IAM2049- CEO Shares the Evolution of a Virtual Assistant Business

In this episode, we have Amy Foley, CEO of Inbound Back Office. Where she shares her journey from leaving her corporate job in 2011 to founding Inbound Back Office, a company that provides back-office support to marketing agencies.

Amy discusses the flexibility and challenges of working remotely, the growth of her business from a solo venture to a team of over 60, her commitment to providing a beneficial working environment, and the unique service model of Inbound Back Office that differentiates it from overseas alternatives.

Amy emphasizes the importance of hiring skilled individuals and creating a positive work culture.

Website: inboundbackoffice.com

Previous Episode: co-founder-provides-back-office-support-for-marketing-agencies

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Full Interview:

Transcription:

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Amy Foley Teaser 00:00

So we work directly with marketing agencies, and we essentially, are the back office for them, so we provide services, anything from general admin services to all the way to like, website development. So, any service that an agency needs to fulfill client work, or to fulfill their own marketing needs, we can handle.

Intro 00:23

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?

If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I am CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:51

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I Am CEO podcast. And I have a very special guest back on the show today. I have Amy Foley. Amy, excited to have you back on the show.

Amy Foley 01:00

Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Gresham Harkless 01:03

Yes, absolutely. You're doing so many phenomenal things. So super excited to kind of jump in and hear a little bit more on all the awesome things that you're doing. But of course, before we do that, I want to read a little bit more about Amy so you can hear about some of those awesome things.

And Amy started her entrepreneurial journey in 2011 when she left her corporate job to have more flexibility and time with her family and started a small virtual assistant business.

The business evolved with the help of her co-founder, Michael Reynolds, and to what is now known as Inbound Back Office, which provides back-office support to marketing agencies.

Amy has over 25 years of administrative experience in various industries, including manufacturing, real estate, accounting, marketing, SaaS, and many more.

She has a B.A. in Business Administration and a Masters in Information Systems.

When she's not running her business. She enjoys spending time with their family, running, reading, traveling, organizing any and everything and optimizing her health.

And Amy was a guest on our episode 665 of our podcast. So super excited to hear about all the awesome things she's been doing since then.

And they have loads of great information as well, too, on their podcast. So I'm sure we'll get away to try to subscribe and listen to all the awesome things. But what I love about hearing her journey or growth for the organization is that the virtual assistant business that she had has grown into so much more than I think what she anticipated.

So super excited to hear about that journey. Amy, are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?

Amy Foley 02:29

I am. Let's do it.

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Gresham Harkless 02:30

Then. So to kind of kick everything off, let's rewind the clock a little bit here a little bit more on what you've been working on, how you got started and we'll let you know all the awesome things you're doing.

Amy Foley 02:38

Yeah. Yeah. So as far as how it all started in 2011, I did end up leaving my corporate job after my son broke his femur and they wouldn't let me work from home. Of course, I was before work-from-home was really a thing. So they eventually did let me and then I wanted to do it more because I realized it was so amazing and they said, absolutely not.

So that's kind of when I started looking for, I initially was looking for like an actual job working from home. And I found 1 part-time so to get my foot in the door and to kind of feel, you know, what it felt like to work virtually for a company. I did that on nights and weekends and then it turned into a full-time job.

Once I got really efficient at my job, I had some extra time on my hands. So I thought. You know, if I can do this for a company, like I could do this for myself, for other companies. So I went out looking on Twitter for other companies and I found three people who were ready to hire me in the first week.

And I was like, okay, now I got to figure out what I'm supposed to do now. So I like, made it up as I went along and I mean, they just kept referring people to me. I very rarely had to go out and look for clients. And that's when I realized that this is a real need. And I should probably try to make this into a business so that I can do it full-time because I really loved it.

And I was not loving my full-time job at the time. So I hired a business coach who let me barter with her because I could afford her. And she gave me all the steps I needed to do to just like, you know, minimal, minimal viable, you know, kind of business. I didn't want any bells and whistles, nothing fancy.

I just wanted to be able to run the business and she helped me so much. And, you know, when I had too many clients for the hours that I had in a day, I would hire a contractor to help. And then that just kept happening. And before I knew it, we had 20 team members and then 40 and then 50 and then 60. So it just, it just grew super organically like that.

