Grow Your VA & OBM Business: Soulpreneur Scaling Stories
You started your VA or OBM business for freedom, but somewhere along the way, it became chaotic. Whether you're scaling into overwhelm or feeling burned out and bored, there's a better way to grow.
This podcast helps virtual assistants, online business managers, & done for you service pros identify their unstructured expertise and build it into a signature method, so they can stop trading hours for dollars and start running a business that pays them for outcomes.
With a mix of solo episodes and guest interviews, you'll get practical strategies and psychology-backed insights to move from unstructured expertise to a clear method, intentional positioning, and sustainable growth.
We'll cover questions like:
- Why do I keep attracting clients for work I've outgrown?
- How do I know if I'm ready to specialize?
- Should I force myself into industry labels or create my own positioning?
- Why do I keep downplaying what I'm actually good at?
- How do I stop working 50+ hour weeks at the same income level?
- How do I raise my rates without losing all my clients?
- Is my offer wrong, or is it my audience?
- Should I quit my business or just evolve it?
- Why are people excited about my work but not buying?
- How do I know if this is fear or real misalignment?
- How do I make decisions from clarity instead of desperation?
What makes this podcast different:
I'm Andrea, a certified OBM who started as a VA in 2019 and built my own service business from the ground up. With 7 years of clinical psychology training (master's degree before leaving the PhD program), I bring therapy-level insight into business coaching. I don't teach generic "grow your audience" advice that doesn't work for DFY service providers. Instead, I focus on psychology-backed strategies tailored specifically to how VA and OBM businesses actually work - addressing both the external positioning work and the internal nervous system shifts needed to make sustainable change.
This isn't about hustle culture. It's about building a business that supports your actual life, with relationship-based marketing strategies designed for VAs & OBMs.
Ready to turn your unstructured expertise into a signature method? Press play.
Grow Your VA & OBM Business: Soulpreneur Scaling Stories
133. How to Make a Hard Business Decision Without Feeling Like a Failure
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Do you feel like your business has too many offers and not enough focus? If you are a VA, OBM, or Done-For-You service provider who keeps adding services to attract more clients, this episode might change how you think about growth. Last week I paused a group program I had already built, and instead of spiraling, it felt easy. Why does adding more offers actually push clients away? When is letting something go a strategic win instead of a failure? And how do you take the emotion out of a hard business decision? I am sharing the exact question I asked myself, and why editing your business, not adding to it, is what creates real growth.
In this episode:
✨ Why adding more offers repels clients instead of attracting them
✨ How to tell the difference between quitting and editing
✨ The one question to ask before you keep or cut an offer
✨ Why passive income falls flat without a solid foundation first
✨ How to take the emotion out of a hard business decision
📩 Grab my free Slow Morning Studio, a five-day email experience with one strategic shift per day.
💌 I read every message, come find me on Instagram!
For VAs & OBMs turning expertise into a signature method and a business that pays for outcomes, not hours.
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Podcast produced and edited with love by @FerAssists
[00:00:00] Andrea Elibero: Hello, and welcome to Soulpreneur Scaling Stories. I'm Andrea, a certified OBM turned business coach helping VAs, OBMs, and done-for-you service pros turn their unstructured expertise into a signature method and a business that pays them for outcomes, not hours. So if you want a business that gives you freedom instead of taking it, you're in the right place.
[00:00:23] Andrea Elibero: Welcome, welcome. I want to tell you about something today that I am really proud of myself for, because this time, like last year maybe, it would've sent me... The decision that I made would've sent me into, like, a full-blown spiral. And so I'm going to share with you what it is, and I'm gonna share with you, obviously, how you can take this into your own business.
[00:00:48] Andrea Elibero: So what I did was I made the decision last week to pause one of my group programs, and it was kind of an easy decision, and that [00:01:00] was really surprising to me. Because I didn't feel guilty about it, I didn't feel like a failure, I didn't, you know, try to convince myself of anything. It just wasn't right for this season.
[00:01:14] Andrea Elibero: That's what I decided on. It wasn't... It didn't fit what I wanted to do, even though I made this plan, this long-term plan. I launched these two things at x, you know, this time and this time, et cetera, et cetera. It didn't fit, period. And so I let it go. And the cool thing was how unremarkable this felt. And again, like last year, I would've kept doing it.
