we can because I've had so many people, even my own clients in years past will be working on publishing one of their business, working on a live stream or something. And every single time when you're working together for eight weeks, you know, 16 weeks, most of my clients, a year, year and a half, things come up. You know, it's called life. And at some point it's like I can just sense the energy and then something happens and they're like, okay, what are we going to talk about? And I'm like, stop. What's going on? And I'm like, is it the kids, the husband, the Wife, the this, that, or the other thing. Because it's always something. And it's just, you have to remember that people have lives. Their life isn't their business, even though it's a large part of it. And everyone experiences overwhelm. How do you take people out of that and get them back on that path of being productive?

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think every time overwhelm hits you, really, you know, I experienced it myself today, and I actually said to myself, I need to take myself through this process again. And it's almost like every quarter you need to do this, no matter how good at it you get. So, first of all, everybody experiences it. But one of the first things you've got to sit down and say to yourself is, everything that I'm currently doing, stuff that I absolutely need to be doing. And what you'll find is a lot of stuff that you're doing, you need to stop doing and delegate to somebody else effectively. The reason people don't do it is because there's overwhelm even involved in trying to think about how do you then delegate to somebody effectively? But the first step is definitely asking yourself, do you really need to be the person doing this task or doing this part of the job?

How would you decide if you are? There's a lot of stuff I don't like doing, but I probably should, but maybe I shouldn't.

Well, to two things. So the number one thing that you want to think about, most people will say that you should play in your genius zone. And of course, that is true. Unless your genius zone happens to. Well, unless, you know, if you're making canva images yourself, but you're trying to run a business, then you have to ask yourself, you might be brilliant at it, but is it an effective use of your time as an entrepreneur or as a business owner? So that's number one. The second thing is if it can be processed, if you can create a process for it and it can be delegated, then as a business owner, it should be delegated, because your job as a business owner is to. Is to run the business, to work on the business, and not necessarily so much in the business. Now, I know that's a bit of a cliche, but it's definitely, definitely asking yourself if it can be processed up, then do and then delegate that so that you can free up your time to grow the business more.

I want to ask you to repeat that one more time because it is that powerful. It is a great expert authority insight. What is your role as the business owner or CEO.

Your role is to.

Be the conductor of the orchestra. You don't see the conductor playing any of the instruments in an orchestra. That's the best way I can put it. You're there to lead, you're there to build systems and then delegate those systems for your people in your business to run those systems for you.

I'm going to play devil's advocate, but what if there's no good people out there and I can't find the right ones?

First step with that is usually, usually that is a process problem first. So a lot I see this happen with so many business owners. They'll say, you know, delegation doesn't work for me. I can't find the right people. I want a players who can. This is the best one. I want somebody who can just step in and hit the ground running without me having to micromanage. And I'm like, all of those statements are just so loaded with problems because first of all, even if you do find an a player that can step in and hit the ground running, they are still not going to hit the ground running from day one because it's your business and it's how you're doing stuff. And unless you're going to hire an agency or a consultant or an external expert to come in and work for you, you're dealing with having to create processes and systems and teach people in your business how things are to be done and to learn to delegate effectively. The most cost effective way of doing it is to make sure that your systems are so strong and your processes are so strong that you can actually delegate those to more cost effective staff so you don't have to have experts in every role within your business.

What if someone doesn't want to let go of the reins?

Oh, mindset, mindset issue. Where do I start to unpack that? If somebody doesn't want to let go of the reins, the first thing that you really need to do is to think about why. So there's usually trust issues, there's fear issues. People fear losing control. At the end of the day, as entrepreneurs and business owners, we are all control freaks and it's totally fine. We can just put that out there and say, say it's okay to be a control freak. And a lot of the reason that some business owners are successful is because they are a bit control freakish, right? They like things done the way they like them done. People see delegation as losing control, but if you have the right foundation, you've built your systems properly, you have the right processes built, and then you train your people on how to run the systems in your business correctly and how to report back to you. And you have a level of oversight, you then you can let go the control without losing control, and that's the key. So you don't want to lose control, but you need to let go of the control and have oversight so that you're not losing it completely.

