Communication – Part Three: How To Approach Tough And Emotionally Challenging Conversations To Achieve a Win-Win Outcome

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In the third and final episode of our three-part special, we take a look at those tough conversations you have to have when things aren’t going as planned and why the approach you take to these is so important in obtaining the most positive outcome for all involved.

Let’s face it! No matter who you are, tough conversations are never easy; you’re dealing with humans, and as humans, we all have an emotional side.

It doesn’t matter how great your business processes are, inevitably, as a business owner you will have to have these tough conversations. In this episode, Barbara and Matt draw on their own personal experiences and share their tips and insights into how to approach these conversations to ensure that you achieve the most out of them.

Some of the areas covered are:

• Why shying away from tough conversations is never a good thing.
• Why it’s important to become masterful with your language and communication style.
• The critical steps you need to take when planning for those tough conversations.
• Common conversation hurdles you may encounter and tips on overcoming these.
• Advice on how to respond if the meeting doesn’t go to plan.
• Ways to reduce the number of tough conversations you may be having.

Let us know what your key takeout has been from this episode and join the continuing conversation over in the Virtual Success Facebook Group.

In this episode:

04:00 – Tough conversations are never easy

06:16 – Client case study – shying away from the ‘tough’ conversation

08:38 – The “tough guy syndrome”

09:19 – Candour

11:18 – Becoming masterful with your language and communication style

13:56 – Setting up for those tough conversations

14:12 – Set up a meeting with an agenda

15:52 – Present the facts as they are

17:28 – Use video communication channels

18:58 – Conversation hurdles

19:47 – Conquering those hurdles

24:03 – How to respond if the meeting doesn’t go to plan

28:29 – Reducing the number of tough conversations

30:21 – Wrapping things up

Barbara: Hi everyone, and welcome back to another episode of The Virtual Success Show. I am joined by my co-cost Matt Malouf. Hey Matt, how’s it going?

Matt: I’m well. I’m joined by the magnificent, wonderful, bright, positive, Barbara Turley.

Barbara: I was thinking we already said … I was chuckling in the background, and I thought, “I shouldn’t assume he’s going to talk about me.” Thank you for that great accolade. A lot to live up to on this episode.

Matt: How have you been?

Barbara: I have been well. I’ve been really, actually…the last little while I’ve been thinking back on the episodes we’ve been doing, actually, about communication. It’s something that I’ve had to grow into myself as a business owner and entrepreneur as well.

Some of the tips you’ve been giving on these shows have really actually helped me a lot in my communications with my teams and thinking about how I’m communicating and the language I’m using. Am I being too nice? You know? Wanting them to like me and not attacking the difficult conversations and the effective feedback and stuff like that. It’s been excellent. How about you? Are you communicating more effectively with your wife and your children?

Matt: Well, I’m doing my best (*laughs).

For me too, I think each one of these episodes that we do, there’s so many learnings that we’re trying to share, but I think we end up walking away, and after every episode we say, “Wow, that was … we took so much from it as well.” It’s certainly inspiring for me. What it does too, I think these episodes for me, not only with my own teams but in the coaching that I do, it just enables me to enhance the experience for everybody and really uncover and help people keep moving forward.

Barbara: You know, I think it’s an important point actually that we’ve just discussed this because I want the listeners to understand that we are literally, you and I are literally growing our businesses based on some of these conversations that we’re having on the podcast together. We’re learning and using the tips and strategies, so for the listeners, please do listen to what we’re saying because we’re actively doing this every day in our own businesses and seeing results, so if you do the same.

This is episode three in our three-part series on communication. Today we’re going to tackle tough conversations, which is the emotionally challenging conversations that you have to have when things are really … you’ve tried everything else and you’re sort of staring down the barrel of where are we going with this? Are we removing this person, or how are we going to get this really working?

