Operations Focused Team Building feat. Veronica Yanhs

Narrator 0:00
You’re listening to the all systems go podcast, the show that teaches you everything you need to know to put your business on autopilot. Learn how to deploy automated marketing and sell systems in your business the right way with your host, the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge, Chris Davis.

Chris Davis 0:32
Welcome everybody to another episode of The all systems go podcast. I’m your host, Chris L. Davis, the founder of automation bridge. And, you know, I love what I do, everyone. So welcome. You’re about to embark on a conversation, that every time I get together with this person, it’s just stuff happens and you can’t orchestrate it. You can’t plan it. You can’t handpick it. It’s just certain people have certain synergies. And I think one it’s due to personality, but also the type, the type of business that we do our expertise, excuse me is a perfect complement. And today, I want to highlight operations. Okay, I want to highlight operations. And the best way the best practice the best approach for you to successfully install them into your business so that you can it you can achieve a lot of the efficiency that I teach on that automation can provide. But I’ve witnessed in the marketplace, a lot of people trip up over operations they either are not aware of. That’s what’s causing them that’s their stumbling block has a lack of focus on it. Or they just simply don’t know how to do it. All right. So today’s guest is none other than Veronica. Veronica yawns now, you are my faithful listeners. You’ve seen her before you you have seen where’s the rarity? You’ve seen Veronica before. And she came on the first podcast is episode 153. And we were talking about orgasmic operations and that was our introduction to show you just how exciting and how excited she gets over helping you grow your business. So let me do my proper intro so we can jump into it. But from spreadsheets to the bedsheets Veronica yawns is completely open about who she is a CEO, kinky feminist, and a budding plant mom, creator of the orgasmic operations method, she and her team at business, Les Baer, help growth stage startups and organizations create streamline operations and processes. So they can maximize their revenue potential, make marketing and sales even more effective, and create an empowering an empowering environment for their teams to thrive with pleasure and ease. For Ronica. Welcome to the podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. I wrote, you wrote that? I was.

Veronica Yanhs 3:18
I was like, wow, whoever wrote that, I think I think that’s pretty great. Because and I say this, because operations is something that you and I get really excited about. But it sometimes it’s really hard for people to understand just what good operations in a business in a nonprofit in a startup, it doesn’t matter what type of organization it is organizations, if you are doing something and if you have people, if you have people that you’re also impacting you need operations. And it’s just like, yes, all those things like we were just talking about offline, like ease smoothness, like how do you just have a well oiled machine that you can absolutely trust to do what it needs to do to have the impact. It has to make the income you want it to make. While you are as the CEO as the founder doing what you do best and trusting fully that it’s going to be able to take care of you, your team members, your clients, your customers, and even your stakeholders. So thank you for that intro. I surprised myself.

Chris Davis 4:29
Yes, yes. You know, I’ve been told many times, it’s like, Chris, I need to hire you to read my intro. It just seems to sound different, I guess. But I’m glad to have the honor of having you on. So listen, everybody, as I mentioned, Veronica was on episode 153. So you can go to the website, automation bridge.com forward slash podcast, we have the search box right there. You could just type in 153 it’ll come right up. And I’m saying that because we’re not going to go into like all the history and Hey, how did you get into opera? aerations I want to dive right into it. But if you want to know more about our backstory, you can go there episode 153 will also link to it in the show notes. So Veronica, I, we we have an important conversation to have here. And there is something happening in both of our industries, operations and automation, that is really doing a disservice to the end user, which is the business owner. And that is good thing that people are going online, there’s a great thing people are going on. Online, they’re more comfortable with marketing, selling all of the purchasing all of these things. But with that comes the irresponsibility of the use of words that really have a meaning and a purpose. But they don’t know that. So now, ops can mean anything to anybody. Because somebody said, Hey, hey, you need to get ops in place. And Veronica, you hear it? And you’re like, yes, streamline systems, absolutely. increase your effectiveness. And you say, so do you have that? They’re like, Oh, no, I’m at social media posting, she needed that she needed to get on our social media postings. Like, actually, that’s not ops, I can see where you got confused. With that’s not really operations. So now, I want to give you the floor here and define to people, what is operations? And how should they be thinking about it? What is the definition? And what are the the the things that you want them to hear in associate with operations?

Veronica Yanhs 6:36
Yeah, and before I start, operations, like automation can is a really, really big word. It’s just like saying, I do design, I do marketing, well, what kind of design, what kind of what kind of marketing? Right, I get that. So operations is a very big breath of, of a category. And I think the reason why I’ve been so comfortable and just staying in the word operations is because I’m using that word, and especially when I pair it with orgasmic well, one, it’s fun, and two, it’s trademark, but three, it really showcases and challenges people and CEO that I want to say people like I’m thinking CEOs, entrepreneurs, any executive directors like when they think operations, oftentimes, it’s just like this little checkbox that they think they need to check, or it’s like, oh, I don’t really need to focus on operations, because I’m focused on sales, outreach, marketing, product development. And it’s like, well, what happens when all of those things work? What happens when sales are coming in? People are your business is growing, you’re hiring now. It’s just instead of going from just me, you’re going from me to we to them, they it’s like what happens when everything’s happening in your organization. This is where operations comes in. And there’s so many types of different operations. And in the world, there’s like design operations, there’s marketing operations, there’s internal operations, there’s revenue operations, there’s any word you put out there operations. And the reason why that is, is because operations is about creating structure, creating reliable and consistent processes of the thing that came before it. And so when people ask me like, oh, well, operations are not important, or it doesn’t apply to me, it’s like, actually, if you take nothing away from this podcast episode, remember this operations is the how it’s really just the how that makes your what your business goals, your impact goals, your revenue, goals, your dreams, your desires, your vision, come to life, and hopefully a much more effective, efficient and profitable way. Meaning if you have this dream of like creating an impact to have 1000 People of Color teenagers be able to get freelance jobs, because they historically have not been able to because they didn’t have the hours needed to be able to land internships, operations can help you actualize that mission, that goal, that vision that much faster, and hopefully with less money leakage out of your pocket, because if you’re not operating efficiently, you’re paying for it somewhere. So if you take nothing away operations is the how that makes your what come to life. So that means that everybody’s doing operations in their organization. Yep. It’s how you’re taking action to get from A to B to whatever milestones you’re trying to hit.