[00:01:36] Andrea Elibero: I would've pressured myself and pushed myself into doing it because I already built it, I already invested, you know, all of this time and energy, and it's that sunken cost fallacy. And I also would have... It probably not would... It probably wouldn't have gone well, and I would've made that mean something about me, and something about me not being cut out for this and, you know, [00:02:00] not being a good business owner, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
[00:02:03] Andrea Elibero: And the cool thing is that I realized that I stopped having that belief and that simplifying is not necessarily like this step backwards, but it's actually a step in the right direction. So let me get into that. So since this point... You know, here's the thing, is that I've learned... Let's delete that last line.
[00:02:30] Andrea Elibero: So most of my done-for-you clients and people I see online and talk to and all of that good stuff are-- They, like, over time build up these really big businesses, and what I mean by big is that they offer a lot of things, and they keep adding to it. Then-- 'cause they think that, like, if I can do more, if I can, you know, serve everybody, if I can show people that, yes, you have so many options, I can do so many things.
[00:02:59] Andrea Elibero: I'm talented. [00:03:00] Choose me, choose me, choose me. That's gonna be the thing that gets clients to them because they can do it, right? Because I know you guys can do everything. Trust me. Been there, done that. Like, I know. And the interesting thing is that this doesn't get you clients, right? It's actually the editing that gets you clients, which is opposite to what a lot of people think.
[00:03:23] Andrea Elibero: Because people talk about building a business, but not how to edit one into a business that has direction and into a business that will ultimately be successful. You know, it's not about adding another offer, adding another income stream, adding another strategic layer. Even last week, I had clients who were telling me about, you know, like, "Oh, I would love to have, um, passive income and these types of offers and whatnot."
[00:03:46] Andrea Elibero: And I was like, "Yes, and wait." You know? The way that that-- Side note, the way that a, that passive income works is it works when you already have your foundation, when you have your core offer, when you have [00:04:00] a, like, almost like a brand and a direction to your business. Because those types of offers are not easier to sell.
[00:04:08] Andrea Elibero: Yes, you create them once, but you need to have a whole marketing plan, and then you end up getting sidetracked and, you know, creating all of these things and not selling them and not marketing them when you don't have your core foundation laid out yet. And so that really just prevents you from actually being able to grow.
[00:04:26] Andrea Elibero: And also, when you have so many things, you know, that you're doing, it, it's just like everything just starts to lose meaning, and you are left wondering like, "Why is this not working?" You know? And why does it feel like so hard to talk about? And this is the reason why, right? So when I paused on this group program, I asked myself- Does this belong in my life right now?
[00:04:54] Andrea Elibero: Is this going to get me into, like, lead me in the direction of the immediate goals [00:05:00] that I am setting for myself? And the answer was no, it wasn't, because I am building up my own foundations. I am building up towards my own goals in terms of how many, you know, one-on-one clients I want in expansion and in terms of what my content is looking like and all of these things.
[00:05:20] Andrea Elibero: I'm kind of building up this brand and et cetera, et cetera. And so this program, although it is related, it's kind of a hard left in terms of content and in terms of, mm, just the foundations of the things that I talk about all the time. It fits in, but, like, not quite so easily, right? So basically, I had to make this decision, is that, do I want to add more to my plate and kind of switch gears in terms of what I talk about a little bit in order to launch this group program in the time that I said, "Okay, this is when I have predetermined that I'm going to do this"?
[00:05:54] Andrea Elibero: Or do I just let it go and focus on building up these other two programs, [00:06:00] my one-on-one expansion and my Group Foundations of Flow, which is going to launch very soon? Um, quick note there. And I decided on the second one, because it was simpler. Because it lets me focus. And that's what your business needs.
[00:06:15] Andrea Elibero: It needs more focus, and it... You need to be asking yourself those types of strategic questions, right? Not about, "Okay, this is what I should be doing, and this is what other people are doing, and this is what I've been doing, so I need to keep doing that." There... If you force yourself to do these things, the energetics aren't there.
[00:06:32] Andrea Elibero: People are going to feel it. You're not going to want to do it, and it's not going to turn out well. And I see this a lot also in the business audits, the free business audits that I do. And a lot of- These people that I talk to have said yes to so many things over so many years that their business has started to feel like an obligation and has lost its intentionality.
[00:06:58] Andrea Elibero: And so of course, the instinct is to [00:07:00] fix it with the... Like, fix it with more strategy. But you really can't strategize your way out of a business that just needs to be edited and more intentional. It's like when you have your closet... Like, I follow these people on TikTok sometimes, and they do this huge closet clean-out, right?
[00:07:19] Andrea Elibero: And it would be, like, reorganizing. And these people, I don't know, they're, like, insane to me because I've never seen a closet with so many clothes. They'd have, like, 50 black T-shirts, you know? And it's like thinking that, oh, my closet will be better if I just color coordinate, you know, when I have 50 of each color T-shirt versus, oh, wait, it actually needs a purge in order to then get to the next level to be more successful, right?
