11 Reasons YOU Should Become an Online Business Manager

You’ve heard it all before. We live in a digital age, and everyone is looking for ways to make money online. And that’s why I’m writing this blog post: to help you start your new career as an Online Business Manager!

Why should you consider becoming an OBM? Let me break it down for you:

Build a business around your desired lifestyle (not the other way around)

You can work from home or anywhere in the world as an online business manager. You can do it part-time or full-time and make your own schedule. This is the perfect career if you want to travel with your job, stay at home to raise your family, or simply escape the rat race to achieve a more balanced lifestyle! Many options are available if you want to go on a two-week vacation or become a digital nomad.

You will also have flexibility when deciding how much work you want or need to complete each week/month/year. Because there’s no commute, it doesn’t matter if all of your clients are in one city or spread across five continents; from wherever they choose to live and work online, they will be able to access everything they need through an internet connection – making this career perfect for anyone who wants control over where they spend their time!

Ditch the 9-5 at last!

Once I’d tasted freedom after traveling across Asia for 16 months, I knew that I could never go back to corporate. After the pandemic sent my husband and me home from traveling, I realised that I needed freedom and balance in my life instead of running around like a headless chicken working all hours of the day (and night!), desperately trying to maximize vacation days to travel outside of work.

As I leaned into the role of OBM, I realized that my corporate experience could inform my work. My previous role included managing multiple six-figure projects at once, organising worldwide events, and many other transferable skills. Even those who haven’t worked extensively in the corporate sector may find that any administrative skills you previously learned are transferable to your new role as an OBM!

Sound like you? If you’ve previously worked in corporate jobs, or even if you haven’t, you may have the experience to be an OBM but may not know how to land clients. Don’t worry; we’re here to help!

Develop your confidence

Confidence is an essential skill that is learned, not inherent! Confidence is the ability to trust your abilities and judgment. You’ll develop this constantly over time as an OBM – and over time, you’ll be able to zoom out and see the big picture of a client’s business using your expertise. Confidence isn’t a guarantee of success, but without it, you may struggle in your business—and that’s why developing confidence in yourself as an online business manager is so valuable!

Learn to Manage Client’s Expectations

Managing your clients’ expectations is one of the essential skills you will learn as an online business manager. If you don’t master this skill, it can be challenging for you to succeed together. You must spend time upfront with each client to define what they want and need from your services and what outcomes they can expect.

This skill will help keep everyone on the same page throughout your relationship. You’ll also avoid having clients who expect one thing from you but get another simply due to a miscommunication or lack thereof (we’ve all been there!).

Develop problem-solving skills

As an OBM, you’ll learn how to solve different problems. Working in a business environment means facing challenges and tasks that need expertise. The best thing you can do in this role is to become an expert at finding solutions. With this skill, you will be able to resolve issues quicker and more efficiently.

As an OBM, it’s vital to have good problem-solving abilities, but they need more than these skills. You also need the ability to evaluate different choices objectively to make data-informed solid decisions about what course of action would be best for your business or clients.

Learn critical thinking skills

Critical thinking is a skill that anyone can learn, but it takes work. You must learn to think critically to become an effective online business manager. This means that you’ll need to be able to see all sides of an issue. You’ll have to understand the problem before trying to solve it, ask questions, and listen instead of jumping to conclusions or making rash decisions based on limited information.

The first step in thinking critically is understanding your biases and prejudices—which may not even be your own! Once you know what those are and where they come from, then you can work on eliminating them from your decision-making processes without letting them influence your judgments too much (or at all).

The next step is being open-minded enough for new ideas and perspectives about problem-solving—and honest enough so that people will trust your leadership and expertise!

Learning to create boundaries and stick to them

Don’t underestimate how busy life becomes when you’re an OBM! You’re constantly hopping from one project to the next, so your schedule can fill up quickly. But it’s also important to set boundaries for yourself—otherwise, you’ll feel like you’re constantly struggling to keep up with everything on your plate. Setting boundaries will help ensure that you don’t take on too much and that your clients receive the best service possible from you and your team.