Chris Davis 9:39
Yeah, and I love how you mentioned, it’s what, like, you can put operations in front of whatever, or whatever the thing is in front of operations, right? So I can put marketing in front of operations. Then I have marketing ops, right, I can put revenue in front operations and I have revenue ops. So It to me, it really made sense. And I know listen, I hear you in the future everyone listening to this, they’re like, What are Mart? What is marketing ops? What What are revenue ops? Are you going to go now each one of those? Not today? Later, definitely could and have an episode for each one. In fact, let me say this if if that type of content is like burning your ears, like I need to know this, I need to hear what are rev ops? What are marketing ops? What are sales ops, let us know, let us know we’ve got a new way for you to reach out and that’s holler at automation bridge.com, h o l l e r at automation bridge.com Send us an email. And it’s my way of understanding what my listeners really want. And it’s very easy for you to just send the email off, it will not be added to a list. And you will not be mass emailed. It is literally a inbox to collect feedback from the from the podcast. So with that being said, we’re going to talk about more of what what what would I call this, let me define it. When someone is looking, let’s say someone starts their business. Right? And you talked about me, we they. So they’re in the MES zone. They’re doing everything. And they start to look at we and they’re like, Ooh, wait, he’s looking a little attractive, little more attractive than me right now. Right? So they go out, and they want to start building a team? What is that call? What would you classify that operations? And that type of operations? I say, and how do I approach that? Do I know there’s one methodology that’s like, hey, replace all your hands with managers to replace your managers with strategists, replaced a strategist with overseers replace your overseers and you’re out the business. And then others are like, get a strategist in to hire the operations that will hire your managers and then hire the doers. So what what where do we go? How do I get from me to we,

Veronica Yanhs 12:10
let’s talk about this. And for the record, I don’t really have any, like catchy name or anything for this like, to me, it always came out to be hiring your dream team, because, well, basketball will always be my first love. And that’s what I think about. But in terms of all those strategies that you had just listed, the thing that doesn’t sit right with me on that is that it’s very, very general, and also very rigid and formulaic. And it doesn’t take into account the unique awesomeness and skill sets and strengths that we each have as founders as entrepreneurs. So this is how I like to think about it. And before we go into an exercise, like I can actually give you a tactical exercise on this episode, right now we can have a short and sweet episode, whatever it is that you need. But this is something that gets me so excited, because people are constantly saying you need in order to grow your business you need to hire, you may be ready to hire, but is your organization? Because if the answer is yes, and then the answer is no, your organization is not ready to hire meaning you don’t have the right systems processes onboarding and training stuff, you’re basically going to be playing glorified babysitter, and you’re not setting anybody up for success. Least of all, the team member who basically wanted to come do good, because if they’re coming in, at this point in your business, they’re there. They do have some belief that you can, you can do whatever it is that you want to do, and they want to support you in getting there. Or they could have just gone somewhere with like a big, you know, big company, right? So to me, this is like a very, very special place in my heart, because it’s all about people. Like for me how I look at operations is people first and pleasure filled. And it’s a very different way of looking at operations, because it used to be all, Oh, it’s all systems. And when they think systems, it’s apps and automations. And I’m just like, No, that’s just the tip. So to answer your question as to how I look at operations, and what we do for our clients is, we actually have them first list out what their goals are, like, I’m literally talking three months, six months and 12 months goals, because five year plans and 10 year plans are they used to be enough but like what things had and how fast they’re moving lately, and nowadays, it’s like, it’s not worth it, things shift. So once you actually list out all the goals and the milestones that you want to hit, then I have this exercise where if you have a piece of paper, if you happen to have a piece of paper handy right now, what I would like you to do is think of like a tic tac toe box. So usually that’s like a three by three square you can draw circles. And in the very center, I want you to put yourself there and then I want you to list all of your are strengths and zones of genius things that you want to be focusing on in your business. And then an all the surrounding boxes or circles around it. So if I drew that, that means that I should have maybe eight, eight circles and squares around it, start listing out things that you need done, that you shouldn’t be doing so that you can stay in your zones of genius and focus on what you’re good at. And the reason why I say this is because people are often like, I need to hire a strategist or I need to hire an assistant. So hands, head, hands, heads, it doesn’t matter. Because it’s very formulaic. But now I’m asking like, what is it that you truly need? Is it I need someone to do my sales calls for me because I don’t like sales, or I need someone to take the scheduling stuff off my plate and keep my email inbox clean, because otherwise I’m going to be overwhelmed. So when you begin looking at what you need in terms of tasks, rather than roles, because as Chris, you and I talked about off camera, a creative director, or an OBM, in one business, probably will do many different things. First, in the second business, and in the third business like titles to me, and roles to me mean nothing but tasks and action. The house. That is That means everything to me.

Chris Davis 16:30
Yeah. You mentioned, you mentioned hands to just jump in real quick. You mentioned hands and head, this may be a new, a new idea for people listening, what what what are hands that we all have hands in heads? What is she talking about? What exactly?

Veronica Yanhs 16:50
Yeah, so hands are people who are task oriented people who are waiting for you to give them a task or something to do. Whereas someone who’s strategy oriented heads, they are hot, they are hired or brought on to create direction to create the plan. Like for instance, if you hired a virtual assistant, a lot of people when I see this online, and they’re like, Oh, well, my virtual assistant should be able to do this and this and this and this, and I’m just like, oh, create marketing strategy and executing like that is not a virtual assistant. And that’s actually not fair at all. Because then you’re like, under paying somebody for a skill set, that should be so much like so much. So much more money should be allocated than what their chart, they’re asking this person to say, okay, per hour is. So when you talk about hands versus heads and who you need to hire, it’s like first list of all the things that you need off your plate, because then at least I know, hey, I can take all of these things I need off my plate, and then now you can group them into into a role. So you’re essentially creating a role that is unique to your business and exactly what you as the founder need to do what you do best, rather than say, I just need a marketing director or a marketing assistant. It’s like, what does that really mean? So when you then look at all the things that you need off your plate, and you group them together, you get to create your own role, and it’s tailored exactly to who you are looking for what you need. And you can be so much more specific in the responsibilities and accountabilities area, and also figure out how to create process. And not to get back to this hands versus head thing because I’m having like two conversations at once. Because this is where this is where my brain lives. Yeah. If you do not have the operational or business experience to be able to create that strategy. This is then where you need to hire someone that is strategy minded to help you. So for instance, Chris, like you and I, we’re pretty good at operations and automations Sure, we can hire someone ahead, strategy to maybe give us insight or another perspective that we might not have. But I would say I would say we both know what we’re doing. So this is where then because I have the strategy and capability I can be more confident hiring someone that’s task oriented and hands because I can create the strategy and tell them what to do. But on the flip side, I know nothing about Facebook ads, and to hire an assistant to do Facebook ads where I lacked the experience. So it’s like the blindfolded leading the blindfolded. That is not a good use of anybody’s time. So if I don’t have the experience or the knowledge this is where I would go hire someone that’s ahead or strategy oriented to help create the systems the process the strategies, that then I could go hire somebody hands wise to do for me or I do myself.