For some of those people who might be on the more sided of the. I don't even want to say ocd because I've ran into some people that.

They'Re so extra with it. They're more like cdo. They even organize the OCD right. How long do you think is a reasonable expectation for them to say, okay, we're gonna have a 30 days transition window, a 60 day transition window, a 90 day transition window? Or do, I mean I. Or do you think you can really just pull this off in seven days and change your entire company around and let go of the rains in a week?

No. No, you can't. Not in seven days. No. So first of all, letting go the reins of your company, there's so much to unpack here. So I'm just going to try and unpack it from the top down. Letting go the reins of your company, it sort of implies that your company's already built. Now, as we know, companies are dynamic, living, breathing, evolving things that are always growing, evolving and changing as the market changes, as you change, you know, as the, the needs of the client or the customer change. So to think that you can just delegate it all out, systemize it up in seven days and, you know, wipe your hands and sit on the beach. Absolutely no. Right. Because the minute, what you'll find is the minute you delegate one department successfully, you're going to have to move on to the next one and the next one. And by the time you get through 12 months, you're usually circling back. And as businesses grow, you have to continue to evolve and develop your team, your systems, your processes. It's sort of a never ending thing. That's not to make people feel like, oh no, I don't even want to start. But the idea is that if you don't start this work, you'll never get there. But to think that you can do it in seven days is really misguided. I think if you've got no processes and no systems in your business, you're probably staring down the barrel of about 6 to 12 months to really nail it and just systematically going through it every week, putting A new one in. But typically if you're going to delegate to somebody, I would sort of allow between anywhere from about six weeks to three months, depending on the role. If you're hiring for a very high leadership role, even if they have deep experience, you can still expect about a six month kind of window of putting someone in and really getting them deep inside your business. But with a VA, I would say eight to 12 weeks. You need to allow, as long as you have an onboarding and training process in place that you can roll out with that person, you can do it at the same time. You don't necessarily have to be that organized, but give it time.

And that's a great point you bring up because so many people, I've heard they're like, well, you know, it's going to take so long this and that. And I've, you know, like with book publishing, I've condensed it down to eight weeks for people to publish their business books. Some people say 6 months, 12 months, 18 months. Oh, it takes so long. Well, the time's going by either way, I'd be excited. You can aim for 12 months from now and know, hey, this will be off my plate. Instead of think about it now, don't do it, think about it six months from now, don't do it, think about it a year from now. And then whenever you do get around to it, it's still going to be another 12 months from the time you decided to move forward with it. Right.

100%. And you know, when people say to me, I just don't have time for that right now, I go, well, that's fine. I totally get that you're overwhelmed. But I can guarantee you if you don't do this today, you'll have, you'll still be doing what you're doing in 12 months time, you'll be doing what you're doing today and you'll still be overwhelmed and you still won't have delegated and it will still be an uphill battle that you're facing. So either you take the challenge today or you continue to be overwhelmed and you take the challenge in 12 months time or whatever. But at some stage, if you're committing to a business, you're going to have to climb the mountain and stop sitting at the bottom.

And how many people decide to move forward after that point?

After I say that? Yeah, yeah, look, I think, you know, people, what I always advise is the last, the first thing you do is, is get the mindset right. Okay? So you've got to let all that sink in, you let all that percolate and go, yep, okay, I get that. Then after that, the next step really is to think about, well, if I'm going to bring a person in, usually the mistake people make next is they go and hire someone before they've even thought about what role is this person going to play, what tasks do I actually want this person to do.

And do I have any processes for them and how am I going to onboard them? So usually then what happens is you hire a VA in the cases of va, for example, and you find yourself waking up every morning and thinking, oh my God, what am I going to give my VA to do today? And that's created a whole new job for yourself, plus a new person on your payroll. So that's, that's huge mistake. You need to try and plan this out and then delegate and bring someone in at the point where you're ready with your processes, your systems, and you know what this person is going to be doing for you so you can lead them.

Yeah, that's very smart because you don't want to hire one person, let alone 5, 10, 15, 20. And now you. I've joked with people, I go, you don't want to stop doing the fun things that are taking up your time only to become a babysitter and project manager.

