Operations Manager vs OBM vs VA: Who to hire for your growing online course business?
Deciding to hire support is a big milestone for any business, but especially if you’ve been running your course business solo until now it can be hard to know exactly what and who you should be hiring to help you out.
In our small online business space, people can use many different titles to describe their work, which makes it even harder to piece out exactly what sort of support you need.
So let’s start by looking at the three main support roles you might need.
Virtual Assistant
This is a fairly entry-level position which means most VAs are pretty affordable… and have the skillset to match.
Virtual Assistants are a good fit if you’re looking for simple execution of repetitive tasks like:
inbox and calendar management
booking appointments
posting on social media (with content you provide)
and basic admin tasks
They won’t typically have extensive experience in specific tools or in the online course industry itself, so you’ll want to save any more specialized work or strategy for the experts rather than hoping your VA can handle it.
Sometimes you may find more specalized Tech VAs who have more experience with specific tools, which can be a nice option if you need support exclusively in one area of your business, like email marketing management and hire someone specialized in your email marketing tool of choice for example.
Online Business Managers
A step up from VAs in terms of both skillsets and investment, OBMs act as a core part of your team and will manage tasks across the entire breath of your business including:
team management
overseeing projects and managing deadlines
maintaining existing systems and workflows
and general backend support and oversight across your business.
You’ll likely get hands on implementation support as well as some operational guidance from your OBM, though they aren’t likely to going to build new systems and processes or offer strategic guidance as you grow.
Operations Managers
A step up again from OBMs in terms of depth, systems and strategy, Operations Managers (Or Director of Operations) don’t just manage tasks or projects, they build, improve and scale the systems that run your business and help you scale.
While an Operations Manager might not handle small daily tasks, they’ll be instrumental in building and maintaining the structure that helps everything run more smoothly, focusing on things like:
designing and improving processes
planning and managing projects
managing business resources and budgets
creating SOPs (Standard Operating Procedures)
onboarding and managing team members
anticipating and solving problems before they arrise
You’ll get high-level strategy, support and systems across your entire business with an Operations Manager, and can trust them to manage large portions of your business without supervision.
→ Want to chat about potentially brining me in as your Operations Manager? Take a look at my services here and reach out to start the conversation!
Which should you hire between a VA, OBM or Operations Manager?
The short answer: it depends!
You’ll need different support depending on your stage of business, budget and the scope of projects you’re undertaking.
The slightly longer answer is this:
Hire a VA if you need someone to execute simple repetitive tasks so you can focus on the rest of your business
Hire an OBM if you want someone to manage tasks and projects to get you out of the day-to-day of running your business.
Hire an Operations Manager if you want someone to build and optimize the systems behind your business and keep everything running smoothly across your entire business so you can focus only on the work you do best.
You don’t need all three at once, but if you are bringing in an Operations Manager, they’ll help evaluate who else you might need to hire to complete your team.
Now sometimes you might need Operational expertise that’s beyond the support you currently have but you aren’t quite ready to hire an Ops Manager on retainer. That’s where my Operations Advisory services come in as a way to get high-level strategy as you grow and accountability to get you there, without the investment that full management services requires!
And no matter who you hire, it’s critically important that you like them as a person! Which is why I offer a complimentary discovery call for all serious inquiries about my retainer services.