Chris Davis 19:59
I see He’s a very

Veronica Yanhs 20:00
long winded answer to two questions.

Chris Davis 20:05
So good now now we get into the dialogue, everyone. And you. First off, you have me thinking, Veronica that I love the tic tac toe board because you being the center, and you identifying your zone of genius, that is what dictates your approach to hiring in the marketplace. Not some scripted, hey, do this this than that. Because as, as you the example you gave if you’re already operational, if you have that capacity to do and be strategies. So if you’re not, if you’re not on YouTube watching this, Veronica has drawn on her iPad, a circle in the middle in those eight areas right around the circle. And it it’s so it’s so simple, it feels wrong to not have known this prior to right. But people always get this messed up because they’re like, oh, so and so hired a social media person. Who was it? I need social media too. And it’s like, well, pause timeout. Did you go through the exercise? What’s your zone of genius, you can’t hire that social media person, because you have no heads that understand social media. So now you’re relying on hands to be both. And that’s not going to work? That’s not fair. Yeah, it’s not fair to either one, either one, right.

Veronica Yanhs 21:30
And so when it comes to hiring, and especially when it comes to operations, for me, at least, we, we get into this situation all the time, we see a an organization, they either have operational team members, maybe like 123, even. But they all don’t necessarily know what they’re doing. Like they know that something sucks. They know that things hurt things, or chafing. But they lacked that strategy to know how to go beyond the band aid solution. And so that’s why that’s why we get hired because even if you are a company with the CEO, oh, like I said, at the end of the day, we’ve worked with companies that have CEOs, Director of Operations, like any type of like, title down the line, it doesn’t matter, because I like I said to me, titles are really, really obsolete. And then when you’re able to help the CEO, actually create strategy that they might not have the experience to, it allows them to be able to stay in their zone of genius, maybe continue managing the day to day business, because they don’t have time to think of more strategy, because the business is so busy, and already in itself. And this is where we come in. And what I love doing is being able to take team members that have been hired as hands, and give them that knowledge so that they become strategy oriented, so that when we inevitably leave, everybody’s set up for success, we’ve taught them how to fish in the best of ways so that they can be more proactive and helpful for their team members. And oftentimes, when companies don’t have CEOs we love to work with our clients say, hey, instead of hiring a CEO, hire us we’ll create all the systems and processes and the strategies you need will help you hire an Operations Coordinator, manager, whatever the title is, so that they can be promoted to the CEO role, if it’s right when we’re ready to leave. And that team member has buy in that team members here because they care. That caring aspect in hiring is so rare, because a lot of times people are just there for the money. So it’s like when you’re able to nurture someone with good operations, it keeps them around like good operations, keeps talent so that you’re not just like this revolving door of hiring and firing.

Chris Davis 23:56
Yeah, I agree to that. Because there, there was a time in my business where my operations were all over the place. I mean, we were doing everything and stuff was last minute there was real, there really wasn’t any structure. It was just kind of like throwing it out there. And let’s hurry up and get it done no SOPs in place that you know, very, it was a stressful environment. And I had created it, Veronica, because of my time in the startup space. And usually, a lot of startups will operate like that, you know, it was not uncommon for me to wake up in the morning, check Voxer or check my email and say, Hey, last night we decided to run a promo Can we get a landing page up by noon, right? And I’m like, oh, shoot, okay, landing, build a landing page, get it connected. So I just

Chris Davis 24:50
carelessly took that approach into my business. But when I saw how regular freelancers responded to that type of chaos and lack lack of structure and systems. It scared people away. And I lost some really good hands. I know I did. I didn’t know at the time why. But looking back, you know, I knew it before but hearing you say it, it’s just kind of reiterating and highlighting it to someone, someone who’s listening that may have done the same thing, or maybe you’re experiencing that, like, why do people keep leaving? It may be because your ops are are lacking quite a bit. So let me ask you this, I was thinking about this while you were talking about the heads and hands and you in the middle and everything focused on around your zone of genius and complementing that. I’m going to shoot out some scenarios here. And I want you to advise this fictitious avatar or two or three that I’m about to give you on how you would approach their, their situation. Okay, so I’m gonna give you use case number one, two hits, you have somebody who’s very strategic, very operations focused. And they’re really good at what they do. And they can do some implementation. And what they did is they went in and watched a webinar, and the person said, hey, you need to hire an opera, online operations specialists, Oh, s, to put an O S in your business. And they’re like, Yes, I need an operations person. And they hire that person. Now they have two heads. And the head that they hired may not be as strategic or as well versed in marketing as them. What then do they do? What would you invite advised him to do?