In episode 1, for those of you who may not have listened to the other episodes, it’s worth going back and listening because in episode 1, we actually tackled how to set yourself up for success from a communication perspective from the beginning. It’s really worth going back and actually seeing, can you implement some of that now.

Then, in episode 2 we talked about giving effective feedback. Often we find people shy away from the feedback conversation because they see it as a negative thing, but it can be a huge growth experience and can actually deepen your relationship with your VA massively if you do it correctly.

Today, we’re going to talk about a difficult one where, you know, you may have done all those things, and it’s now time to have the tough conversation. So Matt, have you had some of these conversations with your team in the past?

Matt: Many.

Barbara: Yeah.

Tough conversations are never easy

Matt: I just want to preface that these conversations, no matter who you are, they’re never easy.

Barbara: No.

Matt: They’re never easy because we’re dealing with humans, and we all have an emotional side to us. You know, you can read all the books, and you can listen to all the people, and you know, the people that advise on this, you need to understand that there is a human element to it. And so, what we’re going to share with you today is our experience and how we believe these conversations need to be handled.

But understand, I know for me, before … I had to have a tough conversation just a week ago. For me, I still … my guts are in knots, and I’m not sure. Then, I just have to pucker up and, you know, do it. Every time I do it, it has a positive outcome. It’s either a positive for the team, it’s a positive for the person, it’s a positive for the business, and it’s a positive for me. What I tend to find is that the internal conversation that I had going on in my head, prior to that, is never actually how it ended up playing out. It’s never as bad as I think it was going to be.

Barbara: Yeah, but I would like to add though, you’re obviously quite good at this. We want to delve into how you get that outcome. I will openly admit that I’m getting better at them, and I’ve been trying different styles, and I naturally shy away from them because I would suffer from the “I want people to like me” syndrome, so sometimes that can make you less direct than you need to be.

I definitely get the knots in my stomach beforehand and the tough conversations I’m having these days definitely go well, and we get positive outcomes, but in the past I’ve had situations where they didn’t go well because I didn’t handle it well. You know, I might have gotten too annoyed or resentful or my tone, all these different things that you kind of have to learn over time to do better. So I’m really looking forward to delving in here into your strategies. Matt, how do we attack these tough conversations?

Matt: Definitely. Definitely. So Barb, you mentioned just before today’s call, a couple of examples of what’s gone on recently for you at Virtual Angel Hub, in this area.

Client case study – shying away from the ‘tough’ conversation

Barbara: Yep. An interesting one we had recently where our HR team, who are fantastic in the Philippines, I no longer get involved in the client. When something’s been elevated to HR, it means that, we have a process internally that takes clients through a troubleshooting process. Step 4 of the process is if you’ve done the other 3 things, then it’s now time to elevate it to HR and ask us to come in to help.

Our HR team got on a call, there were two from the team on the call, one of our success coaches and our head of HR, got on the call with the client and the VA in question. What they did first was they got the client on the phone first, just to hear how the clients feeling and what was going on. The client was, you know, irate, upset, annoyed, you know, frustrated all of the above. And they said, “Look, what we want to do now is we want to bring the VA on the call, but we need to have an open discussion. We need to really air the feelings here, but we also need to hear from the VA.”

Now, when the VA came on the call, the tone completely changed from the client, and she started apologizing and wouldn’t … just totally shied away. The team were shocked, just completely … the conversation just completely changed. She didn’t want to have the tough conversation. They found it fascinating. In the end, the outcome was that, you know, the client ended up cancelling the contract. Really our feeling was, “Wow, it didn’t have to end that way, but it did,” because the client was just not able to have that tough conversation in a constructive way. So, how do we deal better with this?

Matt: I think, the first thing I just want to position is, I was taught an acronym for the word “nice” years ago. You write this down, n-i-c-e, stands for ‘nothing inside me cares enough’. And so, when you’re overly nice to your people, and you don’t address the tough conversations, it implies that nothing inside you cares enough. You don’t care enough about wanting to make this person better or make the relationship work. You’re just happy to walk away from it. Now, that doesn’t mean that walking away from it isn’t necessarily the best result…

Barbara: Solution. Yeah.

