Transcript generated by Riverside.

00:00
What on earth do the word systems and operations actually mean? What is lean and how can you use PDSA to continuously improve your business processes? When is the best time to start implementing systems and focus on the operations side of your business? These questions and more, we will be answering today on the Scrappy Business Podcast. Joining me, your lovely host Jess, is Brooke Scott.

00:26
Brooke is a COO and integrator and her mission is to help others optimize and restore their business operations foundation without wasting time and money. She focuses her approach to any project or task using lean fundamentals with the overall goal of keeping things streamlined from the ground up. She serves women entrepreneurs and mompreneurs, agencies, coaches, course creators and consultants by creating swoon-worthy efficient systems and managing their internal and external operations

00:55
so that they can get back to doing what they love in their zone of genius. And with the introductions complete, let’s dive right into the interview. Enjoy!

01:17
Hey Brooke and thank you so much for coming to join us today on the show. I was really excited to talk because I’m into systems and not having a completely chaotic lifestyle as much as my brain loves the chaotic lifestyle, but secretly it really, it really doesn’t love it. In all honesty, I’m not BSing myself. So yeah, I’m so excited to learn a little bit more about how

01:45
to get our stuff organized today and why it’s so important. Yeah, of course. Well, thank you for having me. I really appreciate it. And I’m excited to have a conversation with you. So the first thing that I wanted to talk about is that we always hear the word systems, systems, systems, systems, operations, operations thrown around. But honestly, I know a lot of people and I was probably in that same boat for a long time. And I wasn’t actually sure what does that even mean? Like…

02:14
What are we talking about when we’re talking about systems and operations and whatever? So if you had to break down what you do in the simplest terms, how would you explain that? Yeah, so I definitely agree with you. I mean, there are different people that like I’ve even like worked with in partnership where they’re systems people or whatever, and they approach it completely differently. They have a different definition of things. So I think

02:43
For starters, it’s just important to kind of clarify that to your audience if you do have a specific definition that isn’t just like the generalized standard of whatever it is. But as far as what systems mean to me, it is the processes that you have built in your business. So I’m not specifically talking about the platforms that you have, however, that is a part of what I do when it comes to

03:11
tech and integrations and all of that behind the scenes. But it’s more so when I’m coming at it from my perspective with systems is the operational standpoint, the processes, how you can lean things up so that way everything is efficient. So that’s the direction that I take when it comes to what quote systems and operations is. Then when it comes to the overall term of integration or implementation.

03:38
Integration is how I come from it, from the tech aspect of things, and I’m connecting everything behind the scenes when it comes to platforms and funnel builds and all of the settings that need to be there in order for X, Y, Z to happen. So that way said process, said funnel can operate smoothly. And then the implementation aspect would be just implementation across projects, whatever processes need to happen inside of.

04:06
like the systems that we were talking about. So anything instead of standard operating procedures, anything in regards to the implementation aspect of it, that all encompassing term of implementation itself. So I have a lot of terms that I use. I try to clarify what I mean when I am speaking with clients or my audience, but that’s my approach of things whenever it comes to systems, ops, tech, integration, implementation.

04:35
all that jazz because I mean, a lot of times, like you said, like there are people out there that they don’t know what that means or I’m overwhelming them by giving them all these terms where it’s like, okay, but like, what do you do? So I try to explain that that is what I do. And so that’s kind of the approach that I take when it comes to that. I think it’s a really interesting area of the business because I feel like when you’re first starting out, you don’t really pay as much attention.

05:04
to your processes, to the tools that you’re using. And then you reach a point in business where you’re suddenly having a lot of challenges and you don’t really know where the heck are these challenges coming from. And I feel like a lot of the time, the underlying issue is that something in your operations, so the running of the business isn’t really worked out.

05:32
So have you found in your work with clients that there is a time when you’re really starting to think about systems and processes and when does this become a really pressing issue? Like, is there a certain point in business where you’re like, oh my God, by this point, you definitely need to have this in place. So

05:55
For starters, I think it’s definitely custom to every single business, every single person, what they’re trying to do. So I mean, it definitely depends in that aspect, but in regards to getting started and implementing those things with your systems, yesterday is always gonna be better than tomorrow. So I would approach it in that perspective. I don’t think you’re necessarily doing anything wrong if you’re starting later, but I do think it is beneficial to get started as soon as you can, just because.