Veronica Yanhs 26:48
Yeah, so this is where we come in, like, we can’t, that we don’t talk about goals enough. Because to meet goals are kind of like the North Star. And that maybe goals is not the right thing. You can even set a theme or intention, some things so that you’re not just operating, running a business without any direction, there’s something that you want to accomplish, whether it’s in the short term in the long term. So if I was to come into the situation and talk to both team members, it’s like, well, what is this founders skill set? Write them all down? Because you said that they had operational skills? I want to know what that is. Yeah, yeah. I also want to know, okay, you got your skills, your strengths, like, I operate on strengths so much, but also maybe because that’s baggage from me come being brought up, you know, Asian, and you’re supposed to elevate your your weaknesses, right? And I’m just like, that’s not efficient at all. I’d rather like make your strength that much better. So what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What are your goals, and then I’m going to have the same the operations person that they hired, do the same thing. Oh, so this, this, this quarter, we want to run a lot of webinars and maybe do some lives, turn them into evergreen style, like, be able to have upsells down cells, like create this whole like end to end, run Facebook ads at it. And if this operations person has none of the skill sets that the operation person needs, the founder needs, because they have to play now both roles, right, your CEO and CEO. And it’s like, well, this is if the operations person that they hired doesn’t have the skill set to be able to create like processes and automations for landing pages, like what happens when somebody signs up for your, for your, your webinar? Are they going to be able to get tagged correctly in the email marketing system? And then what happened? Like they don’t have to be responsible for writing the email copy. But it’s like, do they have the skill set to be able to build like the automations, the structure everything you need to go from live to Evergreen? And to manage all that? And they are upsells and down cells, etc? And the answer is yes. Great. This is where they can begin to write down what it is they need, pass it on to the operations person and have them run with it. Right? If you have the skill set to accomplish what I need, I don’t need to babysit you. And hopefully, please write some SOPs and documents and videos as to how you’re doing something so that the person we hire next doesn’t have to like learn from scratch. Then on the flip side, though, if that operations person says I only know how to build clickup dashboards, and Knowshon dashboards and airtable dashboards, but I don’t know anything about how to use Active Campaign if that’s what you use or infusion I clearly I don’t I’m not in the online business world enough anymore. It’s not Infusionsoft anymore. That’s it. Yeah. But you get what I mean, right? If their skill set then doesn’t align that means that this person is just what hired to keep the founder company because you can’t really like support them. So that’s what I would do in this scenario is basically ask where what it was that you’re good at? What is it you’re not good at? And what is it that you want to accomplish in your business in the next 90 days. And if this person you hired cannot support you in doing so then they were not a good hire to begin with. Yeah, then you should look for a different hire.

Chris Davis 30:15
So what I hear you saying is, if they have the capacity to carry the operational baby that you have birthed and you’re taking care of, then you can hand it over to them. And because they have that domain expertise, they can then even if it’s not their strong suit the doing because they have that expertise, they can also more accurately hire the hands to do the doing. Yeah, because their mind knows that space and what it takes

Veronica Yanhs 30:49
absolutely like you if you hired me, and I had like startup experience, but no online experience, that can also be the difference between you getting out your launch sequences. That much faster versus like delaying by months, because you’re having to teach this person the online business space. So everybody’s mileage may vary. But if you said if Chris, you said like, hey, I want to do a webinar, I want to launch a webinar to this program or something. And then have it be evergreen, because I have like a group coaching program I always want to have open. Can you run with it? I was like, Yeah, well, first, we need to gather needs and requirements. That’s something that people don’t talk about enough his needs and requirements. I would basically say, Yes, I can do all that. But I actually need to know like, what, what is your overall vision? And I can fill in the blanks, because I’m detail oriented that way. What would you like the end product to look like? How do I know I’ve been successful, and then I can run with it and give you iterations back. But if I said like, um, I don’t know how to build automations, but I can do everything you told me to do. That’s a different vibe, right? You’re gonna be like, Oh, the lot more hand holding. And that’s it. That’s okay. There are people who are out there that you’re just like, I need somebody to take all of my podcast episodes that I’ve done, I need you to transcribe them all, or do whatever it is you need to do to like, create, like, bite sized content. If you give them an SOP, and they know how to follow it, then that’s great. But if you’re asking them to create a process, they might not know how to do so.

Chris Davis 32:21
Yeah, that’s really good. You know, I’m thinking about me, as you’re talking. And I think about my team, my current structure. And I’ve got, we recently had like an all hands meeting, and one of the most consistent thing, and it surprised me that people said about working in the company was how much they learn, right? It’s like, Oh, my God is working here. I’ve just grown so much and learn so much. And I wasn’t expecting that. I just Well, I don’t know what I was expecting, honestly, Veronica, but it was refreshing. It was refreshing to hear it. And putting it in context of this conversation. It’s because I have operational expertise. And I can better instruct my hand, if you give me a pair of hands, I will make them beautiful, they can be all beat up and crusty and Rusty, I can make some hands beautiful, right? So if I’m looking at the, the zone of genius for me, it is would be like getting more hands in place. So that I can strategize and build out more operations to force somebody else with that can partner with my mind to take over. Right? Like, that’s how I see my path to growth. So let’s flip it in. I think I know the answer to this. So everybody, I’m learning on the fly here. I’m like testing her framework as, as I’m talking. Let’s go the other way where you are not operationally sound at all. And I tend to see founders who are kinda like more so visionaries. Right? Never seen a bad idea. Everything’s possible. You know, the second you tell them? No, they heard Yes. It’s like, no, they were wrong here there. This is definitely possible. You can put a house in the clouds. I know it’s possible is like, Oh, what are we trying to do here? Right. So you have that person. And then they go out and they attended a webinar. I said, Hey, look at how to hire offshore talent. They they went to a conference and everyone’s like VA nation, you need five years and look at $5 million coming to your account. And they go out and they hire vas. So now they’ve got hands all over the place. What you come into that company, what is it that you’re instructing them to do and why I think I get it now but because you’re going to do the same thing you did prior. But what does that set up that avatar? What is that screen to you?

Veronica Yanhs 34:53
We’ve seen so and there’s no judgement if you’re listening to this, you’re going oh crap, that’s me. There’s no judgment like the fact that you’re listening to this episode and that you care, and that this is something that you want to implement into your business, it’s like, this is what makes me happy, like no judgment zone whatsoever. So when I go into a business like this, and it happens all the time, this in fact, this person had actually 10 hands. She was a, it’s her. She, we work with a lot of subject matter expertise, or people who are like, engineers, or they like have come up with a product idea. Yep. They don’t know how to code, they just want to build the thing. They don’t know how to run a business, or we have someone’s like, I accidentally fell into a business, meaning I wanted to create this widget or something, sell it on Etsy. And suddenly, there’s like, a lot of demand. And then I was told, maybe I can create a business from this. So you, you know what you know. But it’s not business. And it’s not operations. And now you have to like hire all these people to like, manage all the things. So this is where we come in as the the heads, people like us then get hired to say, Okay, we’re going to set the strategy, so that we actually know where it is that you want to go. And maybe all these hands that you hired, you don’t actually need all of these people, because we’ve determined like an architect, you don’t really build unless you have a blueprint, right. So we have an exercise that we walk our clients through that we create for them called the operations blueprint. It’s essentially like a mind map. I love visuals. Because when you make operations, visual, founders and CEOs get really excited, and they’re like, oh, it’s not so like, hairy, scary. And when we’ve understand all the areas like marketing, operations, revenue, operations, internal operations, I don’t do financial operations. But we, you know, we keep that bubble there, but to say, Hey, this is not our expertise, it allows us then set the strategy. So here are all the systems and processes, you need to go from here, to there in the most efficient way. And here is what the support looks like. You can only there’s only so many hours in the day. And if you’re doing multiple things at once, like you’re doing marketing campaigns, and you’re also wanting to make sure that there’s somebody to like, handle the team members, and now you have like 10 hands, we would tell them exactly what it is that they need to do. And then also work with and maybe identify out of the pool of 10, which we identified to actually to kind of pull them up and say, Hey, can you be we like to promote you more as like, instead of a hands, it’s like hands plus, like manager style, so that you can we can teach you what we want to teach you. And have you help support the team members, because they probably are not sure what they’re doing as well. They’re just getting handed tasks left and right. And if there’s no rhyme or reason, they might not know any better if the, if the founder has not imparted that information, like why is so important. When team members understand why they do what they do. Their work ethic is different, the efficiency, the efficacy is different. So we would come in and say, here are all the systems you need to make it better here are then the systems that need to be created. Not only we’re telling them what but it’s like here’s the process map that we’re giving them so that they can actually implement it. And then either we implement it for them, if they do not have the skill set, or we teach the people that we feel could be promoted and could learn the strategy that would be helpful when we inevitably leave to do it with them. So it’s the same concept ish, but it’s more like if we already know that this person has no experience and they’re all they’ve hired all hands, it most likely means that there is no operational strategy, no project plan, no work back schedule, and we go in, interview them all because we always people first and pleasure filled really means we talk with people to understand their needs, requirements, all that good stuff, and, and then we move forward. And then we build and make everything as smooth and seamless as possible. While mentoring them.

