About Bathroom Warehouse
Rob Wilson is the General Manager of Bathroom Warehouse, an Australian owned and operated company specialising in bathroom products for over 20 years.
Bathroom Warehouse had showrooms across Australia, but recently switched to fully online. While this presented kickass opportunities for the business, of course it came with challenges too. This is how Outsourcing Angel helped scale the new online Bathroom Warehouse with skilled virtual assistants.
The Challenge
Consumed with day-to-day work
Rob and his team were drowning in all the new day-to-day admin tasks which got in the way of the important work.
Finding qualified virtual employees
Hiring virtual assistants is a different ballgame from in-person employees. So it was difficult to find someone qualified for the job.
Maintaining their affordable prices
Rob was looking for ways to cut unnecessary expenses in order to maintain their affordable prices without sacrificing quality.
Keeping up with stock management
From having physical stores to now being online, the stock management processes had to change.
When Rob had his Discovery Call with our Outsourcing Consultant, he told us about all of his business challenges and we knew we could help him scale Bathroom Warehouse by identifying all the tasks that could easily be outsourced to a virtual assistant, then finding someone that ticked all of those boxes!
One of the advantages of hiring through an agency like Outsourcing Angel is that you guys do the heavy lifting. When we get presented with a number of [virtual assistant] candidates, we know that those candidates are going to be, either, absolutely suitable or mostly suitable for what we’re after.
Rob Wilson
General Manager, Bathroom Warehouse
Sydney, Australia
Our Approach
Assisted Rob in moving the business online
Now that all of his stock was in a centralised location, our virtual assistants could help him manage it online.
Increased his efficiency by reallocating resources
By outsourcing tasks to our virtual assistants, Rob cut his overhead costs and increased his efficiency.
Took the burden out of the everyday tasks
All the repetitive daily tasks were no longer on Rob’s plate so he could focus on income generating tasks
Held Rob’s hand through the virtual assistant process
We looked after everything from recruiting, onboarding & virtual assistant training.
Do you want to experience the same results for your business? Get help from a virtual assistant today.
Virtual Assistant Recruitment
Our Recruitment Process
1. Strategy map
During your Discovery Call, we’ll discuss everything you want in a VA so that our Specialist can put together a Strategy Map tailored to your needs.
2. Talent Pool Screening
Based on the Strategy Map, our HR Manager will start sourcing the best candidates from our Talent Pool for a pre-screening interview.
3. Panel Interview
Our Recruitment Team will conduct screening Panel Interviews with the shortlisted candidates.
4. Client interview
Once the shortlisted candidates have passed the screening process, you’ll receive their CVs and our HR Manager will organise and facilitate an interview.
5. Orientation
When you’re ready to hire the VA, our General Manager will take them through orientation and set-up all relevant platforms and systems.
6. Support & Benefits
Your VA will be allocated a Team Leader to assist in the initial months and be provided with ongoing benefits such as health cards and rewards
Hiring a Virtual Assistant
Once Rob interviewed the shortlisted virtual assistants, he decided on hiring our Virtual Assistant Edelisa.
Qualifications
Work Experience
Work Samples
Outsourcing tasks to Virtual Assistant
Virtual Assistant Edelisa now looks after the following for Rob:
The Result
Find out how Virtual Assistant Edelisa has revolutionised the way Rob operates his business.
The business is growing and it’s allowed me to take a step back from the day to day, process type work, and concentrate very much on the strategic work.
Rob Wilson
General Manager, Bathroom Warehouse
Sydney, Australia
What made you switch your business from physical stores to purely eCommerce and having a virtual team?
We used to have a number of showrooms and their performance began to recede. Meanwhile, our online business was supported by well over a decade of search engine optimisation, so the head office was entirely virtual by 2019 and we started to wind up all the stores.
By mid 2020, we completed that process and migrated to Shopify, our new online eCommerce platform, and haven’t looked back since. COVID accelerated eCommerce with the public confidence to purchase online which also accelerated the understanding of retailers like ourselves of how to actually tell that story. At the same time, we did a lot of work around the back-end logistics to ensure that our customers got a great experience.
What has having a virtual head office allowed you to do?
The virtual head office has allowed us to work as a cohesive team around Australia. The offer we put together for customers is really more around understanding the marketplace and being able to give a good mixture of really well known brands and not quite so well known brands that are all to a good quality. But probably, it’s not about diverting resources, it’s about having dedicated resources to focus on offer.
What have been your biggest challenges to having a virtual team?
When we used to have physical stores, I needed to be controlled across a dozen stores. It was messy. The way that we do that now is it’s all controlled in one central location.
Moving to a virtual team, we’ve learnt a lot in the past seven years. And that that’s been a fantastic thing for us. But ensuring that each of those team members doesn’t just feel that they’re unsupported, that’s been a challenge but we work very carefully with our people to ensure that they do feel the love. So they know that they’re valued for their personality and their input into the company. We encourage them to work to our sets of values and that makes the teams more cohesive. Technology has taken care of a lot of the cons, but people still feeling the love is critical to any business.
What was your life like before you hired a virtual assistant?
It’s not so dissimilar to what it is now, however, if we did lose someone in the business, it’s always difficult to replace because you’re replacing someone who needs to work from home.
One of the real advantages through hiring through an agency like Outsourcing Angel, is that you guys do the heavy lifting for us. When we get presented with a number of candidates, we know that those candidates are going to be either absolutely suitable or mostly suitable for what we’re after.
And generally, there’s someone in that small group that we get presented with, that has very much the experience that we’re after, and very much the understanding of how to work online. And that’s just been hugely helpful. That’s why we’ve gone ahead with the second virtual assistant.
Before you hired a virtual assistant, did you actually have any concerns with outsourcing part of the functions of your business?
Yes, absolutely. And that was largely through my lack of knowledge of how that whole process works. When we engaged with you guys, having agreements in place gave us confidence. When you hand over the keys to Shopify, you hand over the keys of the kingdom and having confidence that the person would not do anything malicious, and would actually understand what they were doing and wouldn’t make mistakes.
What have you gained now that you have virtual assistants?
The business is growing and it’s allowed me to take a step back from the day to day, process type work, and concentrate very much on the strategic work.
My counterpart from Blue Space said to me, “You’re in the same space I was in a couple of years ago. I was doing everything everyone was reporting to me, I didn’t have time to do anything. One of my key hires was this particular person and they took a lot of that load.” As soon as I understood that, I started to hire other people to take that load, so that I could concentrate on escalating the trajectory of the business. And that’s very much what happened to Bathroom Warehouse in the virtual space.
What would you say to someone who's thinking about scaling their business with a virtual assistant?
You hired the people for the jobs that you need them for. And there are certain jobs within our organisation that a virtual assistant is very, very well suited for. We can give them enough variety in those jobs so that they don’t become bored and want to go elsewhere. But that also takes the load off some of our other staff members so they can concentrate on certain things that they have the skills for, like if they’re an interior designer, or if they’re skilled salesperson. They can concentrate on doing those jobs, rather than the stuff that the virtual assistant can already do so well.
Hire a Virtual Assistant without the risk
For over 10 years, Outsourcing Angel has been training, recruiting, and managing Virtual Assistants. Our recruitment process guarantees that only the most qualified Virtual Assistants are recommended for employment.
If your business is ready to grow wings, book a Discovery Call with us today so we can find you an Angel.