Absolutely. And you will become a project manager. Like, if you hire a lot of VAs, it's great. The first few VAs you get, it's great. But then after that, or even team members, it doesn't really matter whether they're VAs. But when you get past about five to seven people reporting to you, you're now in a whole world of pain. Because now you need a project manager so badly. Because they're all coming to you, they're all reporting to you, and you can't really have more than about five to seven people reporting to you effectively after that time, you need to start either having project managers or encouraging those people to have team members under them, in which case you need to teach them how to delegate as well. So you see, it just kind of keeps going on and on. This whole evolution doesn't really stop if you're growing.

That really does make sense. I just hired four new people and I'm thinking about it going, yeah, you hit that spot on, because the total number I'm up to now.

It'S nearly triple that. And I was thinking about this just a week or two ago for what I'm planning on doing over the next six to 12 months with people and freeing up my time even more so I can focus on the show and some other things.

Yeah. And look, you know the reason I literally say this from the heart, because I have felt this myself. It's not like I was like, I just knew how to do all of this. I was good at delegating. But as I've grown the virtual hub, I've discovered, I mean, we have 150 staff now. So we've got, you know, we've got six team leaders, we've got a head of operations, head of hr, we've got a master trainer and a learning and development manager. We've got the whole stack of the corporate structure. But, you know, I remember in the early days of having five, six, seven people and going, oh man, I need, you know, this is really. I'm now overwhelmed again. So, and even now I get overwhelmed because I'm trying to onboard new leadership members and stuff like that. So, you know, it doesn't end but, but you grow the business at the same time.

Well, it's an important skill to have and it's an important thing to do because I've seen some really great people, entrepreneur friends of mine, speaker friends of mine, other podcast hosts even, and authors that, you know, we came up together five, 10, 15 years ago and some of them are still stuck. And it's, you know, it's why I did the, you know, no one can do it as good as me and I joke about it, but the sad reality is they might have a couple of people. But if you never trust anyone other than yourself, you're only going to be, you know, you're tied to yourself in 24 hours a day and heaven forbid you go speak somewhere or go travel or take a day off, what do you do? It's like they don't have a business. They are the business.

Yeah. Look as well, what I would say is, you know, that the when, when, when we go through big economic cycles, like big, big areas of the business cycle, for example, when recessions hit or, you know, a crisis hits or anything like that, what you'll find is the companies that come out of that really strong are the ones that were built right beforehand. They're not necessarily the ones that just got lucky. Sometimes there are a few that get lucky in those sorts of environments. But it's important to remember that as long as if your company is built right in the first place. And I mean, we're not Even talking about VAs here, we're talking about scaling businesses. But if it's built right. And you have the right systems in place, and you've got a machine built that people can step in, you can delegate to run that machine. You can actually get back to the joy of building the company that you originally dreamed of. You didn't dream of working seven days a week, 24 hours a day. You dreamt of building a scalable business or a lifestyle business or whatever it is. But usually people fall down by not delegating. And the trust issue is a big one. So sometimes you will hire people that will be a mess. Right, that they will be the wrong hire. But what typically happens then is people, you know, entrepreneurs will say, it doesn't work for me. I tried and it didn't work. Well, that's a mindset issue. You have to have a sort of a commitment to say, in order for me to realize the dream of the business that I want, I have to make a commitment to systems, processes, and teams and delivery. Like, you know, slick delivery to the client or the customer in such a way that this whole machine actually works for me rather than me constantly working for it. That's. That's essentially what you're looking to do.

Yeah, that's a great expert authority insight. Because just because something is one way doesn't mean you have to take at face value. You can create and innovate. And I mean, cars never existed, and pretty much the entire world we see today didn't exist 100 years ago.

And when people are like, well, we can't change that. You need to, or you're not going to be around three to five years from now.

We can do anything we want to do, actually. I mean, you know, at this time that we're recording this, we've just shut the world down for the COVID situation. So that's been pretty, pretty epic. So we can actually do whatever we want to do if we think about it.