06:25
Like from experience, the majority of my clients that come to me, like whenever I’m onboarding someone new or there’s a project I’m taking on, whether it’s one-to-one or just a one-off project, they’re coming to me because they need a cleanup. They need, they, all, a ton of these people that I’m working with, they have reached the point where they built their business, they got to the point where they scaled to where they wanna be, and then scaling past that kinda just took off, and from what I’ve seen from the people I’ve worked with,

06:55
once you get to that point, it just goes. And it’s pretty linear when it comes to across the board with different niches when it comes to scaling in general. So once you kind of feel yourself in that pattern of like, you know change is about to happen, I would probably start shifting your focus into like your system’s foundation, your operational foundation, how are your processes are set up for you. So that way, whenever you’re in the scaling phase, cause you can feel it coming up,

07:24
your business will be able to support you instead of having to take the time to shift and fix this one thing or implement something new because we wanna do this now. Because when you’re doing that, you’re creating a lot of time crunch, you’re creating a lot of scope creep, you’re creating a lot of extra pressure on your team because right now everybody’s focusing on your scaling, right? They’re not focusing on the foundational phase of.

07:52
getting everything started and situated based on what you want to happen. Um, they’re doing it as you go. And while doing it as you go, isn’t wrong. I definitely suggest always doing it as you go. Cause I mean, that’s where you start to optimize, of course. Um, but I think before you get to that phase of scaling, I think it’s important to kind of just sit down and look at how your business is operating. If there is, you know, an area that you would like to automate or you would like for this to happen, talk with someone who.

08:19
is in that specialty and see what you’re able to create for that process of your business. So that way when you start to scale, because like I said, when people get to that point, it just takes off and it’s gonna last for a while. So you don’t want to get caught up in trying to fix things while you’re trying to scale. You’re not giving yourself that clear pathway to keep scaling, you’re holding yourself back, if that makes sense,

08:49
troubleshoot and fix and create new things and all of that. So yeah, I mean, as far as getting started timeline, I mean, as soon as you can, you’re definitely not in the wrong or ever wrong if you start at any other point in time, just make sure that you have the awareness of what’s going on in your business, how things are moving and operating. And if you have that awareness, whether you have specific systems, platforms, processes, whatever in place,

09:16
then I mean, you should be good to go. I mean, I think it all goes back to understanding and knowing your why from an operational standpoint as the business owner. So that way you can keep you and your team on track. Yeah, that makes sense. And I think it’s always better to invest into something before you’re trying to scale up because I feel like it just multiplies the problems that you are having and then your entire time is not taken up.

09:45
with growth or with serving people, but it’s just with dealing with internal issues. Yeah. Something I was talking to someone else actually, who’s the husband of a friend of mine, who does a lot of consulting in this direction. And something that he mentioned that I thought was interesting is that a lot of people don’t realize that they’re having a problem with operations or their systems. So he was having a hard time finding people.

10:11
that we’re aware that that is the kind of work that they needed done. How do we know that potentially the stress that we’re experiencing in our business is probably down to organizational operational and system things? Like what are the actual things that we might be running into on the day to day that should tell us, Hey, alarm, it is not a marketing person you need. It’s not another assistant you need. It is something else.

10:41
I would say when it comes to that, first off, before even getting started with systems, you should know your priority and it goes back to what your friend was saying. Have that awareness, know your priorities so that way you can understand how things are operating in your business and that way you can identify those gaps a little bit easier. I think it’s going to be difficult for anyone just to kind of pinpoint.

