Show Notes
When was the last time you gave your business some TLC? In this episode, I will be talking about the importance of YOU in your business, your business model, and why you cannot one-night stand your business. You will also hear about hiccups my personal clients went through and how they overcame it.
Learn how to serve your customers with E-A-S-E and how to truly take care of the heart (operations) of your growing business. Don’t fall into the trap of overlooking this very important piece of information because overlooking this can be detrimental to your business and I wouldn’t want you to drown when the pressure is on. I will unravel what operations are REALLY about and why your operations are key to leveling up your business now.
Links Mentioned:
Quiz: What’s the biggest kink in your business?
Follow us:
Available on:
Hello, I’m so excited to bring this episode to you because it’s so near and dear to my heart, and why it’s so damn important for your business. I’ve got so much I want to stay and teach you. Now I know that operations aren’t talked about as much vs branding and marketing, and if this area of business is newer to you- don’t worry. Just like what I do with my clients, I make the concepts easy to understand and relatable because what’s the point of teaching you something if it’s just going to go over your head. So the onus is on me to make these concepts snackable and digestible. Oh and fun fact, anytime I type the word “onus”, my phone always spell checks it to anus, and I am totally here for it! It just knows me so well! Anyways, let’s kick off this episode with an overview of what operation is, and then we’ll take it from there.
Here at Business Laid Bare, collectively, operations refer to everything that’s responsible for keeping your business running and making money. It’s the people, processes, systems, software, and project management, to name a few, that connects things together. And when I say things it’s the various gears or other departments in your business such as marketing, HR, offer fulfillment, and customer service. Operations look different for every business and they are influenced by a few different things:
- Who the CEO is. This to me is the most important part of how to design your operations to feel orgasmic. You are the CEO, which means that you are the center of your business universe. Everything should revolve around you, especially how you work, how you visualize information, what your standards are, and how you believe your business should be structured.
- Your business model, especially when it comes to how you plan on making money and fulfilling those sales. For instance, product-based businesses’ operations are going to look different from service-based businesses, vs software as a service, vs a hybrid model of all of them together.
- Your business’s current and future situation. You cannot one night stand your business operations. It’s an ongoing and ever-evolving part of your business. Now, as the CEO, it’s important to design your operations for what’s happening in your business right now because obviously, you’re running your business. You also want to future prep your business operations at the same time because inevitably your business is going to grow and you want to be able to transition from your current state to the next phase as seamlessly as possible. Even though operations are responsible for keeping your business running and making money, operations actually get a pretty bad rap. If I had a dollar for every time I hear things like “Oh, it’s boring“, “It’s too corporate“, “It’s overwhelming” or “I’m too creative and intuitive for this stuff“, I’d be so rich. And compared to other front-of-house aspects of your business such as marketing, branding, and making your website pretty, it doesn’t sound fun. So if any of this sounds similar to things you’ve said to people or thought to yourself, hit me up on Instagram or in an email because I’d love to hear why.
To me, the bad rap and it factor can be attributed to; 1. People don’t immediately see how operations relate to business growth, revenue, and profits. 2. It’s not taught or talked of in a way that connects with why a CEO should care, and also why it’s valuable. It’s very corporate sounding and stifling, and there are lots of bad memories associated with being in the corporate world. I mean, lots of people leave the corporate world to start their own businesses and oftentimes they’re like “I do not want to do anything remotely similar to what I had to go through in the corporate world. I’m gonna turn everything on its head.” So operation get’s lumped into that, but here’s a question for you. What happens when your branding and marketing suddenly click with your potential customers and you end up in a situation (like my client did), where 20 people suddenly wanted to work with you? Be honest, if 20 people wanted to throw money at you right now to work with you, how many clients could you realistically take on and provide your service to with high integrity and quality, and without burning yourself out and feeling completely overwhelmed and drowning? For my client Leanne, out of the 20 people that reached out to her, she could only on-board two. After she was done working with those two clients, by the time she reached out to the 18 people who she initially turned down all but one or two of them had gone with other people. And what was crazy ironic about this, is that she spent a lot of money on marketing strategies, branding, and design to grow her business revenue and ended up turning away about $50,000 between those 18 clients. This was because she had no systems, no processes, and no easy way to onboard clients, more team members to help her, and even if she wanted to bring on those team members, she had no onboarding training or delegation system for them to do the work and take care of her clients.
Marketing may bring you paying clients but operations are the key to being able to sustainably handle the workload and demand with consistency and ease. This means that, at its most basic, your business operations are the heart of your business. Can you imagine how difficult it would be for your business to thrive if its heart was inefficiently doing its job or constantly required you to manually keep it pumping? I know, it sounds kind of crazy but think of it this way; think about your heart and what it does for you. How would your quality of life be affected if you were constantly worried if your heart could handle supporting you in what you wanted to achieve in life? Do you think twice when you want to go on a vacation, rest, or jump on a spontaneous adventure? And whether or not your heart will be able to allow you to do those things? No, and the same goes for your business. Do you think twice about going on a vacation, taking a self-care day, or switching your focus at the last minute to prepare your talk because you got invited to speak at a conference you’ve always wanted to speak at without having to worry if your business won’t plode or crumble the moment you look away? Or, are you just the type of person who’s constantly checking emails on vacation, or stressed that you cannot trust your team to run the business to your standard while you’re away, being fully present at the conference giving your talk?
If you’re leaning towards the “Oh my God, my business would crumble” side, it means that your business heart needs to be more healthy. It means that your business heart needs you to do things to it so it’s running and pumping and doing things more independently of you. Having good systems and processes helps keep your business-heart healthy, efficient, supportive, and capable of doing the things you want it to do for you. Most especially when your attention is not on it. If you haven’t already, I suggest taking the quiz that I put together that reviews the biggest kink in your business to see how you can address the healthiness of your business heart. You can find the quiz at businesslaidbare.com/quiz. So many entrepreneurs and CEOs talked about wanting more freedom in their businesses and I’m telling you right now, the answer is right there in front of you, or should I say behind you because it’s your business backend. Your operations, prioritize it, give it a lot of attention and TLC. Make sure it’s tight and not leaky, especially money. Look for ways to keep it healthy, efficient, and running optimally because, at the end of the day, your business operations are the heart of your business.