Chris Davis 39:00
This is this is good because I I just saw this. It’s like you become the borrowed brain. Right? They don’t have it they don’t have it in the but I was I was talking about you being the borrowed brain. Right? They don’t have they hired the hands and they don’t know how to utilize them effectively. And this goes back when I when I think about your bio, how you were talking about making marketing and sales more effective, right, like making you more effective is is okay you’re missing the brain, you CEO or not the brain, but you have hands don’t know how helpful they are and don’t know how many you need. But let’s introduce a brain so that we can really start to make sense of this right? And then I I would say in the first case, it is there’s a brain there. So you’re coming in to assess if this is the right brain, that would be able to be coupled with hands enhance plus, to be able to achieve the goal. Both cases, you need to understand what the goal is, because that’s what you’re assessing the hands. And that’s how you’re going to operate as a brain, whether it’s borrowed or whether you’re you’re brokering, you know, to get things done. So to me that, that makes sense. So so what I do everybody is I try not to talk too much to Veronica or any of the guests beforehand, because I like to discover and put myself in your seat while we’re going. So that I feel like it makes for better content when someone is not like seating the questions and like, Okay, here’s everything that we’re going to ask. So this is not scripted. And I’m actually learning this. As we speak, I’ve seen Ronak, I’ve just seen so many different team dynamics, I really have. And it’s different. Working in a startup where you’ve got capital to just hire people and build out departments, you’re essentially hiring brains and hands at the same time, you don’t have that leeway, you don’t you don’t have that elasticity. And when you’re a small business, because you stretch a little too far you’re going to break, they can stretch and bounce back, stretch and bounce back, there’s some some rubber band in them, but there is absolutely nothing you you will snap, it’s like that rusty rubber band that’s been out the bag for so long, it’s so low, you just pull it a little bit in the snaps. And I want people to be mindful of it. And hiring or team building can be very overwhelming. It can be very overwhelming because they just don’t know where to start. So third avatar, what about the person who is me focused, doesn’t have an extra head doesn’t have any hands. But they want to start i I can envision the tic tac toe circle map, I know you’re going to run them through that and find their zone of genius. But what could what should somebody like that expect? Is it hiring a company like yours that takes runs everything for them for a while and then starts to find people to then take over those those processes? Or is it like, Okay, we’ll show you where to get started? And once you get started, then come back to us? And you know, we’ll be figured out? What is the path for that person?

Veronica Yanhs 42:38
Yeah, my favorite path is the one where we’re in it with them. But we’ve worked with so many clients where so when we work with fine, let me just back up. We there’s always an a phase where we audit and assess what’s going on, because I think it’s irresponsible for consultants just to say like, oh, based on the sales call or 120 minute chat, I know exactly what you need. Granted, one, I have done this long enough, and that based on the 20 minute call that we have or 30 minute call, I know what our clients more or less need. But then the assessment phase, the audit, we get to go into the nitty gritty, we’re looking at their tech stack, we’re looking at what their project management looks like sales process, and we’re looking at everything we’re looking at where they’re leaking money, what are some potential future problems that we can anticipate that they don’t even have the capacity to be able to anticipate? So when you’re giving this full information to the clients, depending on who they are a skill set time availability, resource like money, money availability, we give them this assessment and we trust that they will know what the answer is in terms of do they need to go forth and do it themselves for a little bit because they need to figure out more about their business instead of just like the day to day show up. I think I know how to do this, or do they like okay, I have this goal I like I know that in this the numbers check out I’ve done the math, we can make a set we can miss this this can become seven figures plus whatever in the next 13 to 24 months. We just need you to do it because I have no capacity to do it. So at the end of the day, there is no wrong answer. Because we’re not here to like force anybody upon something I’m just biased because I love to be partnering with our clients because like I was telling you co creation and collaboration really get me excited when we’re able to work with them when we can see the shift in their, in their, in their mental and like mental load and whitespace show up because we’re able to create this change. It’s very, very gratifying when they’re like, Oh, I used to hate systems. And I thought this was just something I needed. But now I’m just like I am in it. I get to make the decision. I’m about to be a mom soon. I don’t want to take sales calls. anymore. So how might we make this operational experience more pleasurable for everyone involved so that I can still keep my business running? When I’m when I’m tired of being a mom and I need some, like, adult stimulation and conversation? How am I we switch up the sales process. And I’m like, Oh, well, we could do an application process, there’s so many different ways that don’t really necessarily involve you showing up on camera if you do not feel good. So this is where the word pleasure comes in a lot like a lot of people discount feeling because we’re either told to or maybe it’s the natural, the natural way that somebody exists, like my partner. And I’m just like, your intuition is telling you something. trust it. Yeah, and as you’re most likely the right one, and if we’re not meant to work with you until later, so be it because if working with you now, and it doesn’t like make sense, or it’s stressing you out even more, that’s not going to be a good experience for anybody. So when we come into a business, the phases are always assess, implement, and then like refine, because you can’t just one night stand your operations, I’m not just gonna build your operations, and the systems and processes and call it done. It’s like, we got to test it, we got to stress it, we got to break it so that we can do so before the clients and customers come through it.