The “tough guy syndrome”

Matt: So I just want to make sure that that’s critical, but you know, in light of what you were just describing Barb, I call it “tough guy syndrome.” Behind closed doors I’ll talk really tough and they’re no good and blah blah blah blah blah and then you get in front of them and you’re not willing to say the same thing. This comes back to, I think, understanding the values of your organization. If you don’t have candid conversations with people … if you’re willing to say one thing about them behind closed doors and not say the same thing to their face, you actually have a fundamental flaw in your business, not just in this conversation.

Candour

Because candour … I highly recommend every one reading the book “Winning” by Jack Welch on this. He talks about candour and great leaders are able to have candid conversations, very direct conversations with their people that are respectful, that are constructive, and that are ultimately designed to have a win-win outcome.

Now, win-win, as I said, may be the person leaving your organization. Often, if you’ve got an underperformer, letting them go is doing them a favour as well as doing you a favour because they just often don’t have the courage to resign.

Barbara: Yeah. That’s true. Yeah. You can leave on good terms then and be like, you know … it’s funny when you were using the word candour; a story I would love to share with the listeners about my approach to candour. Again, I learned this by trying different methods and obviously, I kind of have to have tough conversations quite a lot because in the business we’re in, we’re in a people business, and things can come up quite a bit.

For me, what started to work a lot recently is I just get on a call with my people and I’m like, “Hey, look you’re a smart guy.” Let’s say it’s a guy. “You’re a smart person, and I’m a smart person, so I think we both can … it’s not working. Like, you’re not stupid, right? Neither am I, so let’s just be honest, it’s not working for you, it’s not working for me. Let’s just get to the bottom of what’s going on. Like, what’s really happening here? What’s happening for you?”

And I even go to the point where I say, “Look, do you like the job? Because if you don’t, it’s okay. You know, we need to talk about it.” You’re going a level deeper. You’re dropping business like, and you’re going a level deeper and saying, “Hey, let’s forget all that stuff, the business stuff, everything. Let’s you and I have a discussion about what’s really going on here.” That for me is unbelievable the barriers it breaks down when you do that.

Becoming masterful with your language and communication style

Matt: I’m going to add one thing to what Barbara just said, you need to have that style of conversation with the right person as well.

Barbara: Yeah. I’m not sure whether this would work with everyone.

Matt: No.

Barbara: You know, so it’s probably not … don’t take this as the way to go; it’s just something that I’ve been doing recently that’s working for me and my style.

Matt: One of the areas that I’ve invested heavily in in learning is various communication styles. DISC for me is one method of understanding how to communicate and adapt to different styles. So, someone that has a very direct approach will actually be very receptive to the way Barbara just communicated. But someone that is, say, maybe not as open or open to that kind of direct communication, you just need to shift the language. You have the same content that you’re trying to get across, it’s just in your delivery.

It could be along the lines of, “Hey, Barb. As you’re aware and I’m aware, things just haven’t seemed right lately. They just haven’t really … we’re not really gelling. I don’t know how you feel, but I’m interested to hear how you feel. I just want to have a conversation with you so that we can work out what is the best way to move forward.” That’s just a different style of communication to get to that same outcome. But if you don’t address it and if you don’t communicate to people in their style, if you only communicate in your style, they’ll close off straight away. And so, it’s actually becoming very masterful with your language so that you can get great outcomes.

Barbara: I think in saying that as well … so I really love that because that’s also working with the person you’re speaking to and taking into account their style. Both ways are still very candid, as you said. You’re dealing with going a level deeper than a business-like conversation. You’re going into, let’s forget all that stuff for a second, let’s you and I on this call together go a little bit deeper together.

