Leverage Your Corporate Skills to Become an Online Business Manager

so ya wanna be a Dec 03, 2020

Entrepreneurship is a journey of personal growth.

If you are transitioning out of the traditional workforce and feeling unsure of how to leverage your corporate skills and experience to start your own consulting business, this is a must-listen episode.

An Online Business Manager helps companies make sure that the right things get done by the right people at the right time. They do it all from the comfort of their own home and on their own schedule, all while making at least $65/hour.

As a certified OBM, you have access to a member directory to help you find clients, online communities for support, and an entire world full of businesses who need your help in organizing their customers, employees, and internal operations. If you like systems, efficiency, details, and productivity, then this might be just right for you.

In this episode, we’ll dig into what types of clients OBMs work with, hear what your day to day looks like juggling clients and kids, share how much money you can make, and outline what your next steps are if this is something that interests you!

Check out today’s podcast episode, featuring Sarah Noked, Certified OBM trainer and mother of three to learn all about this interesting job field and discover how to see if this is something worth pursuing.

You can learn more on Sarah's website, and be sure to check out her FREE Starter Kit where you can understand on a deeper level if this is right for you.

Here's what you'll find in this episode...

[:13] Wanna be a freelancer, but don't know where to start with taxes, budgeting, or even which of your skills to market? We have a course for that. "You Can Do This" is a $29 course coming soon!
[3:46] Sarah Noked works out of her home office in Israel as an Online Business Manager (OBM) where she helps clients plan, delegate, implement systems, and achieve goals. She is just one of 3 certified OBM's around the world, and is also a mom of 3!
[5:47] After getting her MBA, Sarah had a nice, corporate job but craved the flexibility she needed to be able to start a family
[6:30] Sarah and her husband sold their landscaping biz in Canada (a business that almost made them kill one another), and moved to Israel. Sarah used some of those monies to invest in becoming a certified OBM
[8:21] Sarah gets frank about how the OBM role really is about leveraging skills that are innate for many of us, like management and research
[9:53] Awkward to say, but descriptive of our current economic times: the she-cession, an exodus of women from the workforce that we're seeing during the pandemic
[11:16] Tina Forsyth, Sarah's mentor, coined the phrase "Online Business Manager" back in 2009, and sparked a movement
[12:45] There is a whole international association of OBM's, and they created the course that Sarah is certified to teach
[14:18] So, what is an OBM? Business managers that operate online, but also managers who manage online operations (however, that doesn't exclude brick-and-mortars). OBM's are typically focused on getting the right things done, by the right people, and at the right time
[19:10] OBM's tend to work with clients in the six-to-seven-figure range; sometimes an OBM works with a client to just figure out how to staff up so they can grow
[22:42] First step to becoming an OBM? Find your "special sauce" (highly technical terminology). Spend some time looking at what you've done and get confident about what you can offer
[26:56] Sarah's OBM certification program is 90-day program that also includes a 6-month support group, as well as year's membership to the international association
[31:16] The going rate for a certified OBM is about $65/hour, and a retainer would start around 20 hours a month, per client. That means with 4-5 clients, you could make six-figures (!)
[33:38] The increased flexibility is worth it, but as Sarah notes, she traded a 9-5 for a 24/7
[35:04] The certification is $4,000, for the whole program, including the support, exam, and association membership
[37:11] You learn what you need in the course, but OBM's often come from backgrounds of paralegals, project managers, executive assistants, etc. Sarah notes that most of the folks that join absolutely LOVE cleaning up a good ol' fashioned mess
[38:34] Not quite sure if being an OBM is for you? Join the Facebook group
[44:41] If you're feeling ready to dive in, check out Sarah's starter kit!