11:09
what’s the issue if they don’t understand what’s going on or what path they’re headed towards. So I definitely feel like one, know your priority right now, know your long-term priority, know your quarterly focus, your yearly focus, the long-term plan of your business, what you want to be happening, all the things, and then reverse engineer and see if those priorities are in alignment with what you need to be doing. And then you can really start identifying, okay, well,

11:38
Why am I not able to reach this milestone? Well, I’m not able to do that because of this. Well, why can I do that? Well, you can’t do that because you haven’t done this. So if you reverse engineer and start implementing them, it’s called the 5Y approach. It’s a lean process improvement technique where you’re getting to the root cause of the problem itself. So if you ask yourself why about five times, you should be able to pinpoint the actual answer when it comes to

12:08
said problem. So I would just, again, know your priority, know your long term focus, know what’s going on, have that understanding, have the awareness, be open to change, be open to shifting, be open to leaning into what’s going to be right for the business and reverse engineer all of those things and see where you can start targeting now and see if any gaps do arise in that, you know, asking yourself those questions. Well, well,

12:35
why isn’t this happening? Well, you don’t have a scheduling platform. Well, why isn’t this happening? Well, you don’t have this automated. So, I mean, like you’ll be able to see where those gaps arise. That way, when it comes to hiring out, you can better communicate that to that person so that way they know where you’re at, what you’re looking for, and how they can help you in the longterm. I think that’s super important, particularly when you’re looking at hiring out because…

13:04
I mean, obviously I started out working as a techie virtual assistant, right? So the amount of times that I started work for someone and I’m like, well, how is this supposed to be done or when is this supposed to be done by, or how often does this need to happen and what are we using to make this end product the way that it should be? A scary amount of times the answer isn’t really existent.

13:33
Like, hey, we haven’t really thought about that. We just do it a different way kind of every single time. How do you feel about working with a team without being clear on how things actually should be done? Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, coming from someone who I definitely feel like there’s probably a black and white answer to all the things.

13:57
So when there isn’t an answer or there isn’t a reason or there isn’t a specific guideline whenever I’m supposed to be the one creating and setting up these things, it does cause some barrier to implementation and all of the things. And it adds an extra layer of problem solving to be able to get there. But I think that kind of stems from the client not having the understanding. So really working well with that person too.

14:25
know their understanding of all of the things, see if they have that awareness. I wanna be able to communicate with that person so that way I can create the things that need to happen. And since I’ve been in this specific role where I’ve done a multitude of things for different peoples and different niches, I have some experience as far as what I would suggest. So if they don’t have a specific answer or path or perimeter or whatever metric they’re trying to hit, I can give them a suggestion.

14:53
and we can go based on that. So I think when it comes to that as well, sometimes like in the reverse, they might have specific guidelines for something and they just have a number on it and it’s not either something that’s like attainable or something that makes sense. So I would also approach them in that perspective as well and try to get the understanding of why they have this specific metric in place. So that way we can adjust things to be more realistic.

15:20
for the business and that way they’re not just creating the standard approach for their team whenever it’s not something that they can realistically do or achieve or whatever because that can also create bottlenecks in the back end with your team. That’s a really interesting problem because so before I went full time back with pristine

15:49
I found it really interesting. So we had a process for annual planning, for quarterly planning, and then for everyone to be monitoring certain numbers to make sure that things were moving in the right direction. However, something interesting that happened a lot was that the numbers were kind of fictional. So it was like, here is what we think, you know, where we should be at.

16:17
But actually realistically where we are is like not even on the screen right now, like we’re under the table. But the expectation is so high that with the resources that are in place it’s actually not achievable. And then you might find that the process is to do A first and then B and then talk to C and then get that signed off by D. But all of that process is causing such an immense delay

16:47
you’re spending all of your time complete in the process, but that process doesn’t lead to the result that you want to have. How can you know as a business owner that the goals that you’re setting for your people are actually achievable and attainable? And what do you do when you’ve never actually achieved that within the business? So you don’t know if the process that you have is actually going to lead you to that outcome.