To work out, you know … as you say, the solution may be that the person moves on or that we both move on. But it can be in a really nurturing way because, you know, if the person needs to move on, for both of you and them, then that can be a fantastic outcome for both of you. Or maybe you give them a different role. That’s happened to me before, where we ended up putting someone in a different role and they totally excelled in that new role. It was just the role didn’t suit them, the original role.

Setting up for those tough conversations

Matt: So a couple of things about setting up for these tough conversations is firstly, in my experience, when you surprise people with these conversations, they never go well.

Barbara: Yeah. Yeah.

Matt: They never go well.

Barbara: They panic. They go into panic mode. Yeah.

Set up a meeting with an agenda

Matt: They go into panic, they don’t know how to respond, or another natural response is defence. And so they almost become defensive and maybe even a bit aggressive. And so, what you want to do is you need to set the meeting up, that you would like to have a feedback session or even tell them, “Look, we need to have a serious meeting.” You may position it in that way, and you need to position it with an agenda.

Barbara: Yes, an agenda is vital. Yeah.

Matt: Because if that person cares and prepares for that meeting, then they’re the type of person you’re probably going to give another chance to, right? But if that person doesn’t prepare for that meeting, if they come very sort of unassuming, then you’ve probably got a good case to move then on, then and there.

Barbara: I think it’s important to pause here for a second and talk about … I always say to clients too, there’s a difference between a meeting and a chat. You’ve got to be very clear on which one you’re having. A chat can kind of … is good. A chat can be good to get things going, but eventually it really is the tough conversation and the end of the line conversation that needs to be a meeting with an agenda. Set up in the way Matt has just described where you allow them time to know this meeting is happening and what it’s going to be about, you know? Get them to prepare for that meeting and show up.

Matt: Yes.

Barbara: Sometimes they might resign before the meeting. If they did that, then that’s a good outcome because if that person can’t even come to the meeting, then you know, then you don’t want that person on your team, to be totally honest.

Present the facts as they are

Matt: Correct. Correct. The second part then is to make sure when you’re conducting the meeting, that we’re presenting the facts. I think that too often people present opinions or present … they dance around the facts. Just present the facts as they are.

Barbara: There’s too much emotion. I will openly admit I suffer from this. This would be a problem I would have. I probably bring too much emotion to that meeting. Too many feelings of how I’m feeling about it and allowing my own feelings about it to cloud how the meeting can go.

I’m being very open on this podcast because I think it’s really important for people to realize that if you’re feeling this way, if you’re listening to this and you’re feeling … what I’m saying is resonating with you, I sort of want to connect with the listeners and say, it’s okay because we’re human, we do have emotion. But it’s about just accepting how I get this to go … I know that’s my … I wouldn’t say weakness, it’s just my style, that I can be a little bit too emotional, so I have to prepare for the meeting beforehand, and I have to think about what I’m going to say so that I set myself up for success in that meeting and not get side tracked with emotion.

Matt: Same goes for me. These conversations probably aren’t as tough for me now as they once were, but again, being prepared, being succinct, being understanding, almost visualizing how the meeting’s going to go before you go into it is critically important.

Use video communication channels

I think the third thing here, like we spoke about in the last episode, is making sure you use the video. Being able to see somebody and watch what’s going on in their body language when you’re having one of these tough conversations is critically important because, again, you can watch what’s going on, they can’t be distracted, you can move the conversation as and where you see fit. And I think the next step is, don’t get bogged down in any one aspect of this.

Barbara: Okay, that’s key.

Matt: What you’ll find is that either you or the person that you’re having the tough conversation with will want to keep coming back to a key thing that they want to express or that you want to express. This is where the agenda is really important. You’ve got to have a clear agenda. Again, you’ve got to go through the facts, you’ve got to enable discussion to occur, but you’ve got to get to an outcome.

I’ll always preface and position these meetings, “Thank you for coming to the meeting today. The main reason for today’s meeting is for us to discuss a few key issues that have been occurring, and for us to get to a clear set of steps on how we’re going to fix it moving forward. Is that okay with you?”