Chris Davis 46:14
Yes, yes, please do that, please do that. So I mean, I’m, I’m really enjoying this conversation. Because I think that a lot of times, there are so many good businesses that are the right opps away. Right, the right system away. And the reason I say it is because I see it all the time, you know, they’ll come to me prematurely for automation. And it’s just like, you know, what, I’ve got a, there’s a lot of potential here, but you’re not quite ready. And I’m not the one to sit down and process mapping and do all of this, I can I have that skill set. That’s not what I do for business, though, you know, I can pull it out of the back pocket if I need to, and use it. But you’re gonna want somebody that can do that, and partner with you in a brain capacity to give operations like how I envision it is there’s some off the shelf operations that you would say every business needs, right? So like, let’s implement those. And then let’s look at performance. How are things going? How close are we to your goal, you know, XYZ, then they start to tweak. I don’t do that. Right? So I’ve got to wait patiently.

Chris Davis 47:41
For those things to be in place. And now it’s like, Okay, would you like to increase the efficiency of such things. And now we can start talking about the introduction of technology. Now, the good thing with you is, you’re you’re building out the systems in the ops, with technology in mind, it’s not an afterthought, like, Oh, I didn’t realize we could send emails at that point. And it didn’t have to be somebody, right, like you’re aware of the technology. So I’m hoping I’m hoping that that’s encouraging for you all who have, who are either looking to hire. And if you’ve hired and you found yourself a little bit frustrated, hopefully some of these use cases that we gave, provide an insight on where that frustration is coming from. Because Ronak I can only imagine you see this more more often than me. But there’s, there can often be times where the right person can be placed in the company with the wrong expectation. And then the wrong person placed with the right expectation. Either way, there’s a frustration that the person looks at the person as the issue and not the actual system.

Veronica Yanhs 48:54
Pressure, like when we interview team members, we always interview team members. So if that’s something you want to take away, in for your business today, like just talk to your team members. Here, let me give you four easy questions you can ask or five? What’s going Well, right now? What’s not going well? Or if that doesn’t sit right with you? What could be better? Is there anything that you’ve learned in the role that you’re at? Like, these are pretty open ended questions, but enough for people to know? Like, if they want to take off on somewhere they can? And then the answer is always. And then the other one is like what’s your zone of genius? What is something that comes so naturally to you that it doesn’t feel like work? Because if you have somebody in their zone of excellence like that, to me is you’re really good at it just like you were just saying, Chris, you’re really good at it. But you’re like, I can do it really well. There’s there’s that that little shift changes everything. But when we put you in your zone of genius, to me, it’s about Yes, it’s caring about people but it’s also operational efficiency. as well, yeah. So it’s, it all ties together. So interview your team members ask them what their zone of genius is, because there’s nothing worse than saying someone who is like an expert, graphic designer, and they’re forced to like store emails every day. Right? You know what I mean? So it’s like, just talk to your team members don’t make assumptions. It’s okay, if you’re wrong, because the fact that you care, I don’t like we see all these articles about tech companies laying people off or that employees don’t feel taken care of. It’s just like, little things like this will show that you care, and will show them that you are invested in their well being. And that’s just like a win win for everybody.

Chris Davis 50:42
Yeah, yeah. hiring

Veronica Yanhs 50:45
team members, it’s a lot more responsibility than just treating people like robots. And I know that’s not our intention. But it’s just like, sometimes we default into what we’ve learned. And so this is why like, people first and pleasure field operations to me are so important, because it takes into account the humanity in all of us, that are affected by your operations, whether it’s an internal team or customers, stakeholders, investors, etc.

Chris Davis 51:13
Yeah, everybody’s impacted. And you, you just, you, you want to create an environment where everybody wins. And it is, as the owner of the company is your responsibility. I just really dislike finger pointing when someone’s not performing, because that’s often like, that’s the easy thing. Right? Like, you can look at somebody and be like, Oh, they’re homeless. It’s any idiot can see that. But why? What are the events that led up to that? Understand? Why is this person performing? Well, let me check myself, am I clear on my expectations? Did I clearly communicate? What’s what’s expected in this row? And then from what’s expected in this row? Is that even realistic? It? Did I just write three rolls into one job description. You know, so I would imagine to this is part of the interview process and understanding like, hey, based on what we found, you’ve got like, three people doing a 10 person job here. So all that frustration and in debate that you’ve had, and sometimes coming down hard on your team, that’s really a huge issue and less of them. So I just as a as a people, lead founder, meaning I lead with people in mind first, I just I, I will, I’ll take the blame before anybody else in a minute. So Veronica, I’ve, I’ve got to, it’s I wish I didn’t have to, but I’ve got to in this because I will keep going on this. I’m in my sweet spot here. There still, I still have questions. I’ve got notes in front of me, things that I wanted to ask, but we’ll get to them another time. Somebody listened to this tech founder, small business owner, somebody who is successful, and they just don’t know how to break through the current ceiling that they’re facing. And you may have said something or enlighten them, or perhaps opened a curiosity loop around operations. And maybe this is the missing piece that they’ve been looking for. Where can they find you? Where can they connect to to find out more and maybe even have to assess their business,

Veronica Yanhs 53:39
we have various ways in which we can hang out together. So you can sign up for my newsletter, just the tip. Wednesdays I sent out, I send out newsletters on Wednesdays because it’s hump day. For what like there’s what’s one small thing you can do to make your operations more pleasurable than it was yesterday. And sometimes a lot of is just even like introspective questions like, what’s going well, what’s not going well, right? So like little actionable things you can take, or you can even download my 50 Plus SLP ideas guide. So you’re like, Oh, I know, I need to create standard operating procedures, but I don’t know what to even create them on. Because there’s so many, this guy will give you ideas and also tell you what you should prioritize first, second, third, etc. And lastly, if you and I’ll give you all the links, if you want to work together, have us work on operations, magic on you assess your business or even like partner with you as like the operations brain. Absolutely. We can give you the link for that as well. And that to us is we start with operations audit, and then we move forward from there. So with all of this information, it’s like we’re giving people different ways in which they can become more process driven and rather than just solutions driven, because when you create process you’re taking In your habit, and you’re documenting it, and you’re able to then create this consistent, reliable, more easeful way of operating rather than just starting from scratch and creating such a heavy cognitive load on everybody. So newsletter, I got a guide, we can work together. I’ll give press all the links. So you’ve got options.