And there was never any, you know, big goals. Like I want to make this, this kind of company. It just kind of evolved.

Gresham Harkless 04:58

Yeah, I absolutely love that. And I love it because a lot of what you did is in kind of like identifying even the need that I wrote down build a plane on the way down. Sometimes you're not sure exactly what to do, but you're like, I'm really passionate about this.

It seems like there's something there and you just kind of lean into that from there.

Amy Foley 05:15

Yeah, for sure. And in fact so my very 1st client was a marketing agency owner, and at that time, I was just taking anybody who needed help. Right? And he and his team were willing to, like, train me on all of their stuff so that I can help them.

And once we were working together for like a year, he came to me and said, Hey, you know, I have so many colleagues in the agency world that need this service and it does not exist out there. You know, what do you think about joining forces? And like, cause I know how to build an actual company, like with, and with payroll and stuff like that.

And, you know, how to do the hiring and are good at the execution. Like, together, we could really make this a thing. And so that's what we ended up doing. That's how I partnered with Michael. And that just really. Took it off. And so I never, I mean, marketing was never really anything I was super interested in.

It was nothing I really thought about. But we just kind of like took that path and it ended up pretty well.

Gresham Harkless 06:25

Yeah, it's kind of beautiful when you, when you take those steps. Well, I wanted to drill down a little bit. I know we touched on it a little bit here, a little bit more on how you're working with your clients.

Can you take us through what that process looks like?

Amy Foley 06:35

Yeah. So we work directly with marketing agencies, and we essentially, are the back office for them, so we provide services, anything from general admin services to all the way to like, website development. So, any service that an agency needs to fulfill client work, or to fulfill their own marketing needs, we can handle.

So we're kind of. We're broken out into separate teams. Each team has its own manager. So they kind of, they kind of operate as their own kind of little companies. And they work directly with the clients, sometimes with the end clients, depending on the nature of the service and, it's all on demand, which is really what our clients like with no, like, there's no subscriptions.

There's no monthly fees. Not no minimums. Nothing like surcharges. Yeah, it's super. Like, if you use 5 minutes of our time, that's what we're going to bill you. Like, that's literally what it is. And I think it's super refreshing for Clients to, I mean, in this day and age of all of the subscriptions and it's just like, well, what if I don't use it enough and all of that?

So we just kind of took all of that, you know, stress out of their lives. And another thing that kind of sets us apart is when I was starting, I would get a lot of people who would say, you know. Well, I can get cheaper help, you know, overseas or in another country or something like that. And, you know, to which I always said and stood by.

Yes, you can. And I've hired. Admins from overseas, and they're great to a point, you know, they're. It's almost like if you want, you know, higher level things and, and, you know, kind of like cultural things and communication type things, like, you're, you're just not going to get that in a company overseas, like, and I've experienced that.

So I can speak to the experience that they are probably having. So, you know, we always have people who will go try doing it that way, saving some money, and then eventually they come back because they realize for this type of work, you know, I mean, depending on the service and depending on what tasks they are, I'm not saying every single task is done better by US company, certainly not.

But, you know, overall for what our agencies are looking for help with, like, you They need US people who are used to working, you know, for us companies and for, you know, us and clients, like they just understand how it all works just a little bit better.

Gresham Harkless 09:16

Perfect. Perfect. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack.

So this could be like an Apple book or even a habit that you have, but what's something that you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient.

Amy Foley 09:27

To be honest, it's something that I know helps me so much and I don't do it enough. I'm, I'm not sure the psychology behind it. So time boxing, because essentially scheduling out all of your tasks on your calendar because.

You know, I have a to-do list that is 10 miles long and, you know, especially in the way that we work today. Like, it never, it's never like, oh, we'll get to it tomorrow. It's just like this never-ending list. And we just feel like we have to just keep plugging away at it to get everything done. It's never all going to get done.

Like, it's just going things are just going to keep being added to the end. And so I found myself getting overwhelmed just looking at the list and going, man, I have so much to do. So when I actually force myself and I do it to force myself and I don't know why, like, I know it makes my life so much better.