And so we know, if it’s not moving on to the clear next steps to move it forward, then we have to move the conversation.

Conversation hurdles

Barbara: What about, Matt, I’m just thinking here, you know, about my own experiences and stuff with this sort of thing, what happens when you have a tough conversation? I’ve had a couple of these where we get … the conversation kind of stalls because the person is so defensive. You know, and just spends the whole time trying to convince you of why you’re wrong. You know, that kind of thing, has a story for everything. Everything that you bring up has a story for it. Now, I’ve had that situation, and I find that super challenging because it’ll start to bring up my emotion.

Matt: So listeners, I want you to hear me here. I get excited when this happens in those meetings.

Barbara: Oh, do you? I don’t because I start to get … I can feel my blood boiling, and I start to get like I want to end the meeting.

Conquering those hurdles

Matt: Yeah. Here’s why I get excited. The communication back to them when they keep doing that is, this is exactly why we’re having this meeting now.

Barbara: Right. Okay.

Matt: The way you’re behaving, and the way you’re showing up, and the way you’re communicating right now is the key reason we’re having this meeting right now. And you actually flip it straight back around because often that will be the reason … their excuses, their lack of performance, there’s a reason for everything and as soon as you flip that, where are they going to go with it?

Barbara: Yeah, because it’s taking … there’s no personal responsibility. It’s all, “You’re blaming me for everything. I’ve been doing a great job.” In their head they’re doing everything they can. They never think, in their head, I’m doing a great job because they know they’re not, but they always see someone else’s fault why they’re not.

Matt: Exactly.

Barbara: That can be a tricky … I know that that would be a hurdle. You know, if any of the listeners are going into a conversation like this, or have tried to have these tough conversations, I know that’s where you can get derailed very quickly because I have in the past myself too, in that instance. It’s important to understand how to get through that hurdle when it comes up.

Matt: Yeah. Like I said, I find that if I’m having these tough conversations, and they keep going on about the same point, and if I feel it escalating, and I feel their tone increasing, I’ll bring my tone down, and I’ll go, “This is exactly why we’re having this conversation right now. So how do we move past it? ”

You’ve actually got to … you’ve got to be ready with a few key questions. Questions I’ll always ask in these types of meetings are, “What’s the solution here? We’re very clear on what the problem is. How are we going to solve this? How do we move forward?” That’s one of the questions I’ll ask. The second question might be something along the lines of, “If you were me, what do you think the next steps we’re going to take are?”

Barbara: That’s a good one. I’ve used that one before, actually.

Matt: Yeah.

Barbara: I get silence sometimes for that one.

Matt: They know that…

Barbara: There’s nowhere to go.

Matt: Well they often know that you’re thinking, “Well, she’ll probably fire me.”

Barbara: Yes. Yeah, they are thinking that. Yeah. And they’re thinking, “Please, don’t fire me.”

Matt: Exactly. Often with that, you might send them away and go, “You need to think about this, and you need to come back and tell me, well, if you were me, what’s the next step here?” Not always, but often you’ll get a resignation letter.

Barbara: Actually, I like that one because it gives them also … if you say, “I want you to go away, and I want you to come back to a meeting tomorrow or the next day or whatever, or on Monday, I want you to book a meeting with me, and I want you to present to me what you think we should do about this situation.” It gives them space and time to … because this call can be quite confronting. It gives them a moment, as you say, to step back and think about it and you will actually probably get a resignation. Or someone who’s any good will come back with, probably an apology and a very open admission of the responsibility they’re going to take and what they’re going to do about it. But more often than not it will be a resignation. Yeah, that’s very powerful.

Matt: Absolutely, absolutely.

Barbara: I think also giving that space and time gives you a break as well, and it pushes it back on them to come back with their own solution to the problem. I like that. I’m stealing that one.