17:16
I would say, again, it goes back to having the understanding of all the things and reverse engineering the process. And I feel like if you do that, if you need to do it more than once, you definitely can. I mean, I’m definitely the type of person that sits down and replans my quarter probably three times during the quarter. So I mean, definitely give yourself like the grace and space to be able to change things up for sure. But I think when it comes to setting those metrics for the business, you should just

17:45
be realistic with yourself to kind of just begin with and make sure that you’re setting good, better, best goals instead of just like an overall, I want to reach this, I want to achieve this, I want to have that. I think that’s good for your best situation for sure. Like in a perfect world, I definitely wanna see your perfect world scenario because if I can help you get there, I’m gonna help you. But I also wanna see like at bare minimum.

18:12
what would I be happy with? What’s going to help my business? What would I wanna focus on right now? What are my priorities right now? And that’s kind of like how I tackle my work with my one-to-ones is through priority shifting, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, on a quarterly basis, so that way, we’re staying in alignment with the good, better, best goals. We’re achieving the good. We’re meeting the better as we can. And we’re really striving for that best. And if we can, that’s an awesome celebration moment. But I think just having the

18:41
awareness on each scale. You know, as the business owner yourself, I mean, whenever I’m setting down for myself, I definitely want to have that realistic expectation because if I’m setting, you know, this crazy goal, like, yeah, that’d be great to hit this amount of number or this specific, you know, amount of income. But if I don’t do that, now I’m gonna be upset with myself because I didn’t do it because I set to achieve that. So I think just setting realistic goals for yourself.

19:10
making sure that you approach it and like you can define it. It was whatever you want. But I think like good, better, best is a good term. I think also, you know, like minimum, you know, achievable, and then, you know, perfect world scenario is also a good way to approach it. Whatever’s gonna work best for you, like naming convention wise. I feel like sometimes that trips people up, not in this scenario, but just like in general, naming convention sometimes trip people up from like actually understanding what they’re doing. So.

19:39
Just make sure that you’re approaching it in a way that you know that at minimum, you’re going to be making consistent progress in your business, whatever that looks like to you, so be it. I mean, it’s not gonna be the exact same for every single business owner out there. So making sure that it’s in alignment with your bottom line, it’s in alignment with your foundation, it’s in alignment with your mission, vision, and values, and that you’re on the path to improvement. And I think you’re golden for the future.

20:08
I think it’s not just hard on you as well when you end up not achieving that, but if you’re working with like 10, 15 people and you’re always setting outrageous goals and everyone’s disappointed when they don’t get achieved, it’s really hard on people. Yeah. I mean, that goes back to not even just like monetary value or X number value. That goes back to like turnaround time and expectations with your team, like effectively communicating that as well. Because I mean, project shift and change. I mean…

20:38
One, being open to shifting dates is one thing, but two, being able to flexible, communicate flexibly with your team and have things be cohesive and not create this weird tension, I think is also important. So, I mean, it just depends on what specific metric we’re talking about, because I mean, you could look at it in that aspect as well of turnaround time. I mean, especially as someone in my position who is a service provider.

21:06
and I’m serving one-to-one clients and I also have one-off projects. My turnaround times and expectations, that’s my hard thing that I’m always trying to mean. I’m always trying to strive to. So if I’m getting tripped up on something, it’s more likely that it’s going to be like a timeline or specific expectation for a deliverable. So I think depending on who you are, what role you’re taking in a business and how you’re approaching things, still be realistic and set.

21:34
you know, good boundaries and expectations for yourself. Cause I can’t, you know, promise you a 24 hour timeline turn around on, you know, in a complete funnel build. That’s not realistic. You know what I mean? So it goes back to that as well, just on for your team sake. Yeah. And it’s also, it’s something that eats into quality because I spent the last four years on a 24 hour turnaround for an entire funnel, check out the whole thing. And I think

22:03
the numbers that you’re monitoring with people, they need to shift not just with the business, but also with the person that’s taking over this thing, because not every person is the same. So I thought it was really interesting when we were looking at tech support side of things, and we were looking at the number of, like the metric that was set was the number of tickets that got closed.

