You’ve been a solopreneur in your business for a while now, and it’s been getting harder to manage things in the day to day. Admin tasks, marketing, client work, envisioning new products. . .it seems as if you don’t have a moment to yourself anymore! So maybe you’re thinking about hiring an Online Business Manager or Virtual Assistant as some support, but can’t decide which one is right for your company?
Many different factors should be considered when making this decision. In this blog post, we will compare and contrast an OBM role vs a Virtual Assistant role to help you make the best choice right now and in the future
Is An Online Business Manager or Virtual Assistant Right For Your Business?
No matter who you need to hire right now for your business, making a move from a solopreneur to a CEO can be scary. We make it easier for you to feel confident with hiring the right person and perfect team member that your business needs right now.
What Does an Online Business Manager Do?
An Online Business Manager is more of a manager role. As an Online Business Manager, I help my clients streamline and organize the backend of their business. This is a much more high-level role. In other words, OBM’s don’t implement tasks, but instead they are the planners, managers, and organizers.
Think of an Online Business Manager as a strategic partner on your team who can systematize and manage multiple aspects of your business. Hiring an OBM would be great if you were a visionary CEO and had a million ideas but needed help breaking those ideas into actionable steps and then delegating them to team members and following up to ensure everything got done. An Online Business Manager can help bring your vision to life.
It’s key to remember an Online Business Manager doesn’t do the implementation itself; they are “big picture” people in your business.
OBM Specialties
Depending on the OBM you choose to work with, they may have different specialties they offer. Some may prefer to support you with projects that are front-facing activities such as client onboarding, overall client experience, and client payments.
Other Online Business Managers may work more behind-the-scenes in your business creating and overseeing the systems to ensure consistent team communication and project management.
Your OBM may guide your team as they implement forward-facing activities, create the SOPs for the long-term success of your business for future team members, review the KPIs and analytics of your business to help you make strategic decisions as to the next steps in creating, planning, or launching new programs. Or they may help support you as you conduct a quarterly or annual planning of services and offers.
At KMB Digital, we offer both support with overall business operations or just a specific piece, depending on your needs. An OBM can be hired for a specific project, like managing your launch, or we can work with your business fractionally, like 5 hours a week if you aren’t ready to bring on someone full-time but have a team of contractors in place and you need to get out of the management of them so you can return to the role in your business.
If you are currently struggling with managing your team, or organizing your business systems or processes – you likely need an OBM to set things up for when you are ready to hire your next Virtual Assistant.
What Does a Virtual Assistant Do?
A Virtual Assistant, on the other hand, is an implementer. They take the tasks and check them off their list. Most Virtual Assistants specialize in different types of services or roles, such as a Tech Virtual Assistant or an Admin Virtual Assistant.
You no longer have to worry about implementing the repetitive tedious tasks in your business.
You’ll want to hire the right Virtual Assistant based on the type of help and tasks you want them to help you with. It’s essential to build a team of people who are in the zone of genius and love doing the tasks they will be doing for your business. No matter how you build and grow your team, that should always be the goal and is important for your team culture.
Virtual Assistant Specialties
While some Virtual Assistants consider themselves “generalists” and offer everything from administrative support to social media to tech to anything else you can imagine. Many Virtual Assistants eventually choose to niche themselves into tasks they enjoy best. This allows them to hone their skills so they can offer premium services to their clients. You’ll find they are more efficient and effective when you work with a specialist.
Social Media Virtual Assistants
A Social Media VA is someone who can help you with your outreach and marketing tasks. They will usually be versed in researching trends, creating content, engaging with your audience, creating graphics, managing your handles, scheduling your posts on your channels on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest, and some may be able to edit your videos for short-form posting to Reels and Tik Tok.
Administrative VAs / Executive Assistants
These are usually people who have years of experience as an Office Assistant or Manager. The tasks they can perform in your business are usually similar and include things like managing your calendar and inbox, track KPis, data entry, creating and managing databases.
Technical Virtual Assistants
A Tech VA is someone who will work with the different pieces of software within your business to make sure they are integrated and send data to one another correctly so your business runs seamlessly. They can also help to troubleshoot so you, and your site visitors and clients, don’t get the dreaded 404 pages as they are trying to navigate their way around your site and programs.
Niche-based Virtual Assistants
Some Virtual Assistants choose to specialize based on the industry they associate with. In other words, they may have selected working with only real estate agents, only people within the fitness industry, photographers, coaches or only TPT or Etsy sellers. The list goes on, but you get the idea. Specializing by industry allows them to understand trends, software, and platforms within a particular industry.
Should You Hire an Online Business Manager or a Virtual Assistant?
Still deciding whether to hire an Online Business Manager or Virtual Assistant?
The bottom line is you should hire a VA if you want help with specific tasks for your business rather than managing it. This is usually the first hire as a small business. You are buying back your time by delegating those tasks you don’t like to do and you get your time back to do what you do: get more clients
An Online Business Manager is an excellent option for entrepreneurs who have a team and want to get out of the day-to-day management. They have a lot going on and just need someone else to take care of all.
Remember, you are the visionary of your business without having to waste time and energy worrying about all of the details thinking of the details and the logistics of current projects and future offerings.
Click here if you’d like to book a call to talk further about your business needs.