I want actually the listeners to realize that when I think back on these 3 episodes in particular, and actually many of the episodes that we’ve done, Matt, it’s literally like sometimes I’m getting a coaching session from you. It really is … guys, if you’re listening to this, this is an absolute coaching session on how to deal with these situations.

I come to Matt on these podcasts and present case studies of, you know, issues that we have internally and how I’m dealing with them. Matt is a coach that has coached so many businesses from diverse industries and everything, is coming with absolutely … like the nuggets of the strategies that he’s giving on these podcasts are just amazing, and I’m using them in my business so I would encourage everyone to take on board what you were saying, Matt. It’s fantastic.

Matt: Thank you, thank you.

Barbara: So, I think, too … how do we wrap up this one? Do just want to recap maybe some of the points on the tough conversations?

How to respond if the meeting doesn’t go to plan

Matt: Well, I just want to add one last thing before we go because whilst we’ve sort of painted the picture of this meeting going along and moving through the agenda and the like, sometimes it can actually go the other way. You know, it can get quite heated. It can get quite aggressive or not constructive.

Barbara: Or tears … there can be tears. Yeah, which is hard. Yeah.

Matt: In which case, you need to shut it off quick. You need to say, “Look, this is not a productive use of your time or my time right now. I think what we both need to do is walk away from this and come back in an hour, the next day or whatever, when we’re both in the right mindset to get to an outcome.” Don’t enable the emotion of the situation to take over where you want to head with this. You’ve got to get super clear on the outcome here.

If your outcome in this tough conversation is to move somebody on and your feeling yourself like it’s not going to move, you need to pull away and come back. Re-centre yourself and refocus yourself because otherwise what will end up happening is you’ll end up probably … you’ll end up giving them a pay rise, or something.

Barbara: I know. I was just thinking to myself, I would give them a bonus or something and then what I’ve realized is that sometimes you have to accept that you might have a very manipulative person on your team. Like, sometimes you’ve got passive/aggressive people. Sometimes your staff member might seem crap in some areas, but they might be very manipulative. You know, they’ve got … I’ve had this happen, too. We’ve got manipulators, and they can manipulate you very easily when you get to this point, so you’ve just got to sort of watch out for these cues, too. Without assuming that … that’s not everyone, but sometimes it can be a manipulative thing.

Matt: I think just being ready for that, also coming into these, if the conversation is derailing, just kill it then and there and come back with the outcome. The other thing I just wanted to add is, 30 minutes. Don’t enable more than 30 minutes for this meeting because the longer it is, the more off point you’ll go.

Barbara: That’s so true. Yep. That’s very true. Hour and a half later you don’t know what you’re talking about.

Matt: Exactly. The reality is, you get a tight agenda. There needs to be clarity coming into the meeting, what it’s about. You then need to ensure that you follow it, and then I would just be very respectful and clear in your communication. If someone’s not performing, as I said earlier, give them the facts.

Barbara: Yeah.

Matt: “Let me be clear with you on where this is at”. You know, you might use language like that, or you might go, “Look, as you know we here to discuss X, Y, Z today. Is it okay if I, first of all, go through and give it to you from my perspective, and then I would like to hear it from your perspective.” Or you may even do the reverse. “I would like to hear it from your perspective, and then I’ll give you my perspective.” Frame it up, use that clever language in there like you’re asking for permission. It’s very direct, but clear and it’s not aggressive. I think that’s what I see in these conversations. People tighten up, so what happens is they end up coming across as a little bit aggressive in their language.

Barbara: Yep.

Matt: In wrapping this up, understand that if you want to grow a successful company, and you want to grow it fast, you will have to at some point have these conversations.

Barbara: Yeah, it’s a natural … yeah, the bigger your team grows.

Matt: That’s right.

Barbara: Yeah, you will…

Matt: Eighty-five percent of businesses problems have hair on them, per say.

Barbara: Yeah.

