What is an Online Business Manager …

What is an Online Busi­ness Man­ager (OBM)?

The offi­cial def­i­n­i­tion of an Online Busi­ness Man­ager (OBM) is:

A vir­tu­ally based sup­port pro­fes­sional who man­ages online based busi­nesses, includ­ing the day-to-day man­age­ment of projects, oper­a­tions, team mem­bers and metrics.

How­ever I like to look at the role from a bit of a dif­fer­ent angle — what is the pur­pose of an Online Busi­ness Man­ager beyond ‘what they do’?

The role of the OBM boils down to one sim­ple thing:

To free up the busi­ness owner so that they can focus their time and energy on the things that only THEY can do in their business.

Most busi­ness own­ers look to hire an Online Busi­ness Man­ager (OBM) when they sim­ply can­not grow their busi­ness any­more being the only one in charge. In order for them to take their busi­ness to the next level they need to pull them­selves out of the day-to-day man­age­ment activ­i­ties and focus on growth.

This includes areas such as prod­uct devel­op­ment, strate­gic alliances and big pic­ture busi­ness plan­ning, all of which are essen­tial to the growth of a busi­ness. Every­thing else becomes the respon­si­bil­ity of the OBM.

What are The Key Com­pe­ten­cies of the OBM?

Hard Skills What an OBM Does

The skills, knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence that the OBM has about busi­ness tools, sys­tems and strate­gies to be able to man­age the day-to-day activ­i­ties of the business.

Soft Skills How an OBM Acts

An OBM has the com­mu­ni­ca­tion skills that allow them to excel in work­ing with high-end clients, their team and customers.

Inner Game Who an OBM Is

Why the OBM does what they do– how they get struc­ture their work envi­ron­ment so as to get the most sat­is­fac­tion and ful­fill­ment from being an OBM

What makes some­one a great Online Busi­ness Manager?

The ‘soft’ skills are more impor­tant than the ‘hard’ skills (this can truly make or break the Client / OMB relationship!)

An OMB needs to know how to work with their clients!

What is the dif­fer­ence between an Online Busi­ness Man­ager (OBM) and a Vir­tual Assis­tant (VA)?

This is the one ques­tion I’m asked most often, from both busi­ness own­ers (who do they hire?)  Although sim­i­lar in nature, there are some key dif­fer­ences between the two roles:

FOCUS The chal­lenge for the OBM is to shift from doing to managing

OBM - The focus of the Online Busi­ness Man­ager is on ‘man­age­ment’ — you are hired to keep an eye on the big pic­ture and man­age all the pieces (projects, team mem­bers, oper­a­tions, expenses) to ensure that all projects are get­ting com­pleted in a timely and effi­cient manner.

VA — The focus of the Vir­tual Assis­tant is on ‘doing’ — you are hired to per­form spe­cific tasks (i.e.: cus­tomer ser­vice, shop­ping cart main­te­nance, etc) or com­plete spe­cific projects (i.e.: setup a new mem­ber area or blog) and are the ones actu­ally doing the work.

MEASURES OF SUCCESS — The OBM has to man­age ALL tasks and projects, not just their own.

OBM –Everyone’s tasks and projects are being com­pleted and deliv­ered in a timely fash­ion. The team is happy and moti­vated. Sys­tems are run­ning smoothly and efficiently.

VA –Your own tasks and projects are being com­pleted and deliv­ered in a timely fashion.

LEVEL OF RESPONSIBILITY — It is a much higher level of respon­si­bil­ity — and the OBM needs to be up for it.

OBM –You are respon­si­ble for the suc­cess and smooth func­tion­ing of the entire busi­ness (as out­lined above) — not just your own indi­vid­ual work.

VA –You are respon­si­ble for your own indi­vid­ual work.

NUMBER OF CLIENTS - The OBM gets to ‘go deep’ with a select few clients, vs. jug­gling the expec­ta­tions of mul­ti­ple clients.

OBM –Because of the level of respon­si­bil­ity that you have with each client, an Online Busi­ness Man­ager can only effec­tively work with 2 or 3 clients at a time in this capac­ity.

VA — Vir­tual Assis­tants will gen­er­ally work with 5–10 clients, give or take a few either way depend­ing on the work­load with each client.

COMPENSATION — OBMs are moti­vated by incen­tive based pay.

OBM — Base + incen­tive struc­ture. I start out work­ing on an hourly or retainer basis, for about the first 90 days — then I will dis­cuss the var­i­ous oppor­tu­ni­ties for incen­tive based compensation.

VA — Hourly or project based. Most VAs charge for their work on an hourly basis, which can be billed in advance as a retainer or monthly for hours worked. Some will charge a flat rate by project for cer­tain services.

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