FAQs

Let’s start with what a DOO does… The DOO is there to RUN your business, whereas the founder/CEO or Visionary is there to CHANGE their business by focussing on strategy and building new relationships.

I like to break down what an DOO does into 3 areas:

• LEAD PEOPLE: The DOO manages the Visionaries team to give the Visionary back time.
• OVERSEE PROJECTS & OPERATIONS: The DOO oversees the delivery, ensures the trains are running on time AND make the founder’s VISION become a reality. We make the bumps in the road smooth.
• DRIVE PROCESS IMPROVEMENT: The DOO will drive process improvement and systemize the business so it can scale.

A Fractional DOO will do this on a Fractional basis, serving you and other clients at the same time at a reduced cost, on a month to month basis, with no expectation of a stake in your business.

At a high level:

• Relieve the CEO / Visionary of daily operational management so they have time for their passions and shaking the tree for new business.
• Ensure the business is running smoothly, get the trains running on-time.
• Bring the team together.
• Drive Process Improvement and Systemize the Business so it can scale.

Every client’s needs are different, however the initial steps would typically look like this:

• Talk to the Visionary and team to understand their challenges, diagnose any problems and set out a course of suitable action to ensure that your business will run smoothly.
• Ensure that the team has a clear view of their roles and responsibilities and determine if the current organisational structure is suitable for the needs of the business.
• Map out the repeatable processes used to run the business. In documenting these processes, work with the team to see if there are opportunities for improvement, identify who is accountable for each part and estimate how long each step takes. This is a first step to ensuring predictable repeatability and that your business is running smoothly.
• Oversee the planning and execution processes of your business and identify if improvement is needed. Provide any necessary training, facilitation and support.
• Understand the needs, interests and goals of the individuals and align the tasks that would allow the people to be fulfilled and enable the company to succeed.
• Help the company’s team define simple rules of engagement that improve teamwork, execution and reduce conflict.
• Determine the regular operational reporting that would suit you and your business.
• Setup weekly prioritisation and soundboarding meetings with the Visionary.
• Install weekly team meetings to understand the reds and greens of the business which will form a baseline for the process improvement that we will drive.

Our services are paid in USD, month to month, and can be tailored to your needs. For more information, please see the products tab.

We don’t sell hours. We will do whatever it takes to keep your business running smoothly. This is scope based so we will be performing at a level where you are seeing a significant return on investment to the extent that you are delighted.

• Typically a full time Operator would be 100k+ USD for a mid-size business.
• Our Fractional DOOs can manage an online business for as little as half the running costs of a full-timer, on only a month to month commitment.
• It’s a low risk investment to try us out, with a huge potential upside for you and your business.
• A full-time Operator will charge more and expect a stake or at-least profit related pay.

• Is it a coaching engagement or are we driving?
• Number of staff and size of the team to be managed.
• Frequency of meetings/facilitation required vs what we can handle offline using Slack etc.

• The DOO will run a weekly prioritisation & soundboarding meetings with the Visionary, team meetings and also any diagnosis or facilitation sessions to make the reds turn green in your business.
• The Visionary also has access to the DOO via their offline channels e.g. Slack/Email.
• For more regular operational tasks, ticket tracking as an example, we may also involve our DOO Support team.
• The Visionary also has direct access to Lloyd.

A DOO may typically take on between 1 to 3 clients depending on the scope and size of each client.

As long as you want. Cancel at any time. Our services are a low risk, low cost investment which has potential upside for your business.

The answer is No.

• The Fractional DOO has to recognize how much change the organization can absorb and often this will be limited by how much capacity the company has to change right now.
• VirtualDOO is a Service meaning that you are accessing a team not an Individual.

With a Service you are getting access to a whole Team.

The VirtualDOO team consists of seasoned professionals who have the experience from running other businesses. They’ve often seen solutions to similar problems.

A client will typically engage with:

1) A Fractional DOO that we assign.
2) Our other DOO practitioners that can help with a specific challenge in their area of expertise.
3) Our DOO Support team who assist our DOOs.
4) Lloyd (Founder of VirtualDOO). The Visionary will have direct access to Lloyd for soundboarding of ideas or atleast a monthly check-in if they desire.

Having access to a team rather than an individual is less risky. With a service, if someone is sick on holiday or wins the lotto, the trains continue to run.

Being a service, our motives are definitely different to a full-time operator:

• A full-time operator with a stake in the business may benefit from entrenching themselves into the business processes and make themselves indispensable which can lead to them becoming a key person risk.
• Our goal as a service is to make ourselves redundant and make it a team run business.
  A team run business can be achieved when the processes have been systemized so the team can easily upskill one another and bring in others to follow the system.
  If the visionary wants to bring on a full-time operator, we are there to make that transition for the new operator as easy as possible.
• What is in it for the Fractional DOO to make themselves redundant?
  Our business is mainly acquired through referral.
  A glowing reference from the founder sets us up nicely for further clients who understand our capabilities and know the benefits.

• This is not part of our model because our DOOs are generally working in more than one business for VirtualDOO and so we don’t want to take that person taken away from our other businesses.
• We are there to help you realize your vision and ensure things are running smoothly.
• As we are a service, we are able to dial-up capacity as required, however if you decide you want to hire a full-time operator then we can help you transition someone in.
• We can also help you hire your own Operations Management and Administration assistant.
• Note that hiring a Fractional DOO is a great way to try out the DOO role!
• Adding a Fractional DOO is a great way to test drive both the Fractional DOO model and a specific Fractional DOO.
• If it doesn’t work out with the chosen DOO, you can easily end the contract OR bring in a different style of Fractional DOO without the big investment of adding a full-time member to your executive team.

Symptoms would be:

• If the Founder/Visionary/CEO is spending their time on run activities such as executing daily operational tasks, project management and/or people management instead of focussing on implementing their vision and working on strategy.
• Is the founder looking at hiring an operator to run their business but not wanting to pay them a stake / profit related pay? A fractional DOO service may be a better option as we do not expect a stake OR profit related pay. We can help the founder phase in a full-time operator at a later point if a permanent position is desired in the long term.
• The founder does not have scope OR budget to take on a full-time operator to run their business. A fractional DOO service will be a lower cost option.

We have both, depending on where they live and how much time they work.

The time varies, but generally within 2 weeks.

• VirtualDOO is not an EOS implementer although we do endorse many of their ideas.
• We are Operating System agnostic and tailor a solution to your needs. There are many frameworks / operating systems. We have researched the very best of them and we take the best elements of them and tailor them to you.
• We like simple and effective. The framework is just 1 part though. At the very end of it, is 1% ideas, 99% execution. Having a good operator is key.

• We are very careful of hiring our team and matching to the client’s needs.
• Should a refund be requested, then we would be guided by what is fair and reasonable.
• If an operator has been given the opportunity to contribute value, with you the client being an active partner in the mission and yet no value has been generated, then we would ofcourse refund.

• We have a team of operators ready to help support.
• It’s always on a case-by-case basis. E.g. if your DOO is off for a long weekend, likely this isn’t something that needs to be covered as long as it’s planned out ahead of time and everything is easily covered, but if your DOO is planning an extended vacation, we’ll help cover. Also, if your DOO were to leave VirtualDOO (heaven forbid!) we’d have another person step in!

• Yes, we can guide you and your team through building a hiring process which your team will then own.
• We can also assist you by taking part in first or second round interviews for candidates of interest.
• If you are eventually looking to hire a full-time operator, we are happy to help and keep your business running smoothly throughout the transition.