Chris Davis 55:23
Yes. So by the time you are here, this you will have the everything is in the show notes. So you can go to the show notes right now, and see all of those links, click them and take advantage at whatever level you’d like to so Veronica, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. I really appreciate it always a great time, automation and ops, it just, it just goes so well together, it flows so well. I think that there’s a lot of potential and really expounding on that to help these business owners properly leverage both for success so thank you for coming on the podcast

Veronica Yanhs 56:06
always having me. We’re getting in so much fun trouble. We’ve got ideas brewing, so yes, there

Chris Davis 56:11
are some ideas brewing. Yes, listeners, thank you for taking out the time. I’m always honored especially if you hear this this means you listen to the end. Oh my goodness, even if you listen at 2x speed thank you for listener listening thank you for your listenership

Chris Davis 56:30
and it does not go unseen and unappreciated. So thank you for that everybody. Continue continue continue to automate responsibly, my friends. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The all systems go podcast. If you enjoyed it, make sure that you’re subscribed at the time of recording the all systems go podcast is free to subscribe to, and it can be found in Apple podcast, Google podcast, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts new episodes are released every Thursday, so make sure you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss out on while you’re at it. Please leave us a five star rating and review to show some love but also to help future listeners more easily find the podcast so they can experience the value of goodness as well. We’ve compiled all resources mentioned on the podcast, as well as other resources that are extremely valuable and effective at helping you grow your marketing automation skills quickly. And you can access them all at all systems go podcast.com Thanks again for listening. And until next time, I see you online Automate responsibly, my friends.

Narrator 0:00
You’re listening to the all systems go podcast, the show that teaches you everything you need to know to put your business on autopilot. Learn how to deploy automated marketing and sell systems in your business the right way with your host, the professor of automation himself and founder of automation bridge, Chris Davis.

Chris Davis 0:32
Welcome everybody to another episode of The all systems go podcast. I’m your host, Chris L. Davis, the founder of automation bridge. And, you know, I love what I do, everyone. So welcome. You’re about to embark on a conversation, that every time I get together with this person, it’s just stuff happens and you can’t orchestrate it. You can’t plan it. You can’t handpick it. It’s just certain people have certain synergies. And I think one it’s due to personality, but also the type, the type of business that we do our expertise, excuse me is a perfect complement. And today, I want to highlight operations. Okay, I want to highlight operations. And the best way the best practice the best approach for you to successfully install them into your business so that you can it you can achieve a lot of the efficiency that I teach on that automation can provide. But I’ve witnessed in the marketplace, a lot of people trip up over operations they either are not aware of. That’s what’s causing them that’s their stumbling block has a lack of focus on it. Or they just simply don’t know how to do it. All right. So today’s guest is none other than Veronica. Veronica yawns now, you are my faithful listeners. You’ve seen her before you you have seen where’s the rarity? You’ve seen Veronica before. And she came on the first podcast is episode 153. And we were talking about orgasmic operations and that was our introduction to show you just how exciting and how excited she gets over helping you grow your business. So let me do my proper intro so we can jump into it. But from spreadsheets to the bedsheets Veronica yawns is completely open about who she is a CEO, kinky feminist, and a budding plant mom, creator of the orgasmic operations method, she and her team at business, Les Baer, help growth stage startups and organizations create streamline operations and processes. So they can maximize their revenue potential, make marketing and sales even more effective, and create an empowering an empowering environment for their teams to thrive with pleasure and ease. For Ronica. Welcome to the podcast. Welcome back to the podcast. I wrote, you wrote that? I was.

Veronica Yanhs 3:18
I was like, wow, whoever wrote that, I think I think that’s pretty great. Because and I say this, because operations is something that you and I get really excited about. But it sometimes it’s really hard for people to understand just what good operations in a business in a nonprofit in a startup, it doesn’t matter what type of organization it is organizations, if you are doing something and if you have people, if you have people that you’re also impacting you need operations. And it’s just like, yes, all those things like we were just talking about offline, like ease smoothness, like how do you just have a well oiled machine that you can absolutely trust to do what it needs to do to have the impact. It has to make the income you want it to make. While you are as the CEO as the founder doing what you do best and trusting fully that it’s going to be able to take care of you, your team members, your clients, your customers, and even your stakeholders. So thank you for that intro. I surprised myself.

Chris Davis 4:29
Yes, yes. You know, I’ve been told many times, it’s like, Chris, I need to hire you to read my intro. It just seems to sound different, I guess. But I’m glad to have the honor of having you on. So listen, everybody, as I mentioned, Veronica was on episode 153. So you can go to the website, automation bridge.com forward slash podcast, we have the search box right there. You could just type in 153 it’ll come right up. And I’m saying that because we’re not going to go into like all the history and Hey, how did you get into opera? aerations I want to dive right into it. But if you want to know more about our backstory, you can go there episode 153 will also link to it in the show notes. So Veronica, I, we we have an important conversation to have here. And there is something happening in both of our industries, operations and automation, that is really doing a disservice to the end user, which is the business owner. And that is good thing that people are going online, there’s a great thing people are going on. Online, they’re more comfortable with marketing, selling all of the purchasing all of these things. But with that comes the irresponsibility of the use of words that really have a meaning and a purpose. But they don’t know that. So now, ops can mean anything to anybody. Because somebody said, Hey, hey, you need to get ops in place. And Veronica, you hear it? And you’re like, yes, streamline systems, absolutely. increase your effectiveness. And you say, so do you have that? They’re like, Oh, no, I’m at social media posting, she needed that she needed to get on our social media postings. Like, actually, that’s not ops, I can see where you got confused. With that’s not really operations. So now, I want to give you the floor here and define to people, what is operations? And how should they be thinking about it? What is the definition? And what are the the the things that you want them to hear in associate with operations?