[00:07:39] Andrea Elibero: And that's the same thing in your business. And so for me, my last week's moment was pretty simple. I looked at everything I was holding and said, "Okay. What, what fits into me? What feels authentic to me? What is aligned with how I want my days to feel, what I want my business to feel like?" Not what looks impressive, not what, you know, I have already invested in and things like that, not what I technically should keep doing, just what feels [00:08:00] aligned.
[00:08:00] Andrea Elibero: And that can be so difficult for people because when you release something, it can feel like a failure, but instead, I invite you actually to celebrate it. And just celebrate, you know what? In this season, it doesn't belong to me anymore, and that's great. 'Cause my old self, for me, would've called that quitting, would've called that failure, and now my new self calls it editing, and that's a success.
[00:08:21] Andrea Elibero: Being able to take away the emotions from a business decision is a success, and feeling excited that, ooh, this is gone. Now I get to do this thing. And again, this is what I do a lot with my clients inside of my one-on-one coaching expansion, is we're not just building, building, building something new, but we're intentionally designing a business that is aligned with your real life, with the life that you want to build, with your strengths, and having it be strategic.
[00:08:50] Andrea Elibero: You know, having it honor your energy, having it honor your nervous system, and all of those things. That foundation is the most important [00:09:00] thing to building a sustainable, successful business that's actually going to earn the money you want in the time that you want, and not adding more, more, more, more, more.
[00:09:10] Andrea Elibero: Right? Because a business that only works when you're at full capacity is not sustainable. It just, like, will lead you on a road to burnout. And so I wanted to share this with you 'cause I'm hoping that you take a little bit of inspiration from my story of me being able to not view this not running my group program for the immediate future as a failure and viewing it as a strategic success.
[00:09:37] Andrea Elibero: And I would invite you to take that into your own business. Look at your offers, look at what you're doing, and what's something that you can let go of so that you can focus in on the things that are actually really important. And if you're at the stage of your business when you're s- where you're still trying to figure out where, like, the foundations, you know?
[00:09:54] Andrea Elibero: You- when you're trying to figure out what your offer should even look like, where, how can you create this [00:10:00] thing so you can actually grow it? 'Cause you know where you, where you are at now, charging hourly and doing all of these things, you're not gonna be able to. It's not gonna... It's gonna reach one point, and you're not gonna be able to go anymore.
[00:10:10] Andrea Elibero: And that's where Foundations to Flow, my group program that I am keeping and am running, comes in because we do that untangling work. We figure out what is in alignment with you, what decisions you're making that come from some other weird pressure place, and we use that in order to actually create your core offer suite that is aligned, that you're excited about, and we get s- you get rid of all that other noise that you don't need anymore.
[00:10:38] Andrea Elibero: It's going to be opening soon. It is a reset. It is eight weeks long. It is this intentional core offer design program, and I love it, love it, love it. So keep your eyes peeled. Reach out to me if you have questions. It'll be running... Right now I'm recording this the end of June. It's, um, going to start at the end of July, so reach out to me if you are [00:11:00] interested in learning more about that.
[00:11:01] Andrea Elibero: And in the meantime, if this episode resonates with you, the simplifying, the slowing down, the really being intentional about your business, the questioning about what needs to even be in your business in the first place in order to be able to grow into the business that you really want, I share about that in my free five-day email experience called Slow Morning Studio.
[00:11:25] Andrea Elibero: Five emails, one strategic shift per day in five minutes per day. And this is no, like, productivity hack or whatever. It's more of a how do we design a business around the life you actually want to live type of a situation. So the link is in the show notes, and it is at dancingleafsolutions.com/slow-morning-studio.
[00:11:46] Andrea Elibero: And so- Please, please, please do not wait for a new strategy to try to make what you have click if it's just not working for you. Because sometimes the shift is not in adding, [00:12:00] adding, adding, it's getting honest about what you can edit that's already inside of your business. So that is all that I have for you today, and I hope that you enjoy this and took something from it, and I will see you guys on the next one.
[00:12:13] Andrea Elibero: That's a wrap on today's episode, and thank you so much for listening. If anything we talked about today made you think, "Okay, but what does this actually look like in my business?" That's exactly what a free business audit is for. In just 45 minutes, I'll help you identify your unstructured expertise, pinpoint what's keeping you capped, and map out what your signature method could look like.
[00:12:35] Andrea Elibero: There's a link in the show notes to grab your spot, and I will see you in the next episode.