Yeah, it's amazing. And I love that you keep saying mindset. So speaking of mindset.

How did you start this?

Yes, that's an interesting story. So basically.

It'S my accidental business. I didn't mean to start this business. So you would sort of think that I would have a background in HR management or team building or offshoring or something to that recruiting. I had none of that experience.

And I didn't have a business plan or any. I literally started this by accident. I had been working in corporate for 15 years. I was in the investment banking end of the financial world. I had been an equity trader for 10 years. I worked in asset management sales, was totally a corporate person, but did always want to start my own business. And like many corporates coming out to start your own thing, I started doing some consulting to see sort of what would stick. And I found that the majority of the businesses I was helping, they were a lot of small businesses and they all had the same problem regardless of the industry that they were in. And it was that the business owner was doing all the work, everything in the business. They weren't making enough money to hire staff, but if they didn't hire staff, they were never going to make any money. So I was like, okay, we need to fix this. So I started getting some VAs in the Philippines because I had read Tim Ferriss Four Hour Workweek like everybody else and I was only really doing it just to free up their time so that we could work on strategy together. And before I knew it, I was actually getting more demand for that than I was for business coaching. And I was like, I wonder, is there business in this? And I literally overnight, like in about the space of about a month, I was like, okay, I'm not doing that anymore. We're going to do this now. And then the virtual hub was born in about a few months out of nothing. So that was how it started.

I love hearing success stories and.

That'S inspiring because so many, like we were just talking about, you know, some people don't want to let go or make those changes and you were just like, let's go for it. And I found the best VIP guest I have on here, my best clients and the best people who succeed the fastest, just colleagues, friends, other authors, they all have that same trait of let's go for it. You know, we'll jump off the cliff and build the airplane on the way down, like Richard Branson says.

Yeah. And I mean, look, I look back on the, on the early days of the virtual hub and you know, I sort of think compared to what it is today, it was a total mess back then. And if I had known like then what I know now, you know, I would never have had the guts to launch it because you realize later how difficult it was to build it. It's a people business at the end of the day. But it's, we're nearly six years into it now and it's, it's 150 staff and still growing and we've got great plans for the future. So. But I literally jumped in. We had no brand name, no logo, no concept or business, no website. But nobody said to me what's your web address. They were just like, can you get me one of those vas? I'm desperate. So I was like, sure. Okay. So I sort of encourage people today to think about, you know, you've just got to find a problem that people are willing to pay money to solve right now. And don't worry about branding and websites and all that stuff until such time as you make you sell something and you figure out what people are gonna buy.

That's a great expert authority insight, because so many people think, I need the business card, I need the website, I need the thing, I need the other thing. I need the other thing, thing, thing. And I'm like, all you need is a client.

Yeah, the client doesn't care about you, actually. Yeah, they don't care about you. They just care about what problem you can solve for them. And in the early stages, look, I made the mistake in, you know, the first business I started, it was consulting, but I did the whole. Built the website and I did a sort of a product launch online, and I did all this stuff and spent a fortune. And actually, the virtual hub was cheap as chips. I didn't actually spend anything to even start.

And there you go.

I've done this at many of my presentations in real life, and my favorite thing is a pen and paper.

Yeah. Back at the envelope, just.

Here you go. Napkin, envelope, whatever. Just write some ideas down and, you know, pick up the phone.

Yeah.

All the other stuff is all well and good, and it's kind of fun to talk about because clearly I like to do things like entry level. And everyone thinks you need all of this to get started. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. Now, it doesn't mean take a year to do it. You can grow fast, set a goal. Here's where I want to be. Here's. You know, I mapped out phase 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5 before I even launched the show. But I knew exactly where I was going. I go. I start where I'm at, and I go forward as fast as I can. And it was motivating because I was like, I don't want 500 episodes that all look and sound bad. So I was like, how do I do this as quick as possible within the budget I have while growing and all that? And it's just like with anything, it's like, don't get ahead of yourself. Enjoy the journey. But that doesn't mean be a slouch and take five years to do it either. You know, if you're thinking about starting a podcast and you don't get a good mic for five years. That's just insane. Like, I'm not even going off on that tangent because there's people that still have a show with their intro mic from five years ago. But whatever.

