we broke the VA industry
You post in the Facebook group. Or you DM someone in your mastermind. Or you shoot off a quick email to your OBM asking if she knows anyone.
"I'm looking for a VA."
What you mean is: I need someone who can manage my inbox, keep my projects on track, build out my client onboarding flow, maybe set up a few automations, and also be proactive enough to flag problems before I even see them.
But what you said was: I need a VA.
And here's the thing — someone out there is absolutely going to say yes to that job. She's going to title herself a VA. She's going to charge VA rates. And she's going to quietly do the work of an OBM, a systems strategist, and sometimes a part-time COO.
I posted a whole thread on this, and these are a few of the comments proving my exact point!
this is where it gets messy
The VA industry has a labeling problem. And honestly? It goes both ways.
On one side, there are incredibly skilled ops professionals - people doing genuinely strategic work - who call themselves VAs because that's the word that gets them in the door. It's not dishonest. It's survival. Nobody's posting "I need a fractional OBM." They're posting VA roles. So that's what the experts call themselves.
On the other side, business owners have slowly started expecting VA rates to cover executive-level thinking. And because some of those brilliant "VAs" keep showing up and delivering? The expectation gets reinforced. The cycle feeds itself.
No one's the villain here. But everyone's a little stuck.
what a functional ops team lookS like
When we stop lumping everything under "VA," things start to make a lot more sense:
VA → Does the tasks. Execution, inbox management, scheduling, data entry, content uploads. Skilled, thorough, proactive. This role is valuable. It's also not the same as strategy.
OBM → Manages and delegates the tasks. She's the integrator. She's translating your vision into team action, running your project management, managing your people. She thinks ahead. She's not IN the weeds, she's organizing WHO goes into the weeds.
COO → Decides how the tasks are managed and delegated. This is the strategic layer. She's building the operating system of your business. She's looking at your goals and reverse-engineering the infrastructure. This is not a VA role. This is not an OBM role. This is architecture.
The gap between these roles isn't just a title thing. It's scope, responsibility, compensation, and impact.
so what does this mean for you?
If you're a business owner, the next time you're about to post "looking for a VA"… pause. What do you actually need? Be specific. Are you overwhelmed and lacking direction? Do you feel like you're doing a lot of management of team or projects, and ignoring your business as a whole? Or are you in a space where you are confident what tasks you can delegate and exactly how they need to be done?
Not sure about any of it? That's exactly what my strategic planning VIP Day is for. We'll map out your operations, identify the right roles for the right work, and build you a team structure that doesn't accidentally burn out your best people.
Because the goal isn't just to get help. It's to get the right help — in the right seat.
