Season 2: Episode 005

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Written Version*

*Note: The transcript has been edited for readability and will stray from the original audio recording.

Welcome to the Plan for Wonder podcast. I'm Crystal, founder and creator of mylifeplanners. ca. It's in these moments together that I want to explore and understand my own struggles to find focus, bring clarity, live with intention, and ultimately plan for wonder, which brings me to introduce you to my guest today.

She's built a business out of supporting others. Robin Joy.

So great to be here.

I'm really looking forward to diving into what you have to offer.

Where to begin? There's lots to talk about.

I think a lot of us have a lot of wisdom to share, and a lot of that wisdom is based on life experience, right?

So, maybe you could give us a bit of an outline of who you are.

Sure, sure. I never really know where to begin this story because I, I mean, it could begin all the way back in university because there are so many threads even before, right? There are so many threads that weave through and, you know, you eventually culminate in something that's like, oh yeah, okay, this makes sense.

My Work in the online space started in 2005 ish with my middle child needing to, well, I just was in a conversation with someone, and she was saying, I use cloth diapers.” And I was like, what, where do you get those? And then, oh, you have to, you know, they were hard to find.

And so I thought, well, maybe I could sell them. And so that was like the birth of my first online business where I just started selling cloth diapers. And then I realized, oh, I could also make them. Hadn't sewn anything in my life, taught myself to sew and make cloth diapers.

You're a true entrepreneur at heart.

Yeah, it was real. Like, that was real. And this was back in the day of message boards and chat boards. I sold on a store called Hyena Cart, which was basically like an Etsy. We would stock things, and then people would wait and refresh their screens. As soon as they went live, they would buy them.

Like single, like artistic hand-dyed diaper. So this was, this is where I got my start. Yeah. So I've been in this space for a long time through many iterations of what it looks like to have an online business. I had a yoga blog for a long time and then ventured into Zara. sex coaching for many years. And then I was working for a little while as a sex educator and then found my way to OBM VA work, uh, because I just clarify what OBM VA work is.

Yeah. So the reason why I got to this place is because, as I was running my coaching business. I kept redoing my website. I kept shifting my systems around. I kept like, Oh, there's a new thing I can try a new website platform and you, and I realized that what I actually loved doing was setting up the automations and systems and supporting with the tech.

So a VA is a virtual assistant and OBM is online business manager. I loved the behind-the-scenes aspect of my business. And I thought, you know what? I'm just going to take a break from coaching because I wasn't really feeling it. And I started this, and yeah, it's been a wild ride because now I'm coming back into coaching again, bringing a pleasure-based business into the online space for entrepreneurs who want to just really love doing the work they do.

Uh, and want to, you know, prioritize pleasure and enjoyment as, as, um, they built their businesses. So yeah, it's been a real journey.

If you were to outline what your clients are or someone who actually needs your services.

Yeah. Who is that person?

Well, it's someone who's, I mean, anyone who is building or has an online business and is feeling a lack of capacity to do all of the many things that we need to do to run our online businesses, would be a good candidate for VA support or OBM support.

Because it's just, you know, It's hard to do everything on your own, and if you're anything like me, I have a hard time letting go.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, when I think of bringing someone in, I get overwhelmed by the idea of training them. Will they do things the way I do things? Trust is a huge part of that, I think, for sure.

But is the effort worth that investment of time?

Yeah. And I will say that, no, they probably won't do things the way that you do things.

So that's a really good tip, right? You have to be aware if you need help. There are certain levels of control you just don't have.

Exactly.

What other tips do you have when someone's considering working with someone like yourself?

Well, I think to make it easy and to, you know, I've definitely, I've worked with a lot of businesses. I've worked with businesses where the business owner is really reluctant to give up any kind of work, you know, or any kind of control over the outcome. And it can be really frustrating for a VA, especially if there aren't systems already in place.

So if there's no standard operating procedure or any sort of like instruction for how it's done, you just kind of have to guess. And then we try and then maybe don't get it right. And that actually wastes a whole lot of time and a whole lot of money. So the number one thing I suggest is to get your systems in order, get your SOPs in order, know how you like things done record that and write it down.

So there's a lot of prep work that goes into hiring a VA. That being said, you can hire an OBM to do that.

I think it's still valuable even just to do it. Every business owner should do it. You would even like to queue in on, wait a minute. Should I be doing it that way? Can it be done better?