They probably have listeners, though.

They could. What?

They probably have a few listeners if they're still going, you know. But yeah, Mike from podcasting, I think you need a good mic. Yeah, yeah.

It's just. It's like an artist. Would you not invest in a brush or a designer with the right paper? You know what I mean? It's like, whatever you need, treat it like a professional. And, you know, maybe it's a pair of shoes for someone who wants to go door to door. You know, you won't walk around barefoot doing that. But it's just, you know, you have to. You said it. The mindset, that commitment, and knowing where you want to go with it.

I think as well, if I could just add to that, there is the mindset, the commitment, but also knowing that business is business. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what you're selling, whether it's a product or a service. And I've seen this through, like, diverse businesses that we deal with. It doesn't actually matter what it is that you're selling. Building a business is the same. Right. Building a business is the same skill in itself, and it is a separate skill from whatever your technician skill is. So if you're a consultant or a coach or you make whatever you make, shoes for kids or widgets or whatever it is that you do, at the end of the day, the structure of business and how to build a business is actually the same. It's just a different thing that you're selling. Right. So, you know, remembering that and learning how to actually build a business properly is. Is really valuable. Is really valuable. I mean, everyone wants to learn how to do marketing and. And sales and all the cool stuff, but actually, operations is a really important part of any business, and that's all systems, processes, and people.

Yeah, I mean, I've said this in presentations, too. Do you want to scale a problem? I want 10,000 leads.

Great.

One, could you handle it? Two, what's your conversion ratio? Three. Let's assume all of them convert. Could you handle it?

Yeah. So there's a really good and interesting thing I used to talk about a lot years ago that you've just reminded me about. I used to talk about this concept of this external leverage and internal leverage. Everybody wants to go after the sexy stuff. Which is the external leverage, which is going out and, you know, being on podcasts and advertising and marketing and sales and leads and funnels and all this stuff. Right. But the internal leverage is how efficient and cost effective is your delivery and your operations. And that's where your profit is, right? That's your profit margin right there. So people don't focus. And what they do is they put loads of leads and loads of sales into a broken machine and that tears up all their profit because the machine, the actual business machine itself is not efficient and it's not cost effective to run. And that's how people find. I'm doing all these sales, but I'm not actually making any money on the back end. And that can happen for a number of reasons. But one of them is leaky operations. Really, really leaky operations.

That's a great point you make, because I find most people who want to talk about that, the leads, the conversions, the sales, the funnels and all that aren't willing to invest what it really would take to do it proper for a long enough time. And their expectations are so low to begin with. Nine times out of 10, they're literally better just picking up the phone, calling, reaching out via email, and taking a look at their existing customers. And you can double or triple the profit margins just by doing that before you take three to six months to, you know, like, you're talking about building the business, the funnels the same way, 30 to 60 days in most cases. And then you need to continually. You're combating Facebook, Google, all those. And I have nothing against it. I got funnels running right now with ads and all kinds of stuff. They're fantastic. But I also didn't start last month, so. Or in the last year. It's like, realize where you're at. You don't need to enjoy the journey. Take a couple years and go, here's where I want to be 12 months from now and aim for that.

Don't freak out and plan it out, plan it out. And you know, you can just, you know, every day, you know, you can change everything in a year. People, people, they overestimate what they can do in a day and they underestimate what they can do in a year. So if you just try to put one foot in front of the other and figure out your plan for the year and then keep moving forward with it, and you'll have days of total overwhelm, but you've just got one foot in front of the other and you will build a machine very quickly. If you do it that way.

Yeah. And enjoy the process. Because one day might be good or bad, but overall it's like, look at what you did. Most people wait for three to six or nine months to think about it. And you know, they don't even accomplish what they want in five years because they just hesitate. It's like.

You know, well, people don't.

Plan because, you know, as well, people will say, oh, I need a va. I need a va yesterday. And you're like, well, that's okay. But you're just, you know, you're, you're. There's a sort of a. You need to take a step back.

You need to send over documents today and we'll get you one. You're what?

