Ruth Dietrich OBM, Godalming (2026)

Helping Coaches and Creatives alleviate overwhelm by managing and streamlining the day to day of their business while they focus on doing what they love best | Online Business Management (OBM), Client Experience, Systems & Automation Specialist. Is it time to sort out the overwhelm so you can grow your business and improve your quality of life? If you are like most service based small business owners you are working more than you’d like on your service but not spending as much time as you’d like on your business. I know how you feel...

I've seen small businesses owners struggle and I've been a struggling small business owner. It’s not as easy as you thought when you first started out. Running a small business is hard work and you do your best to keep going but you work close to the brink. I was very lucky to fall into Virtual Assistance when I was asked to help other small service based businesses owners run and improve their business. During this time, I noticed that the answer to overwhelm was good management and streamlined, automated and client focused systems and procedures. I realised my calling as an Online Business Manager (OBM) and I could help small business owners develop more efficient working procedures and systems and free up time and improve their quality of life. My 20+ years in hotel sales and management, and expertise in building new systems, processes and customer care came into its own and I was able to help my clients improve their small service based businesses while freeing up time for themselves. My clients are very happy and I am happy that I can help them while running my own streamlined business and have quality time to spend with my family. I now want to help more small service business owners do the same. So now I specialise in helping small service business owners alleviate overwhelm by streamlining and managing their day to day business so they can focus on doing what they love. Some of the tasks I have helped by clients with are:

- Research and set up of CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Systems with continued system management
- Design and build of CMS System (Wordpress website with continued website management)
- Rebuild of websites using Wordpress, Webflow, Weebly and Square
- Set up of Email Marketing Software Platforms with continued platform management and support
- Set up of email marketing funnels
- Set up of automations to help improve workflows
- Set up of self-populating Excel reports
- Marketing plan and implementation
- General management of their day to day business
- Management of team member tasks

21/09/2026

Well, here we are… my final week in my 40s. 😬

I’m not sure I’m quite ready to say goodbye to them yet, but turning 50 has definitely got me thinking about what I want more of and what I want a lot less of in the next decade.

More time. More experiences. More people I love. More work I enjoy.

Less rushing. Less overthinking. Less doing things the hard way simply because that’s how I’ve always done them.

I suspect I’m still going to get plenty wrong. But perhaps part of getting older is becoming a little clearer about what actually matters.

So here’s to the last seven days of my 40s. 🥂

09/08/2026

There’s one email I never delete from my inbox without reading. It’s from a woman I met at a networking party 2 years ago.

Her name’s Mangla (Business Coaching & Strategy for Expat Entrepreneurs - Mangla), and what a lady. She had this way of working a room, meeting everyone in it and somehow making each person feel like an old friend by the end of the conversation.

I still bump into her from time to time, and she’s exactly the same every time.

I’m also on her email list. And if you know me, you know I don’t say this lightly, it’s one of the few emails I actually open every single time it lands in my inbox. The value she packs in is second to none.

If you’re a small business owner and you’re only going to sign up to one email list this year, make it Mangla’s.

07/08/2026

As I get older my eyesight is getting worse.

Not dramatically. Just enough that I hold my phone a bit further away now, and I reach for my glasses more often instead of squinting at the tiny print on packaging in a way I definitely didn’t in my twenties.

It’s a small, ordinary sign of getting older. And it’s made me think about how much else changes, without us noticing, until one day we can’t ignore it anymore.

Businesses are the same. The manual process that was fine when you had five clients isn’t fine anymore. The sticky notes and “I just remember” systems that worked when it was just you don’t work now there’s a stream of clients, a waitlist, or twice the workload.

Nobody wakes up one day and decides their business needs better systems. It creeps up, a missed follow-up here, a client chasing you for the third time there, a Sunday evening lost to admin that should’ve taken ten minutes. Small signs, easy to squint past, until you can’t anymore.

The businesses I love working with are the ones who notice early. Who get curious about what’s quietly not working, before it becomes a crisis. The ones who are reaching for their glasses for help (metaphorically).

So, what’s the thing in your business you’ve been squinting past?

06/08/2026

I’ve told you that better systems in your business will make you feel less overwhelmed.

Let’s be honest though, we’re busy female founders. Running a business, ferrying kids around, running a household, caring for ageing parents, trying to keep some kind of social life alive. Take one thing off the list and ten more land on the bottom of it.

Overwhelm is baked in.

So here’s the truth: systems and automation won’t remove overwhelm. What they will do is free up your time and headspace.

What you do with that is up to you.

A monthly spa day? Actually sitting down to analyse your data instead of just doing, doing, doing? More evenings where you’re not “just checking one thing”?

Systems don’t fix overwhelm. They give you the choice to do something about it.

What would you do with an extra few hours a week?

04/08/2026

It may be 23 years since we stood behind this reception desk together, but in so many ways, everything and nothing has changed.

Back then, I was a Reception Manager in a luxury beach hotel. Every day my job was to make sure our guests had an exceptional experience.

I quickly realised that the best guest experiences didn’t come from simply following procedures, they came from building relationships.

Remembering names.
Anticipating needs.
Making people feel welcome, valued and cared for.

I didn’t know it then, but those lessons would shape the business I run today.

Now I help business owners build automated systems to save time.

It sounds like a world away from hospitality… but it really isn’t.

Because I don’t build systems to remove the human touch, I build them so there’s more time for it.

When your onboarding, follow-ups and admin happen automatically, you can spend more time having meaningful conversations, supporting your clients and building genuine relationships and as AI becomes part of more and more businesses, I think this matters more than ever.

Technology can make us more efficient but relationships are what make us memorable.

Some lessons stay with you for life. ✨

03/08/2026

Let’s be honest, being the CEO of your small service-based business was never going to look like brandy and ci**rs like in a classic 80’s movie. 😅

It’s smaller and quieter than that. It’s one hour blocked in your calendar. A process written down instead of held in your head. A decision made from a plan instead of a scramble trying to find notes made in random places.

Swipe through for what it actually looks like day to day →

Comment Quiz and I’ll send you my CEO Systems assessment to figure out how well (or badly) your systems are supporting you in your CEO role.

Address

Godalming
GU8

Website

http://www.ruthdietrich.co.uk/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Ruth Dietrich OBM posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Contact The Business

Send a message to Ruth Dietrich OBM:

Ruth Dietrich OBM