22:28
And I’m like, well, to be honest, I can just send a shitty reply and close a ticket. Exactly. And then the tickets closed. That is not. Yes. Like that, that number, it makes sense when you first think about it, you go like, Oh yeah, we should be closing tickets. But what you should actually be worried about is what is the outcome of that? Right. Like the outcome wasn’t just to close the ticket as fast as possible. Right. The outcome was to get the customer sorted out and then to reduce the number of incoming.

22:56
tickets or something like that because that’s going to positively benefit the business. So yeah, I always think that’s really fascinating. Yeah, it definitely goes back to quality. And I mean, focus and capacity and listening and communicating to your team and monitoring that capacity monitoring, you know, their workload, do they have other things they’re working on as well. So I mean, you have to not only look at the number, not only look at what’s attainable, but you know, get a gauge from the people who are actually doing it.

23:26
And I mean, if things need to shift, cool, let’s shift them. I want it to be a cohesive, comfortable environment. I want you to be able to enjoy what you’re doing. I mean, especially in the space that we’re in, this is the online space where we’re here because we want to be able to be flexible and have a life-first business and all of those type of things. We don’t want to create a corporate work environment and have to meet specific expectations with no explanation. So it’s…

23:54
Yeah, expectation without explanation is like my idea of what the heck am I doing here? Because maybe it’s a generational thing, but it comes back down to the thing that I’m doing doesn’t have any benefit here. This is actually just something that I would consider to be busy work. Yeah, I know what you mean. I was just going to say, just speaking to busy work, I mean, that’s different for every single person as well. So I mean, just…

24:24
make sure you’re gauging your team’s workload and capacity so that way you know what their busy work actually is, what their other tasks are, and what to expect as far as they’re deliverable on that. No, busy work adds up. And then I guess everyone has their own productive procrastination technique as well, which is super popular around here.

24:48
So I was going to ask earlier about something that you mentioned and that was the kind of lean processes. Can you explain probably best with an example of sorts what the principle behind lean is and what that actually looks like in your business and why that is important? Because I’ve always found that really interesting. Yeah. So the concept of introducing a quote lean, so like before I like jump into it, for those listening who don’t know.

25:16
what lean is, think of it in the way that you would lean up at the gym. So you’re, you’re trimming the fat, you’re cutting the waste. That’s what we want to do when it comes to lean processes for your business. And the processes that we’re taking, you know, in our, our, our lean development, that routine is what’s getting you lean is what’s getting you, you know, to cut the fat, to cut the waste. So it’s, um, introducing that just means you’re implementing strategic routines.

25:44
that closely evaluate your performance and progress through those specific ways of thinking. So that way you can appropriately attack and address those different areas. Like I said, it’s an approach to cutting out the wasted time, effort, energy, space, money, clicks, steps, all of the things. I mean, especially someone coming into it from the tech integration standpoint or just like operations in general.

26:12
I don’t want to be doing 85,000 steps to get to something. Like I want to be able to do it in the most efficient way possible. So that way we can not only get it done off the list, but we’re doing it in a way that achieves the specific goal that we have it operating for in general. One improvement routine that I practice all the time is the use of a routine called PDSA. So that means it’s an acronym for Plan, Do, Study, Act.

26:41
So it’s a research-based process improvement routine that guides you to your ideal state through rapid improvement and consistent study growth through different short periods of time. So that way you can consistently implement change and adjust until you reach what your ideal end state is. So what you do is visually it’s like circle and then the top like right quadrant is

27:11
So you want to plan the test that you want to do. You want to get your plan situated. And then the next phase is do. So you’re actually doing it. So you’re implementing what your plan was. And then the S is study. So you’re moving top, down, left, up. So that way, yes. The study. So you want to just evaluate and study the results of the implementation that you did. And then the next one will be act. So what do we actually need to…

27:39
Act on based on the changes that we made in this phase. So you’re breaking things down into a smaller more targeted plan So this this process isn’t for you know, your overall business plan or structure This isn’t for a specific, you know launch whatever like you would approach this to specific tasks or how you would you address your onboarding or whatever But that way you are

28:08
making incremental steps around the circle, going up the ramp for continual improvement. And what you do is once you complete it first, great. Now you’re at your next, you know, ideal state quote. And then what you wanna do after that is just repeat it. So that way you’re consistently, you know, reviewing, making a new plan, acting on the plan, evaluating it, okay, now, what do we do now? Okay, now do it again. So you do it as many times as you need to, whether that is two times to

28:37
I mean, it just depends on what the specific thing you’re doing is, but the whole purpose of it is to get you to your future perfect case scenario quicker because you’re taking small steps to be able to get there versus just jumping like, okay, here’s the plan, here’s my perfect scenario, what are we going to do about it? Well, we can’t do anything about it today, sorry, but what we can do is break it down into 10 different initiatives.

