What's The Difference Between A Virtual Assistant (VA) & An Online Business Manager (OBM)?

Your current team is great but your current workload is no longer sustainable for anyone, including you. You need to build your team even further. But how?

Your business is really starting to take off. 

First off, CONGRATS. Many businesses never make it this far. Take a minute to give yourself a pat on the back. Seriously, you deserve this moment of gratitude & appreciation for all that you’ve done. It’s taken a lot of work & personal growth to get there, but you DID it.

But now, you need HELP. And you need it fast

This is where I start getting questions from my clients: 

• “I know I need help but I don’t know what type of help is best”

• “My current VAs are great, but they aren’t exactly taking the day-to-day decision-making off my plate”

• “I spend too much of my time managing people and not enough time creating & growing the business. How do I turn that around so my business growth doesn’t stall?”

• “How do I get my business to a point that I can actually take a vacation?”

If your business is bringing in $20,000 or more a month and you are still caught up in all the details & day-to-day management of the business, let me be the first to tell you that you are limiting yourself AND your business. You could have a team of rockstar VA’s and still be doing it wrong.

Your willingness to fully delegate the day-to-day operations of your business is critical. Or else your growth is directly influenced by your ability to hustle & grind. You are or will be the bottleneck in your business’s growth.

So how do you prevent the bottlenecks in your business? That is where an Online Business Manager (OBM) comes in.

If you are newer to the online business world, it is easy to get these roles mixed up but they are very different. Since many entrepreneurs are very familiar with VA’s let’s start there.

A Virtual Assistant (VA) is a support professional that you hire to complete tasks in your business. They often have a specialty that they are rockstars at owning. For example, there are Tech VAs, Social Media VAs, Marketing VAs, General Admin VAs, Bookkeeping/Accounting VAs, etc. You can hire a VA to complete any set of tasks within your business.

However, if your team consists of you plus VAs alone, you become a manager to many. You are still making all the decisions (big and small) and you have to approve all the work that each VA does. If a VA messes up or misses a deadline, it’s on you, and you alone, to fix it. Many entrepreneurs build out their team of VA’s only to find that they spend almost all their time managing & giving feedback. Instead of building the future, the entrepreneur is caught in the weeds of the fire drills happening right now.

An Online Business Manager (OBM; also known as an Integrator in some circles) on the other hand, is someone who will work hand-in-hand with the entrepreneur to take ownership of the day-to-day tasks, including managing and delegating tasks to VAs, to make sure projects get done on time and within budget. This frees up the entrepreneur & business owner to do more of the work that drives the growth & success of the business.

Let’s look at this another way - in every business strategy, there is a WHAT and a HOW. 

WHAT is the strategy for the growth of the business and HOW do we act on & implement that strategy?

The entrepreneur & business owner is responsible for the WHAT, the strategy for growth. An OBM builds & executes on the HOW, supported by the team of VAs. 

An OBM will create project plans and delegate tasks, manage team members, work through roadblocks, and make sure all systems are working smoothly. OBMs create efficient systems with the best people, processes, and technology for the business. OBMs are also the main POC for the business owner - keeping them updated on status and major milestones so everyone is in lock-step at all times. 

Can you see just how freeing this can be for the entrepreneur AND ultimately for the business itself? Can you imagine yourself having more time & space to create the brand new product? build the exciting new partnerships? Acting from flow & alignment rather than hustle & grind?

An OBMs execution responsibilities typically cover 5 buckets - project management, marketing management, operations management, team management, and business performance management. And a good OBM will mobilize existing resources efficiently to deliver on these responsibilities. They will also make recommendations on how to improve processes & technology to better accommodate the needs of the business.

Ok, so you are realizing that you need an OBM. Now what?

The OBM role is as unique as any business. Depending on the business owner’s Zone of Genius, the existing team structure, and the needs of the business, a good OBM will insert themselves in the most seamless way possible in doing what is best for the business. But ultimately, an OBM’s role is to free up the business owner’s time to do more on the strategy/WHAT side of the business.

Many business owners hesitate on taking this next step because they don’t want to lose control of their business. Let me be the first to reassure you that any good OBM will make sure you are comfortable with any changes or shifts they recommend and will grow with your business too. 

A great OBM will make your life easier, your work more efficient, and is a tremendous partner to you supporting you as you up-level your business. Don’t miss out on the opportunity to really scale your business. 

Is your business ready for an OBM? Let’s chat. Fill out the OBM application here.