But yet I resist it to schedule out all of the tasks so I can see realistically, this is what I'm getting done today around all the other things, other things like appointments and, you know, eating, you know, I mean, like, you know. Picking up kids and things like that. This is realistically what I'm getting done today.

And I just have to make peace with that. And that's how it is. And it just brings such a sense of calm and also just to see like, okay, this is what I'm working on right now. Instead of looking at the list and trying to figure out like, what do I work on next? And I spend like 15 minutes, like trying to figure out the best thing to work on next.

Like, it's just, it just makes it so much more. Calm and efficient.

Gresham Harkless 11:04

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. So what would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO nugget? A little bit more word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client, or if you happened to a time machine might tell your younger business self.

Amy Foley 11:16

I always tell people to hire people better than you. I find there's a lot of egos in business and, you know, a lot of people just love being you know, a manager or a boss so they can tell people what to do.

But I learned very early on and probably learned it from being an employee and realizing what not to do is that I hire people who have skills that I don't have and who are way better than me at what they're doing for experts and then I let them go do their thing.

Like, I don't get into micromanaging. I don't, you know, you come to me if there's something you need, but otherwise I'm getting out of your way because that's what I hired you to do. And I have found that that is the cam in. I have certainly we have turnover, but. I have team members who have been here since day 1 and so, like, there's something to be, I mean, obviously.

That's, you know, evidence that they love that type of, you know, work environment where they are considered experts in what they do. They know that they were hired to be an expert and I'm actually letting them. Be the expert they are.

Gresham Harkless 12:33

Perfect, perfect, perfect. So now I wanna ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO and our goal is to have different quote-unquote CEOs on the show.

So Amy, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Amy Foley 12:44

Being a CEO to me means it means two things. Being able to help people with something that they need help with. I love being able to help and that's been my mindset since the beginning. I've never been a, you know, I need to make so much money.

It's, it was always about helping and how many clients can we help and also giving an amazing work environment for our people, because that is something that I was looking for when this all kind of started.

And it was always my intention to make a way better work environment than I ever had. So those are the 2 things that really define CEO for me.

Gresham Harkless 13:27

Yeah, I love that. And it almost seems like it's a part of, or at least an extension of the culture that you've been able to create as well, too, by having that environment where people can kind of flourish.

And I think. I love that. It goes back to what you were looking to do kind of in the beginning. You were trying to help you were on Twitter, you know, trying to figure out ways to kind of help people in the same way. You're providing that opportunity for clients and then also saying, okay, I didn't have this great work environment.

I didn't want to say we want to be in this position much longer. So let me create that environment. So that I can pay that forward to myself and the organization and the people within it.

Amy Foley 14:02

Yes, for sure. And it's been a little challenging now that a lot of companies have gone to virtual work environments.

So as far as like competing for, you know, employees who are looking for that because they can kind of find that everywhere at this point, but It just kind of made us up our game and really, you know, hone in on, you know, a lot of these other companies that were in office and now are virtual.

They're still they still have that in office mentality and so we still stand out because this is where we started and, you know, my intention when I was hiring was to make it a super flexible workplace where people had autonomy and so I think that a lot of the people that we. 10 to hire, maybe have tried other companies and realize that not all virtual companies are the same.

Gresham Harkless 15:01

Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Well, Amy, truly appreciate that definition. And of course, I appreciate your time even more. So, what I want to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best people can get on view.

And find about all the awesome things you're working on.

Amy Foley 15:17

Yeah, for sure. We, so we have a podcast that I started years ago. I handed it over to 1 of our teammates to host for a while and I have actually taken it back over. So excited to say that my first episode should come out shortly. So check out our podcast and you can find that on our website, which is inboundbackoffice.com.

And we're always looking for marketing agency owners to be guests. So feel free to sign up if you're interested. And I am very active on LinkedIn. That's the one social platform that you should find me on. You can just find me at Amy Foley.

Gresham Harkless 15:55

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Amy, to make that even easier.

Of course, we're going to have the links and information in your show notes as well too. And I truly appreciate you obviously for taking some time out today, but I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Amy Foley 16:06

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Outro 16:08

Thank you for listening to the I Am CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media.

Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co. I Am CEO is not just a phrase. It's a community.

Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at blue16media.com. This has been the I Am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless, Jr. Thank you for listening.

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