29:05
and each one we’re gonna target XYZ. And this we’re gonna do that, and then we’re gonna see, okay, how did this actually perform? What can we change? What can we improve on? Should we do this one again before we go to the next one? And then that just, it keeps you in the consistent habit of optimization as well. So once you practice that and you get to your future, ideal state, perfect case scenario, you’ve gone through X amount of phases of

29:34
process improvement and optimization for your business and now you’re more comfortable with doing that, on the fly, on the daily for your business because you know what that looks like and you’re more comfortable in those areas to quickly adapt, quickly change, quickly make adjustments as you go. So that way you’re not only fulfilling the entire goal, but I mean, you’re being able to practice that in different areas of your business as well. And then if you keep operating like that,

30:04
you will have a optimized business. You’ll have a business that is in alignment with all of the things in regards to your purpose. And you’re gonna be on that path to reaching that perfect case scenario quicker every single time. So that’s just one way you could do that. So there are like very, very different, very many ways you could implement Lean in your business that is just one of the smaller.

30:32
more actionable pieces that you could take with you and implement easily without, you know, needing to know anything else. And I mean, that’s the the whole point of Lean is not you’re not needing to learn anything else. You’re not needing to have the knowledge of something else. It’s not a course. It’s not a certificate. It’s a I mean, of course there are those things but for you know what we’re using it for in our businesses, it’s it’s the act of

31:00
the improvement, it’s the act of optimization, it’s the act of efficiency. So I mean, it’s not a specific thing where you’re like, well, I don’t wanna think about that. I mean, I don’t want to, it just seems too difficult. It seems too like, just cause I don’t know about it, I don’t wanna sit down and have to like take the time to learn something. You’re not doing that. You’re focusing on specific things in your business through strategic routines that you, I mean, the plan to study Act 1 is something that you probably

31:29
do in some sort of fashion, it’s just not categorizes that. So I mean, taking away, like I said earlier, the naming convention of things will kind of help. But also having the awareness will help you, you know, expand upon that as well. And I think lots of times I’ve had people say that they’re really like, oh, I’m not really sure I need that blah, blah, blah. But I know a lot of people that got into the

31:59
kind of was piling up. And then as they took on more people, it turned out that the productivity went down. So you hire 10 people, but that doesn’t 10x the income. Now you just have a ton of people who are confused, and they don’t know what’s going on, or there’s overlap, or.

32:19
all the things. Yeah, no. Exactly. And then you end up with the situation where we had a specific process that we were doing, which was really interesting, but it turned out that like four people were involved in this process, which meant that after a coaching session, one person informed another person that the coaching session, the one-off coaching session had happened. And then they informed another person, the salesperson to reach back out to the client about booking.

32:45
a package of coaching. So it basically meant that this process had like four people involved. And nobody even realized that this was what was happening. It was just the first person didn’t feel like they were well placed to be selling something else. And then they told the person that they had the best relationship with. And that person told the person that’s actually responsible, which in that case was now shipped off to sales. And then they would reach out to the client, but days would go by.

33:15
And the moment to really help that person and to book them onto more sessions that effectively has kind of passed. And really the fastest way to the goal was that the coach learns how to offer a coaching package there and then when the customer’s happy. And that was the end of it. So sometimes you can’t even see all this waste that is happening because it’s not you doing it.