Yeah, you need to slow down in order to speed up sometimes, you know, and you might have to slow down for a month or two so that you can speed up across the entire 12 months and actually hit your annual, your year long goal or your 12 month goal. And then your three and five year goals is the same thing.

Yeah. And I'm glad you're helping people with that because there's so many people like I started with that need it. And I remember when I went full time in business in 08.

I got a couple dozen clients in the first six weeks and I'm like, okay, things are going well from a sales perspective and you know, fulfillment was well, and it was only a couple of months. I'm like, I need more help. And so many people were like, well, yeah. And I'm just like, maybe I don't need a team. Maybe I should keep it. But then like, I woke up in my own common sense and was telling me, like, there's no way you can maintain this because when you extrapolate it out, it's like, what if you got 10 new clients a day? Well, great. Who's fulfilling them? How do you maintain them ongoing? Someone's taking up their time doing it. If it's all on you, there's a point where it's going to break.

And you'll break as well. So. And then, you know, like you said, you didn't start your own thing to have a glorified job. At the end of the day you want, you want to build something.

So.

Well, that's what most business owners want to do, I think. So it's important to be honest with yourself about that. Yeah.

And I would have to agree also because there's so many people that want to do it and they just don't. And I'd say you nailed that fear and it's all in here. Yeah.

So I want to ask you, who's your biggest success story.

As a client?

Yes.

Meaning yes, there's an interesting story actually. There is an E commerce business that is one of our clients has been a client for a long time and this person had a part time VA many years ago and reached out to me on LinkedIn. This was back in the beginning and had listened to one of my podcasts. I have a podcast called the Virtual Success show if you want to have a listen to how to get success with vas. And he felt that he wasn't really getting the return on investment or the success that I had been talking about in the podcast. So as it turned out he was living in Sydney and so was I in Australia at the time. So I said, look, I'll come and see you. So I actually went to see him and to cut a long story short, I said we got rid of that original va. I was like, that's not going to work. But also his systems, his processes were very complicated and like what you said, back of the envelope, piece of paper, I just drew out like a, I just asked him some questions and I just drew out a simpler version of his process. And today he has seven team members with us and his business is multi, multi million dollar business. I actually do still consult to him quite a lot on the build of his team. So yeah, he's there all in the Philippines and he's growing. He's probably going to be putting on like two, three people in the next few months again. So that's been a really beautiful one to watch because he sort of listened and did everything I told him to do and then managed to delegate effectively. So he's very, very happy.

Well, I'm happy to hear that. That's always fun because there's a lot of people, I believe that are hunkered down, whether they have a new business, middle business or in a huge business. They're. If you don't have it set up right, they don't really get to enjoy it. And I love hearing those stories of how to enjoy it and just the transformation, you know, here's the thing, right?

I mean like I've built, I've built a big business. This is, you know, it's, it's, it is a big business and it's growing and I've had two children at the same time and I've managed to be a part time mom and a part time business owner. So now that's really hard to do. But in order to do that, people have asked me, how did I do that? There have been times of extreme overwhelm, I will say, so it's not easy. But in order the way to do that and to actually be present in your children's life and to have, you know, not run yourself into the ground completely is to be a master delegator. Like, if I could just pick one thing, you know, you can be a master marketer, but if you can't delegate and build systems and teams, you're just going to market yourself into a black hole because you're going to. The delivery will fall down. So, you know, to be able to delegate effectively is. Is a seriously good skill to deeply learn about and deeply master. And the second one is probably recruiting. Like, because people don't spend any energy on recruiting. And then they wonder why the people that are coming into their business are not really able to cope or it's not working and everything's broken. Because we don't invest any time in learning how to be amazing at that or amazing at delegating. That's. That's probably why.

Yeah. When you said the people always ask you, I need someone yesterday and I need them to hit the ground running, it's like.

Do they even know what you're selling? Or you just want to, like, are you gonna even have a.

