The difference between a VA, an OBM, an Ops Manager, and a DOO

When you want to hire a support professional it’s very helpful to know what you need and what they can do for you in your business.

There is a lot of buzz lately around hiring Operational support for online businesses, and there are a couple of job titles that are sometimes mixed and not well understood, leading to entrepreneurs hiring support at a level they aren’t at yet, which can be very expensive or not helpful at all.

It’s good to know what a person does in your business so you can create the right job description and look for the right person. Disappointment is often coming from having the wrong expectations for your team members.

Let me start by clarifying the abbreviations often used for job titles in the virtual support area and the type of tasks they are responsible for.

VA: Virtual Assistant - Implementation, sometimes project management
OBM: Online Business Manager (can be Certified and member of the International Association of OBMs, which I am) - Team & project management, strategy & planning
MO: Manager of Operations, Ops Manager, Operational Manager - Strategy, planning, sometimes project management
DOO: Director of Operations - Vision, strategy

Virtual Assistant

When you start hiring support, you need someone to help you with the day to day tasks in your business. A Virtual Assistant can help you with this. They usually need instruction from you and you need to keep track of their work, and manage them. You will work with them, and create results together.

VAs are usually contractors, and serve many clients, but they can also be an employee.

When your business grows, you will outsource more tasks, both on the front-end (marketing, sales, and client delivery) and the back-end (operations, finance, HR, admin, customer service) of your business. Outsourcing more means more people on your team. A customer service VA, a copywriter, a web designer, a video editor, a podcast VA, a social media manager....

You will step into the role of Manager to manage all of your team members, and it will take up a lot of time. If this is keeping you from stepping into your zone of genius and working less, it's time for an OBM.

Online Business Manager or OBM

An OBM manages your team, projects, launches and tech for you, and that means that you are also a member of the team who can be assigned certain tasks to make sure a project is completed, launch assets are prepared, and content can be repurposed. An OBM usually manages team and projects on the front-end and back-end but doesn't implement very much, that is the task of the VA and other team members.

OBMs are mostly contractors and serve less than 4 clients at the same time to make sure their clients are served well. Although they are an independent business owner, they are very committed to your business success and will treat your business as their own.

Operations Manager

An Ops Manager focuses on the back-end only, that means HR, finance, metrics, Standard Operation Procedures and processes, administration, tech. They are not involved in marketing, sales, customer contact, content creation and they are not serving your clients (which are all front-end tasks).

They can be a contractor or an employee, full-time or part-time, depending on the size of the business.

When you hire an OBM or Ops Manager you need to be ready to let go of the day-to-day and trust that someone else can be responsible for the business processes. You will still be the one who needs to come up with strategy and vision, content, and serve your clients.

Director of Operations

When your business grows even more to 7-figures, it's time to hire a Director of Operations, and a Marketing/Sales Director, who will focus on either the back-end (Operations) or the front-end for you. They will report directly to you and you will be the CEO 100%. Directors are responsible for the entire process and will take your vision and achieve the goals with the team. They are usually full-time or fractional contractors. When you hire a Director, you need to be ready to step away from your business day-to-day entirely.

Are you ready for a support professional in your business?

As a Certified OBM, Business Strategist and Strategic Consultant I serve my clients in the areas of business strategy, planning, and project, team, launch management.

I work with 6-figure clients who need an OBM or Ops Manager to work with them in one or more of the following ways:

👉 One-off Strategy Sessions to help you focus on the most important things to grow your business
👉 Bi-weekly or monthly Strategic Consulting Packages to have a strategic sparring partner who understands the entire business
👉 Ongoing support on retainer basis (you will have me as your right hand)
👉 Launch Management
👉 Business reviews like ConvertKit review, course review, systems review etc.

When you are ready to step into the next level of business growth, book a call with me and we’ll discuss the options!