33:40
Right. It is the 10 people that are working with you at this point that all have moments like this. Yes, that’s one of the approaches when it comes to just even getting started with Lean in general. I mean, the team involvement, you have to go to the direct line. You have to go to the front line. If you’re going to be able to, you know, fix these things or even be, like I said, aware of things, you should be aware. I know that as a CEO, you don’t need to know.

34:06
all the nitty gritty states of how something is done, but you need to have the understanding of how something is done. I mean, first and foremost, it’s your small business. You should understand. But secondly, if you ever have anybody else step into the role, yes, you probably have an SOP. But I mean, everyone should kind of have a general understanding as to how XYZ specifically happens, you know? So I mean, it goes back to team involvement as well. You have to get the people who are on the quote frontline, the people who are actually doing things. So that way you can.

34:33
increase those areas. And if you don’t know that specific things are happening in specific areas, maybe it’s time you have a quarterly audit where you sit down and have a planning meeting with everybody and you go through what everybody’s doing and you’re asking them if they’re seeing gaps. They’re the ones who are doing it. They probably have a lot more information to tell you about what they’re seeing as far as gaps goes. And they might not address that to you on the day-to-day basis. So I think it’s important to have those check-in moments as well, especially when.

35:01
in your auditing process, because you’re not just auditing your, you know, systems that are set up as far as like the tech side of things, and how things are moving in your funnel, like you need to be auditing, you know, what your what your team is doing, and how they’re how they’re operating. Are these standard operating procedures still, you know, benefiting us? Are they still getting the job done in the most efficient way? If not, let’s do something about it. We can take action on that. That’s definitely something that we can do. A good question I found is like, what’s the

35:30
Like just every time you think like, why am I doing this again? Like write it down. Waking up. And then the amount of times. Get, get out of bed. Yes. Leave the house. Open my eyes. Put on a bra. Yes, literally. Yes. I wonder, I could go on that list. Oh yeah. So it’s like, what are the things that are causing like some sort of friction or headache or annoyance in your life, like every single day and the amount of times that.

35:59
Sometimes your customer service person, for example, is not, they’re a people person. That’s why they’re doing what they’re doing. And they’re maybe not a techie person or a systems person. And if you have a techie person or a systems person, a lot of times they can help your customer support person to automate something that they’re doing via copy and paste currently 37 times a day. But they’re not even realizing that this could be automated. And that’s why. Yeah.

36:25
I don’t know, either you need to get in there or you need to have someone in the team or you need to take someone from the outside that can see this. I mean, thinking of that and like a perspective of like teams that I’ve been on in the past, I think even myself, I probably like, I have these thoughts of, you know, working in a lean fashion. But I mean, I know there’s definitely times where I haven’t, you know, stepped in in those areas and I probably should have, but not that I like didn’t want to, but I just didn’t think of that in that scenario. So I feel like it.

36:55
we should reiterate the importance to the business owner to make sure you’re having these conversations so that way you can let this person know, hey, if you ever took the initiative to do this, I would love that because I want my business to run efficiently as possible, or I want you to be able to speak up and let me know that this could happen or ask me if maybe you can sit with each specific person and see how they’re doing things and maybe you can help them.

37:24
make things easier for themselves. So I think putting that out there to the team is probably the first hurdle, because there’s probably a lot of people that I know, speaking from experience, where I can do all these things, but there’s definitely been a time where I’ve been in roles where it’s like, well, that’s, it’s just not something I’m thinking about, because my approach to it is like, okay, I’m coming to the team, this is what I do, blah, blah, blah, these are my roles, this is my task, and I stay in my lane, so I feel like.

37:50
There’s definitely room for me to improve in that aspect, but I feel like also just having that importance for the business owner to communicate that to the team and, you know, open that conversation to the floor. So that way the whole business can benefit from it. Cause it’s not just keeping things simple for the team players. That’s coming back for you. You know what I mean? That that’s your business. It is a huge cost factor. Like until you run the numbers on a waste of time, you have no idea how much.