Give you the name of a competitor? We'll just pass them on. Yeah, no, not really. We do. We do help people to figure that out. But sometimes if somebody's a bit of a chaotic mess, you know, we don't try and make a sale. We're just like, look, honestly, if you want to take our advice, we'll give them some master classes and some free stuff that will actually help them to figure out. Figure this thing out. And we try to encourage them to slow down for a minute, even though it might be painful, but to think about the marathon and not the sprint. And that's really important to remember that.

It's a good point too. You know, life in a track meet, it's a marathon and you gotta enjoy it. Which brings me to my last question before we thank our sponsor and go to the imperfect action round. It is the Wheel of whatever. And your whatever question is.

Hold on. Ow. Here we go. It's going to land on the one. I want it to this question right here, after you've delegated and outsourced this. What's the best way to relax?

What's the best way for me to relax or anyone, either or both. Depends what you're into. So for me, I love when I've managed to delegate loads of things. The team are all on fire. Everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing and is executing quite well. And I sit back and I think, wow, I can listen to a podcast. I can actually have a coffee. I can just, you know, so sometimes for me personally it's actually just, it's like, it's like that sense of like you've planted the garden and all the flowers are coming up and you can just look at them and go, wow, I did that. That's so for me, I find that quite relaxing. You know, I do yoga and all the other sort of stuff that you're supposed to be doing. I do love to go out and have a glass of wine as well.

What kind?

But yeah, sometimes to Shiraz.

Do you like a Shiraz? An Australian Shiraz, actually I quite like. But you know, to be able to sit back and kind of congratulate yourself and enjoy the moment that you built this and that's, you know, before the chaos of the next level starts again and all the overwhelm comes back. Just take a moment to watch your team as they work and watch them enjoy what they do as well. That's really key.

I like that. That's a great high note. To continue on, enjoy the moment. We're gonna thank the sponsor, enjoy this moment and we're gonna come back for the imperfect action round. Invest automatically, save for later and spend today. That's why I love acorns. I used to think spare change didn't make a difference and saving and investing was an old fashioned manual process. It's not. And it's a game changer. If you're not leveraging compounding interest in your business and life automatically, you're missing out. Acorns not only makes saving and investing easy and automatic, it makes it even more valuable. By investing with diversified portfolios, spare change, extra cash and rounding up everyday transactions. You can even set recurring monthly investments in the amount you desire to make good. Great. There is also a debit card option that will continue to help you save and invest even further when you start Spend plus no minimum balance and overdraft fees. Now for the cherry on top, they have partnered with 250 plus companies and brands and growing with their found money program to invest back a percentage into your account with the everyday purchases when you shop, two of which you're probably listening to this right now through an Amazon or Apple device. Get started profiting from Your everyday life and business simply and easily today@eainterviews.com.

Once again, that's eainterviews.com acorns and we are back with the imperfect action round. Barbara, are you ready to take imperfect action?

I am born ready.

Excellent. Great answer. So these are just 60 second quick answers, rapid response. The first one is what is the fastest path to the cache?

Find a problem that somebody was willing to pay you money to solve today and not in the future.

I like that you said pay you money.

Yes. Because lots of people have problems they'd like you to solve either for free or in the future and that's not going to make you any money. So. But they will have something that they'll pay you for.

I've joked with people before. I'm like, I don't like dealing with my own problems. Why do I want more of yours?

Yeah.

Number two, what is the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way they can fix it?

Yes. So hiring a virtual assistant because it's cost effective. I'm not going to say cheap because it's cost effective. And then expecting to get a strategist and complaining that the person can't strategize or run your business for you, that's a huge problem. It's expectations management about what you just be clear about what you're hiring, what role you're hiring for.

That's a very good point that a lot of people don't touch on.

Yeah, I see it all the time. I wish they show more initiative. I thought they would know that I wanted this. I'm like, that's, you need a strategist for that. That's, you know, you pay someone 500 bucks an hour for that, so not five. You know.

I totally can relate to that. And on the other side of the thing is when you are doing coaching, consulting and you say it is 500, a thousand an hour and people are like, well, I thought it'd be 10 or 20. It's like, well then go to McDonald's and you know, get them to give you a business growth strategy that's going to increase your business six figures a year.