You know, totally. It's game-changing for most business owners who are in that place of being overwhelmed and need to hire but are not actually doing it. Yeah, the back end of their business is a mess, and they don't feel like they can actually pass that off to anyone else. And that's really stressful.

I think that weighs a lot on you. Many business owners keep everything in their heads. It's not written down, not in systems, and not structured in any way.

So in some ways, I guess that would mean for Your role as an online business manager, that's where you can step in to create those systems, those standard procedures.

And then it's easy to pass on to a VA afterwards or hire somebody to do those details.

Yeah, that's exactly it. And that's really just been the trajectory of my own businesses. You know, I started by calling myself a VA and then ended up realizing that the work I do best is helping business owners set up their systems and back end and put all of their automation in place.

I always say I'm taking care of the business owner so that they can focus on growing their business and doing work that they love. And so that transition for my own realization was that, okay, I like action; my skillset is better put to use. I have a VA on my team, so if there are tasks that the VA can do, then I pass them along to my VA.

That's amazing. So, overall, ideally for that type, for your role or a VA, what size of business works best with that type of support? Well, I think, yeah, again, any size. I prefer to work with businesses who are on that cusp of, you know, they've had some success, they've got some clients, they feel like this thing is real, like this is a real business, and I'm going to keep doing this.

In between that and perhaps scaling to the point of meeting an actual team with marketing and graphics, I prefer to work with solopreneurs who are just really committed to their craft. Their businesses are fairly small; I would say they're in the sub-a hundred thousand a year or two hundred thousand a year range.

Okay. Well, that's helpful. I wanted to kind of provide everybody just a little bit of some kind of takeaway kind of with you today. So when you all the people you've worked with. What's the biggest consistent challenge they've struggled with? For someone in that position right now, do you have one thing or a suggestion that they can do right now that can help alleviate that one stress?

There's two that kind of come to mind. So I'm trying to do both. Yeah. The first one is certainly the tech side of things and almost an avoidance of anything that requires setups. You've got a lot of people who avoid the tech.

Yeah. Oh, for sure. That's why they would seek out support, right?

Because folk feel quite intimidated by email marketing software and automation and how things just happen, how to set that whole thing up in the back end, or how to make changes on their website if they've had someone build their website from there. There are a lot of tech things that I think maybe we think are harder than they are.

And so my one piece of advice has always been like, you probably have learned harder things. You probably learned to do much, much harder things in your trajectory to become as skilled as you are at what you do and tech. I think we, you know, maybe there is. You know, I don't, you know, I don't know why we feel afraid of it.

It's usually pretty logical, and it's usually figuring out a ball, and there's always a way to Google what you need to do when I bump something. I just Google for the answer, and I find it, I have the special sort of skill of being able to problem-solve

I love a good puzzle, I love figuring stuff out, and I don't get frustrated by it. The more challenging it is, the more determined I am to figure it out. But I think the number one advice is don't be too afraid. You can't really mess it up that badly.

So it's worth you know, if you're feeling like, well, I can't do email marketing. I can't set up an opt-in. It's like, well, you probably could. So I think just empowering yourself around tech is what, you know, would be like the one thing. but consistency with content is the big one. That is for sure. Like probably the number one reason why people reach out to me is because they acknowledge the way that their business grows and the way that they get paid. Clients and leads are through consistency of content, wherever that is. So wherever they choose to create content, whether that's a blog, on social media, or their newsletter, staying consistent with that is key.

So yeah, hiring support. But the other piece is just making sure that you have systems and that you understand that consistency doesn't equal frequency. Consistency is just looking at your capacity and deciding, "What do I actually have the capacity to do?" and then doing that without fail.

So, I have a half hour. I can write an outline of what I'm going to write for a blog post. That's all I need to do right now—break it into pieces and get that done. Well, I'm looking forward to our next talk. When we talk, we're going to get into the weeds of online management.

In the interim, we do have a landing page for Robin here so you can learn more about her. It's at mylifeplanners.ca/robinjoy. You'll find quick links to each of our podcasts as they come up. There will be a total of four in our series. There is also going to be a special collaboration, My Life Tool, which will help with creating and sharing content.

It's going to have a special kind of insert worksheet series. I encourage you to look at that; all details are in the show notes. Thanks so much for spending time with Robert and me today listening.

And I just want you to remember that the space you take up in the world matters to me, but even more importantly, you matter the most in your own life.