38:18
Like we’re worried about, okay, add cost, cost per lead, like front end numbers, we have to know our numbers. And then you realize that you’re spending thousands every single month to get a job half done, half of which wouldn’t even need a person to be doing it anymore, and that person could be doing something else that would be way more helpful than what they’re actually doing. And I think it’s once you realize that cost…

38:43
that comes with these inefficiencies. I know it’s just one person wasting their time for 30 minutes a day. Well, chances are that you have, if you’re paying 10 people, you have 10 people wasting 30 minutes a day. And now like add that up over a year or five years. And it’s not just that immediate time waste, but also the lack of opportunity used for future growth. Because that’s what suffers. It’s just getting the day-to-day things done. Putting that into different buckets as well. Cause I mean, if you’re on that, you know,

39:11
procrastination side of things. You might wait until the last minute to get something done by the due date, but I mean, during that timeframe, you probably could have already got it done, and then, you know, been working on another initiative or done something else, so you’re like making progress to the future state of like what you like actually want to be doing. So I mean, that goes back to that as well. And I’m a victim of that.

39:34
I’m a victim of procrastination so badly. Yes, yes. Not that I put it off for any other reason other than like, oh, I know I can quickly get that done. So since I can quickly get that done, sometimes it slips in the bucket of that. So I’m not perfect, I’m a human. It’s not like you ever really relax in the meantime because you still know. You’re thinking about it, yeah. You have that stress. So save yourself some time and just do it.

40:03
Just get it done. So yeah, if you’re currently lying on the sofa, listening to this, because you were supposed to be doing something else. Yes. And then come back and then you can actually rest and relax because it’s not like you enter a relaxing state knowing that you have this eight hour thing that you’re gonna pull off in four hours. Yeah, you can sit there and scroll on TikTok all night, but you’re gonna be thinking about that specific, you know, thing that you’re working on. So I mean, yes, stay within your work boundaries. Don’t.

40:32
work outside of your boundaries, definitely. But make sure you’re doing what you need to do and meeting deadlines and stand on track and adjust your capacity and all the things. Yep, yep. Future you will thank today’s you for doing that. Every single time. I always do. Every single time. Every time, I’m like, oh, I’m so glad I did that.

40:54
Yes. Yeah, I’m so glad I spent all the two minutes that it took to do the thing. I’ve been putting off for two days. Literally. Yeah, you’re not going to be thinking yourself on the very last day of getting a project done and be like, Oh, I’m, I’m so thank you. Thank you, Brooke, for waiting until you know, the last minute for me to do an eight hour project on a day I have other things going on. No, yeah, no, probably not. No, at least I haven’t met that day. Yeah. Right. Right.

41:19
Okay, so if someone’s at the point now where they’re like, hey, I think I have a dumpster fire going on behind the scenes. And I need to get some help. Where can people go to find out more about you and about potentially getting help to clean the dumpster fire up? Yeah, so dumpster fires are my specialty, honestly. That verbiage should be on my website. That is literally my specialty. The majority of my one-to-one clients come to me in a dumpster fire. So I’m…

41:48
totally okay with it, no judgment, literally throw your fires at me. I love putting them out, I love that. You can find me on Instagram, my handle is at ops.analyst.brooke. Brooke is spelled with an E the correct way, I’m just kidding. But that’s where you can find me, that’s where I’m typically at. I do have all the other social platforms as well that they’re probably linked somewhere on my links page, but that’s where I show up the most. So you can…

42:16
probably organically find me there. And then as far as working together, I do have a one-to-one space open. So if you are interested in that, we can definitely chat. Other than that, I have VIP implementation project sprints. So whether it is a day capacity, a week capacity, two week to six week, depending on the project, I’m also there in a project capacity to help with those fires. So just whatever you’re looking for, I got you, send me a DM on Instagram.

42:46
We’ll figure it out. And I’ll make sure I’ll put the link, correctly spelled of course, into the show notes as well so that it’s easy to find. So yeah. Thank you so much for coming and joining us today. As I said, I’m gonna put all the links in the show notes and then hopefully if that comes across anyone who’s like, oh yeah, mm-hmm, that sounds like a problem that I’m having, they can get a hold of you and get some help.

43:13
Perfect. Awesome. Yeah, thank you for having me.