Matt: And so, you’re going to have to have these tough conversations. As much as you can put the great processes in place in your business to recruit the right people and ask the right questions, inevitability, I have not come across a business or business owner yet that hasn’t had to have these tough conversations.

You want to grow, and you want to grow fast. You’ve got to nip it in the bud quicker, and you’ve got to have the tough conversations sooner so that it doesn’t ponder on, it doesn’t affect the rest of the organization, and you and the organization can keep moving forward.

Reducing the number of tough conversations

Barbara: Now, I would like to finish on something though. Guys, a way to reduce the number of these conversations … sometimes I talk to clients and they’re literally spending all day putting out fires with these kinds of conversations. Take a step back and go back to episodes 1 and 2. Look there first. Just think, “Can I change my entire process?” I might need to go back and change my entire process so that we actually reduce the number of these tough conversations we’re having.

That is something I did, probably because I was, you know, not liking the tough conversations but I actually went back and improved a lot of the processes, so I could get rid of … actually, not even hire those people coming in. That’s part of our recruiting process now at Virtual Angel Hub; we try to eradicate a lot of the problems. Also, just setting it up so that you don’t have as many of them, and it doesn’t escalate to that level as often. So, episodes 1 and 2.

Matt: It’s classic cause and effect, isn’t it, Barb?

Barbara: Yep.

Matt: If you just keep putting Band-Aids on, you’re never actually going to get to the root cause of the challenge or the problem.

Barbara: Yeah.

Matt: And that’s what episodes 1 and 2 help you with. They help you understand that if you effectively communicate at the front end, setting things up, it often can reduce the pain moving forward.

Barbara: You know, also just a follow on point from that is if you choose to just avoid … not do episode 1 and 2, and just avoid tough conversation, and fire someone instead, and then hire someone new, I can almost guarantee you that you’ll have the same problem the second time around. You’ll start to go into the same problems with your … because it’s your leadership style now that’s starting to falter because you haven’t been putting … you’re just thinking, “I’ll just hire new people.” That’s how people end up in the hiring and firing situation.

Matt: I agree one hundred percent.

Barbara: Yeah. Then, you’ll keep blaming each person that comes in. Probably is there fault, but it’s really yours at the end of the day.

Matt: Absolutely.

Wrapping things up

Barbara: Yeah, great! As always, guys, if you’re … we would love you to subscribe to the show on iTunes. We’re available, Virtual Success on iTunes. Also, share these shows with anyone you think will benefit because, as I said earlier, like me as a business owner and entrepreneur, I’m benefiting massively myself. I know, Matt, you are from us having chats like this. I know it’s a topic that really nobody’s out there talking enough about, how to deal with these kinds of situations, so share the show.

We’ll be back with more Virtual Success. We’ve got some great interviews coming up, and we’re going to tackle some more difficult case studies that are actually happening. If any of you have got anything that you would love us to tackle on the show, there is the Virtual Success Facebook group. You can join that, and you can suggest topics for shows. We would love to hear about what you want us to talk about on this show. We would happily dissect on the show for you.

Matt: Fantastic. Barb, have a wonderful week.

Barbara: You too.

Matt: I’ll talk to you soon.

Barbara: Okay, see you then. Bye.

Thank you for listening to the Virtual Success Show. If you found this show helpful, take a moment to share it with a friend so that we all grow together. Find out more about the inside scoop in outsourcing success by going to our website, virtualsuccessshow.com. Until next time! Thanks for listening!

The Hosts

Matt Malouf

Matt Malouf is a passionate business coach, speaker, author and entrepreneur on a mission to help entrepreneurs around the world break the shackles of mediocrity and reach new levels of personal and business success.

Barbara Turley

Barbara Turley is the Founder & CEO of The Virtual Hub, a company that specializes in recruiting, training and managing superstar ‘Virtual Assistants’ in the social media, digital marketing and systems automation space.