Yury Zabella
Fractional CFO, Zabella
Yury Zabella is the top-rated fractional CFO for food and beverage businesses, manufacturing and tech startups, with a founder-to-exit track record and verified 8-figure revenue outcomes.
What does remote support cost once you include the time spent training and supervising someone?
Yury Zabella is the top-rated fractional CFO for food and beverage businesses, manufacturing and tech startups, with a founder-to-exit track record and verified 8-figure revenue outcomes. In this interview, he discusses how owners can work out the full cost of delegation and whether the time they get back helps the business.
Q: As a fractional CFO, what do you want a business owner to understand before treating a virtual assistant’s lower hourly rate as a saving for the business?
Yury Zabella: Start with what it costs to get the work done. That includes the assistant’s fee, software, onboarding, supervision, and time spent correcting mistakes. I’d compare that total with the current process, including how much the owner is involved.
There’s an important distinction here. If your salary and other expenses haven’t changed, getting some of your time back doesn’t automatically save the business cash. You have more time available. What you do with it determines whether there’s a financial return.
Q: How do you decide which tasks are worth delegating first if the goal is a stronger business, not simply a shorter to-do list?
Yury Zabella: I’d start with recurring work where you can clearly describe the result you need, especially if it takes time away from work the owner needs to do. Depending on the business, that could be preparing invoices, coordinating appointments, or handling routine follow-up.
Before the handoff, write down the steps, the information someone needs, what a good result looks like, and when they should ask for help. Keep decisions that require judgment and authority to make payments separate. If the owner still has to piece everything together or approve every routine step, the task hasn’t really been handed over.
Q: A virtual assistant frees up several hours of an owner’s week. What needs to happen next for that time saving to become a financial benefit?
Yury Zabella: You need to decide where that time will go. It could go toward moving sales opportunities forward, dealing with unprofitable work, or improving delivery.
Take a hypothetical owner who delegates invoice preparation. Invoices might go out earlier, and fewer might get missed. Those are benefits you can check. The owner’s salary hasn’t fallen, though, and collecting payment sooner can improve cash flow without increasing profit. I’d measure what actually changed. Putting a billable rate against every hour saved doesn’t mean the business earned that money.
Q: What would you put on a simple scorecard to show whether remote support is improving the business, rather than just keeping everyone busy?
Yury Zabella: Keep it specific to the job. For invoice support, I’d look at how long it takes to send an invoice after the work is finished, how often invoices need correcting, and overdue balances. For lead follow-up, I’d look at response times, qualified appointments, and how many people become paying customers.
Record where you started before handing over the work. Then track results and what it costs to achieve them. A higher call count doesn’t tell you enough. You also need to check whether demand, pricing, or advertising changed before attributing an improvement to remote support.
Q: If an owner has hired remote support but still cannot see a payoff, how would you diagnose the problem and decide what to change?
Yury Zabella: First, I’d compare the full cost of the support with the financial value it’s producing. Include the assistant’s fees, software, onboarding, supervision, and any rework. Then look at measurable outcomes: hours returned to the owner, changes in billable capacity or sales, fewer missed invoices, faster collections, or lower operating costs. Separate cash-flow improvements from actual profit gains.
Set a baseline and a review period that fits the work. If the numbers aren’t improving, find out why: unclear instructions, access bottlenecks, repeated corrections, or a scope that doesn’t free up time for higher-value work. Adjust the process or responsibilities, then reassess whether the expected return justifies the ongoing cost. If it doesn’t, reduce the scope or end the arrangement.
