Online Business Manager vs. Virtual Assistant: Which should you choose for your business?

So maybe you’ve overheard the phrase OBM and VA being bandied about at your last networking event, but you don’t want to ask what they mean for fear of sounding like you’re a little out of touch.  Rather like when I walk in on a conversation with my teenage daughter and her friends…we all want to sound like we’re down with the kids right?!  

But what even are OBMs & VAs? And what are the differences between them?  

Virtual assistants and Online Business managers are a great alternative for anyone overwhelmed in running a business and who need help with moving their businesses forward.  Using a VA or an OBM is an attractive option over taking on an employee because not only is their less risk involved, but often less cost too.  

So let’s take a look at what a VA and an OBM are.

What is a Virtual Assistant and what is an Online Business Manager?

VA stands for Virtual Assistant. OBM stands for Online Business Manager. 

They are highly skilled professional service providers that are employed on a freelance basis to provide administrative support, technical assistance and business management to a business or entrepreneur, remotely. 

Sometimes people don't easily recognise the key differences because much of the time VAs will offer OBM services to their clients as they become more experienced in their roles.  A VA and an OBM usually need quite different qualities and skills to enable them to complete the work and this is why there is a difference in the way they structure the cost for their services. 

Both the VA and the OBM will help you to grow your business by increasing your product or service offering, increasing your earnings or serving more people. 

They help you to better serve your clients by helping you with efficient systems and processes to alleviate your pain and overwhelm in trying to do it all by yourself!

They free up your time to allow you to invest in your own development and focus on the things you enjoy.

The key differences between these two roles are the focus of their goals.  The VA is task focussed working primarily on reducing a long list of to-dos by working through the tasks themselves.  The OBM is strategy focussed working on figuring out what needs to be done in the business to move it forwards. 

The VA requires instruction from the owner on what to do, when and sometimes how, whereas an OBM will work independently.  They will run the business very much like it is their own, delegating tasks and communicating to the team the things that need action and putting together a plan to develop and grow the business. 

Due to the nature of differing roles, the VA will often work with more clients on a lower retainer to keep their business going, whereas the OBM will work with fewer clients on larger retainers to reflect the levels of responsibility and management. 

What responsibilities would an OBM typically have?

As with any role there will always be variance from one business to another, but I’m going to try to give you an outline of the type of responsibility you can expect an OBM to take on.

The variety of their responsibility can change depending on the: 

• Skills, experience and preferences of your OBM

• The nature of the business and what’s involved.

• The skills, experience and preferences of the business owner. 

• Where the business is in its own lifecycle and the current goals it has

• The other members of the business team (if any) and what they’re already responsible for

Taking into consideration all of the above, an Online Business Manager might look after all the things  to do with improving the day-to-day tasks in a business. If we break those down into the following four areas, you can see how an OBM could be useful. 

Project management

• Planning activity

• Managing resources

• Organising and recruiting a project team

• Motivating and monitoring the project team

• Estimating the cost of the project and developing a budget

• Managing time and progress of the project

• Managing reports and required documentation 

• Liaising with external contractors 

• Updating the business owner with weekly progress meetings

Operations Management

• Instrumental in planning, strategy and policy decisions

• Reviewing, developing and implementation of standard operating procedures and operation policies

• Planning, budgeting, monitoring, auditing and reporting 

• Managing all legal and regulatory compliance documents

• Identifying problems and finding ways to overcome them

• Identifying and progressing opportunities for the company

• Building important partnerships and relationships with other organisations.

Metrics management

• Looking at cost efficiencies 

• Assessing customer satisfactions

• Analysing ROI (Return on Investment)

• Monitoring Gross profit margins

People management 

• New hires recruitment & implementationTraining

• Ongoing appraisal of performance

• Developing the organisation

• Motivating employees 

• Communicating with employees

• All administration relating to managing people

All of these responsibilities can be handled by an experienced OBM which allows the business owner to focus on the things that matter most to him or her and often the very reason why they wanted to get into this business in the first place! This is how an online business manager may look in the structure of an established online business.

Now, maybe you’re at the stage where you’re still trying to do this all for yourself!  Maybe you don’t recognise how these types of tasks or roles may fit into the business you’re running.  If you are a busy property entrepreneur and your primary goal is to find investors so that you can grow your existing portfolio, then there are still many ways an OBM can help you. If you are struggling to see the wood for the trees in all that you need to achieve once you have a few properties up and running, then this is exactly where an OBM can step in.  

You may not yet have a copy writer or a graphic designer working for you but I’m sure you probably have a vision of how your property business should look and both of these skilled professionals would be needed to help you bring that vision to life.  

Many business owners will struggle for a long time muddling through, trying to do it all before the realisation hits that it is far more cost-effective to outsource this stuff.  An OBM will help you do exactly that.  An experienced OBM would look at your current structure and would handle the outsourcing and setup of all the tasks that need to happen in your business just for it to run more efficiently on a day-to-day basis.  

Suddenly, you have so much more headspace to concentrate on the strategies for growing your business and your valuable time is spent networking with investors rather than dealing with estate agents, solicitors or tenants. 

How can a Virtual Assistant help you? Just like OBMs, Virtual Assistants all vary greatly in both experience, skills and the support they will offer a business owner. Very often, VAs will specialise in a particular field, like Social Media or Finance.  Many will also work under a much broader scope offering a wide range of administrative tasks.

Let's look at some of the typical things you can expect to be able to delegate to a well-rounded Virtual Assistant.  Email management

• Diary management

• Booking and researching travel.

• Invoicing and finance management

• Data entry or repetitive tasks

• Research and reporting 

• Blog writing and uploads

• Website managment

• Social media management 

• Event planning

Hopefully this will give you a good insight into what the key differences are between an Online Business Manager and a Virtual Assistant and if you feel that an OBM or a VA would be a good addition to your business and you want to find out more about how Virtuella can help you in that respect then get in touch now!  You can book a free 45-minute discovery call with Leah here to explore how and what we could do for you!