Or just remember that if you delegate effectively and you do have cost effective team members in your business that can execute, execute processes, you can bring in a very, very expensive consultant, but you only need them for a few hours a month. It's called a high low strategy because you've got the team members to actually implement. So that's a really good strategy of getting Both. Right. So you use that's cost effective as well. And you get the best consultant you can.

That's a very good strategy. And then you roll them out on the other side. You could have the strategy, but if you have no implementation now it's costing you exponentially. Now it's costing you. And it's not an investment.

Exactly. So the best, the most cost effective way is to have a really slick strategist that knows exactly what they're doing, pay up for them, and then have a cost effective offshore team that can implement and maybe have a project manager in the middle if you really want to go that route. But that's kind of the, that's, that's the strategy you want to be running.

That is gold right there. I think I just might clip that part out. That. That's gold.

There's another really good question. What the heck is it? You got my wheels spinning. Thank you.

It's the same one I've asked like a couple hundred times, what is the best way to maximize customer lifetime value?

Yes. So this one, we've been playing with this at the virtual Hub, actually quite a lot. So I've been thinking about this for many years and I truly believe that focusing on customer and client success is. I know it's a new thing, it's a buzzword. Everyone's got client success managers now. But if you make sure that your clients are not just looked after because a client that's looked after is happy, a client that's getting success will rave about you and those are the cheapest leads you'll ever find in the market. It's so worthwhile putting the effort into making sure that people actually get success with what it is that you're doing.

That's another great point. You should write a book on all this.

It's in the plan. Had to have my kids first. Not ready for the book yet.

They are.

This is very good. They have a great mom and you are sharing some incredible insights here. So thank you for that. The last thing, speaking of books is what would you recommend? What books have impacted your business and life?

Yeah, I look, you know, this is May. This is maybe the one everyone says, I don't know. But I on my first, I think it was not the first time I went to the Philippines, but I had just had my daughter, she was about 11 months old. And I went to the Philippines for a week for work and I had this nine hour flight and it was like, wow, I have nine hours of no children. So I read a book the whole way to the Philippines. And it was the. It was Verne Harnish's Scaling up, the most pivotal book. I completely rebuilt the business after reading that book. And I've gone on to do the live scaling up program and I'm currently rebuilding, rebuilding. But I'm just like taking this to another level. Best book ever. It's a real business book, but it did change everything for me from a business perspective.

Excellent. I'm really happy to hear that. Vern is awesome.

Yeah.

Well, I have gotten a lot out of this and I want to learn more. I know Expert Authority World does. Where would you like us to go to learn more?

Sure. So we've got some special stuff for you guys listening and watching. So if you go to the Virtual Hub.

Expert Authority, we have a couple of things over there. You can download something we spoke about earlier, which is the five reasons people fail with VAs and how to fix it. There's a little downloadable over there and there's also a scalable success formula E course which is based on some of the things I've been talking about. And you can also, if you feel ready to talk to us about getting a virtual assistant in your business, you can book a call to have a chat with us and see if we're a fit over there.

Excellent. Well, thank you again so much, Barbara.

You're very welcome. Thank you for having me.

All right, Expert Authority World, we have another great episode today. I'll see you tomorrow. Have a great day and God bless. Why Every Business Needs a book, including yours. Would you like to save five plus hours with every prospect? Generate more leads and profit in your business? Now visit businessbookchecklist.com and learn how you can implement this in your business today. Spare change. How's that going to make a difference? I know that's what I thought before I started investing. With acorns, throwing change in a jar is not very leverage and time consuming. But what about all the transactions you don't use cash for? You know, like majority, Acorns not only invest your spare change automatically with roundups, it also lets you add a preset amount to each transaction. Regardless, it's pretty inspiring to see how quickly and easily you can end up with a pile of of cash instead, a pile of receipts. Get started simply and easily today@eainterviews.com Acorns Once again, that's eainterviews.com Acorns hey, thanks for listening to today's episode. I hope you got a lot out of it. I know, I sure did. If you haven't done so already, I invite you to subscribe to the show and also be sure to check out eainterviews.com for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you tomorrow. I'll.