Saying no is hard, especially when someone asks a favour or wants something done right away—but it’s for business owners who want to optimize time costs. If an extra task affects your work with other clients, it’s probably not worth taking on!

And don’t doubt that this skill will follow you in your personal life – you may find that you won’t be going to as many social events that you didn’t want to go to in the first place! Boundaries are beautiful – this skill protects you from being overworked or burnt out and allows you to do your best work for clients. It’s imperative to set expectations early on in a new client relationship for the best chances of success!

Communication Skills

Communication skills are essential to this role, one of the most important. You’ll regularly communicate with clients, co-workers, team members, and third-party suppliers. Remember that good communication starts with active listening; as the expert, you need to be the one to hear what your client is expressing to you.

For example, if your client is telling you that they want to find a way to take a day off every week, you need to be able to apply a strategic and systems lens to it. What systems can we implement to make this a possibility? How can we lean into passivity in this business structure? What resources need to be in place to achieve these goals?

Additionally, you’ll need to use these skills to let clients know what is realistic. You can’t launch a product in two weeks. Use your expertise and empathy to inform your response to every situation. Leading your business with integrity means honesty and transparency at every step – not simply collecting a check!

Build a healthy relationship with clients

As an online business manager, you’ll be working with various clients. It’s easy to assume that they’re all the same—but this isn’t true. Every client is unique, and different people will have different needs and wants. To build healthy relationships with your clients, you must understand what makes them tick.

First, listen carefully as they talk about their business or project. What do they want? How do they see themselves moving forward? Are there any concerns or worries that you can address? When it comes to online projects, it’s crucial for your client to feel comfortable communicating with their online business manager so that everyone can make informed decisions about how best to move forward together.

After listening carefully in the early stages of your relationship with your client(s), it’s also beneficial to learn more about them personally! You can create forms to learn more about your client and your team, discuss personal goals, have coffee chats, co-working days together, or simply chat about their day!

Since clients may not understand the intricacies of your work, you must speak their language and foster a space for a solid personal relationship early on. There is power in running your business with a human-first mindset to build relationships and create space for both professional and personal development with clients.

Recurring and retention of good quality clients

Recurring income is the best way to build a sustainable business. You can get to know your clients and work with them to achieve their long-term goals. Once your clients trust you, they’ll never want to let you go! These strong relationships make it easier for you to retain clients over time, which gives you a sense of security in your income.

To do this, you’ll need to build a high-quality client experience. Reduce friction by communicating expectations and standard operating procedures early on, and build personal rapport by checking in frequently on their goals and giving status updates!

Build a solid business structure for yourself

When you become an OBM, your business is built on relationships. You’re not just managing tasks and projects. You’re building relationships that can last for years as businesses scale to new heights. You see the bigger picture of a business and know how to implement the small details that will drive the vision.

But, at the same time, you need a solid business structure to perform your best work for your clients! Determine your business’s primary offer and source of income, and implement the automations and systems needed to sustain new leads and current clients. If you haven’t built your own business, it doesn’t make sense to assume that your clients would trust you to do the same for them!

Here’s the thing: I could go on and on about why YOU should become an online business manager. If you’re reading this, you may be a multi-passionate person who’s out to make an IMPACT, not just an income. You want to challenge the old ways that the world has been operating.

But maybe the path isn’t entirely clear to you yet. You’re stalling at a certain income level, your clients aren’t staying past the first retainer, you’ve hit a glass ceiling at your corporate job, or you’re struggling with marketing. You may feel alone in your business, like no one knows what
you’re going through.

I’m here to tell you I’ve been there! OBM Associates® includes 1:1 mentoring with the opportunity to become an associate and receive high-quality clients vetted by us.

Don’t miss this opportunity to transform your life! Get in touch with OBM Associates®.