Amanda McVicker (0:00)
Hello and welcome to this week's episode of The OBM Educator. Now you may have seen today's episode title and maybe felt a certain way about it. There might be those of you who looked at it and felt disbelief either because you are an OBM already and you're like, no, not everyone can be an OBM.
Or, you know, you have thought about becoming an OBM and the idea of it just seems unattainable. Or you might have seen the title and felt encouragement and that's really what we're gonna be focusing on today. The encouragement around everyone can be an OBM.
Now I will note, it's not that everyone should be an OBM. It's not that it's easy to be an OBM, right? But for someone who is wanting to take that step in their business or even just start their business right from the get-go, anyone can be an OBM. And that is what we are going to talk about today.
Now, before we get started, I do want to share that I have been doing OBM launch sprints, which I'm so excited about. So basically, I have a product called Your First 30 Days as an OBM. And for a limited time, I'm limiting it to five people.
And we're currently at two people have already taken it. But I am doing a 30-day launch sprint to go through the calendar. And so if you are wanting to start your OBM business, but you know that you need encouragement along the way, you need accountability along the way, I encourage you to think about grabbing one of the last spots for the OBM launch sprint, because it's going to be 30 days of us in Slack together, going through the calendar, you showing me all the things that you're doing, asking me all of your questions, and just getting you a lot further along in starting your OBM business than if you were doing it on your own.
Because it's in Slack, you know, we can write, we can do voice notes, we can share documents, all of that fun stuff. So again, I'm only doing these for five people right now, and two of them have already been taken. So if you're interested, the link to check it out is in the show notes, it's $97, you get the calendar with that, and then 30 days of Slack access with Okay, let's dive into today's episode.
Welcome to The OBM Educator. I'm your host, Amanda McVicker, a veteran OBM who serves six and seven figure entrepreneurs, as well as educates new OBMs with the skills and confidence they need to start and grow their own successful online business management business. Follow along as I share valuable insights, behind the scenes sneak peeks and proven strategies to help you build a better OBM business.
So today we are talking about the idea that anyone can be an OBM. So I talk about this a lot in my content. I feel like I at least hint on it.
In podcast episodes, I talk about it in my newsletter, I talk about it even in my course, right? When people learn what an OBM is, or maybe they're a VA, and they kind of like look up to OBMs. It's really easy to, and I did this too, but to put them on a pedestal, to idolize them a little bit, right? To be like, oh my gosh, they have it all together. You know, they're making six figures in their business, they're making 10k months, I can't even make 2k months, or something like that.
And it's easy to see, or to look at them and think, there's no way I could get to that level. But something that I have learned, I mean, in my own journey from VA to OBM, starting a business and scaling to where I am now as an OBM, but then also helping others make the shift from VA to OBM, or just start their business in general. I have seen many different types of people become successful OBMs.
And it has nothing to do with the things that they know. It has nothing to do with any hard skills that they have. Hard skills, the tech, the tools, the workflows, the SOPs, all of those things are teachable, and they are learnable.
You can sit down and Google your way through a lot of things. That's not what stops a person from becoming an OBM. And that's not a reason that someone couldn't become one.
It has a lot more to do with your soft skills, you know, your leadership ability, your communication, the level that you care for a business. And while those are definitely harder to learn, you can cultivate those skills, right? If you're not great at leadership, you can exercise that leadership muscle. You can put yourself in situations where you act as the leader, and you can grow into that, right? Leaders aren't necessarily born, they're made.
And you're able to work on that soft skill to be at a point where you can effectively lead a team or lead a client. And so even the soft skills, which, you know, a lot of people, and sometimes myself included, say like, those are the most important things. And those are more of those things innate in you.
Even those things can be cultivated and should not be a reason that a person doesn't become an OBM. If you have the drive, the ambition, the goal or the dream to become an OBM, everything else is learnable. If you can put in the effort to market yourself into finding clients into being a good partner in someone's business, you can build a successful OBM business.
And so if you are maybe a VA wanting to make the transition to OBM or thinking about making the transition, or maybe just someone who learned what OBM is, and is interested in starting your own business, but you're nervous, you're a little scared about taking that leap and doing it. But you know that you have that desire. I want to encourage you to do a couple things to kind of help move through this.
So the first one being do as much research as you can about being an OBM. There are blog posts, there are articles, there are millions of websites out there that talk about being an OBM. Because as you look at more and more, and I'm not talking about like the perfectly polished OBM websites, because they are out there, but there are a lot more of the simpler type, right? The type that are doing OBM level work, but not at like a COO level, right? And so when you research and you find all of these OBMs, and you learn about what they're doing, it normalizes it more of how OBM, especially if you're a VA, is really just an extension of what you've already been doing.
And if you have that drive and the desire to be an OBM, chances are you're really good at what you do. And making that transition is not going to be something that is impossible, right? It's very much in the realm of possibility. And then the next thing that you can do is write down everything that you love about your business, right? Everything you love about being a VA, everything you love about helping clients, everything you love about tech and systems, you know, whatever it is that you have been involved in, what is it that you love about it? Because that is what's going to motivate you to keep going, right? If you hate serving your clients, you're not going to like being an OBM.
I'm not saying you can't, but it's going to be really hard if you don't find joy in what it is that you're doing. And so write it all out saying, I love doing this. This brings me joy.
If I could do this five hours a day, every day, I would be happy. Just so that you can see on paper the things that you're doing that really match what an OBM does. And then the last thing that I want you to do is find an OBM to follow along their journey, right? It could be me, right? I'm a working OBM.
I have a full roster of clients. I'm going to be starting a series on Instagram and TikTok on things that I do as an OBM, right? So you can follow me. You can find another OBM who, you know, look for someone who has, maybe they don't have to be booked out, but like a successful OBM business who also shares about what it's like being an OBM, sharing about the client wins that they have, their day-to-day life, what it is that they're doing.
And this isn't to like idolize them, but just to normalize what it is that they're doing. And you can even be bold and, you know, send them a message and ask them, Hey, I'm an aspiring OBM. And I wanted to learn more about what it takes to be an OBM.
Because if you find someone who's, you know, maybe a little bit further ahead in their journey than you're starting out at, it's encouraging for you, right? You can see what it is that they're doing. What are the activities and tasks that they're doing? What wins are they celebrating? All those things. It's going to be encouragement for you.
So I hope this was helpful as maybe you're thinking about being an OBM or starting the transition, or maybe you're a new OBM and you're just wondering, am I doing this right? I hope that this gave you a little bit of encouragement. And as a reminder, if you're interested in the 30 day OBM launch sprint, the link to look at more is in my show notes, or you can send me an email or a DM, you know, with any questions that you have. I will talk with you guys next week.
Bye. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the OBM educator. I hope what you heard today is helpful for you on your OBM journey.
If you loved today's episode, I would so appreciate you sharing it and leaving a review on your favorite podcast platform. Want to be a guest on The OBM Educator? Fill out the form in the show notes and I'll be in touch. Join us next time on The OBM Educator.