Veronica Yanhs 6:36
Yeah, and before I start, operations, like automation can is a really, really big word. It’s just like saying, I do design, I do marketing, well, what kind of design, what kind of what kind of marketing? Right, I get that. So operations is a very big breath of, of a category. And I think the reason why I’ve been so comfortable and just staying in the word operations is because I’m using that word, and especially when I pair it with orgasmic well, one, it’s fun, and two, it’s trademark, but three, it really showcases and challenges people and CEO that I want to say people like I’m thinking CEOs, entrepreneurs, any executive directors like when they think operations, oftentimes, it’s just like this little checkbox that they think they need to check, or it’s like, oh, I don’t really need to focus on operations, because I’m focused on sales, outreach, marketing, product development. And it’s like, well, what happens when all of those things work? What happens when sales are coming in? People are your business is growing, you’re hiring now. It’s just instead of going from just me, you’re going from me to we to them, they it’s like what happens when everything’s happening in your organization. This is where operations comes in. And there’s so many types of different operations. And in the world, there’s like design operations, there’s marketing operations, there’s internal operations, there’s revenue operations, there’s any word you put out there operations. And the reason why that is, is because operations is about creating structure, creating reliable and consistent processes of the thing that came before it. And so when people ask me like, oh, well, operations are not important, or it doesn’t apply to me, it’s like, actually, if you take nothing away from this podcast episode, remember this operations is the how it’s really just the how that makes your what your business goals, your impact goals, your revenue, goals, your dreams, your desires, your vision, come to life, and hopefully a much more effective, efficient and profitable way. Meaning if you have this dream of like creating an impact to have 1000 People of Color teenagers be able to get freelance jobs, because they historically have not been able to because they didn’t have the hours needed to be able to land internships, operations can help you actualize that mission, that goal, that vision that much faster, and hopefully with less money leakage out of your pocket, because if you’re not operating efficiently, you’re paying for it somewhere. So if you take nothing away operations is the how that makes your what come to life. So that means that everybody’s doing operations in their organization. Yep. It’s how you’re taking action to get from A to B to whatever milestones you’re trying to hit.

Chris Davis 9:39
Yeah, and I love how you mentioned, it’s what, like, you can put operations in front of whatever, or whatever the thing is in front of operations, right? So I can put marketing in front of operations. Then I have marketing ops, right, I can put revenue in front operations and I have revenue ops. So It to me, it really made sense. And I know listen, I hear you in the future everyone listening to this, they’re like, What are Mart? What is marketing ops? What What are revenue ops? Are you going to go now each one of those? Not today? Later, definitely could and have an episode for each one. In fact, let me say this if if that type of content is like burning your ears, like I need to know this, I need to hear what are rev ops? What are marketing ops? What are sales ops, let us know, let us know we’ve got a new way for you to reach out and that’s holler at automation bridge.com, h o l l e r at automation bridge.com Send us an email. And it’s my way of understanding what my listeners really want. And it’s very easy for you to just send the email off, it will not be added to a list. And you will not be mass emailed. It is literally a inbox to collect feedback from the from the podcast. So with that being said, we’re going to talk about more of what what what would I call this, let me define it. When someone is looking, let’s say someone starts their business. Right? And you talked about me, we they. So they’re in the MES zone. They’re doing everything. And they start to look at we and they’re like, Ooh, wait, he’s looking a little attractive, little more attractive than me right now. Right? So they go out, and they want to start building a team? What is that call? What would you classify that operations? And that type of operations? I say, and how do I approach that? Do I know there’s one methodology that’s like, hey, replace all your hands with managers to replace your managers with strategists, replaced a strategist with overseers replace your overseers and you’re out the business. And then others are like, get a strategist in to hire the operations that will hire your managers and then hire the doers. So what what where do we go? How do I get from me to we,

Veronica Yanhs 12:10
let’s talk about this. And for the record, I don’t really have any, like catchy name or anything for this like, to me, it always came out to be hiring your dream team, because, well, basketball will always be my first love. And that’s what I think about. But in terms of all those strategies that you had just listed, the thing that doesn’t sit right with me on that is that it’s very, very general, and also very rigid and formulaic. And it doesn’t take into account the unique awesomeness and skill sets and strengths that we each have as founders as entrepreneurs. So this is how I like to think about it. And before we go into an exercise, like I can actually give you a tactical exercise on this episode, right now we can have a short and sweet episode, whatever it is that you need. But this is something that gets me so excited, because people are constantly saying you need in order to grow your business you need to hire, you may be ready to hire, but is your organization? Because if the answer is yes, and then the answer is no, your organization is not ready to hire meaning you don’t have the right systems processes onboarding and training stuff, you’re basically going to be playing glorified babysitter, and you’re not setting anybody up for success. Least of all, the team member who basically wanted to come do good, because if they’re coming in, at this point in your business, they’re there. They do have some belief that you can, you can do whatever it is that you want to do, and they want to support you in getting there. Or they could have just gone somewhere with like a big, you know, big company, right? So to me, this is like a very, very special place in my heart, because it’s all about people. Like for me how I look at operations is people first and pleasure filled. And it’s a very different way of looking at operations, because it used to be all, Oh, it’s all systems. And when they think systems, it’s apps and automations. And I’m just like, No, that’s just the tip. So to answer your question as to how I look at operations, and what we do for our clients is, we actually have them first list out what their goals are, like, I’m literally talking three months, six months and 12 months goals, because five year plans and 10 year plans are they used to be enough but like what things had and how fast they’re moving lately, and nowadays, it’s like, it’s not worth it, things shift. So once you actually list out all the goals and the milestones that you want to hit, then I have this exercise where if you have a piece of paper, if you happen to have a piece of paper handy right now, what I would like you to do is think of like a tic tac toe box. So usually that’s like a three by three square you can draw circles. And in the very center, I want you to put yourself there and then I want you to list all of your are strengths and zones of genius things that you want to be focusing on in your business. And then an all the surrounding boxes or circles around it. So if I drew that, that means that I should have maybe eight, eight circles and squares around it, start listing out things that you need done, that you shouldn’t be doing so that you can stay in your zones of genius and focus on what you’re good at. And the reason why I say this is because people are often like, I need to hire a strategist or I need to hire an assistant. So hands, head, hands, heads, it doesn’t matter. Because it’s very formulaic. But now I’m asking like, what is it that you truly need? Is it I need someone to do my sales calls for me because I don’t like sales, or I need someone to take the scheduling stuff off my plate and keep my email inbox clean, because otherwise I’m going to be overwhelmed. So when you begin looking at what you need in terms of tasks, rather than roles, because as Chris, you and I talked about off camera, a creative director, or an OBM, in one business, probably will do many different things. First, in the second business, and in the third business like titles to me, and roles to me mean nothing but tasks and action. The house. That is That means everything to me.

Chris Davis 16:30
Yeah. You mentioned, you mentioned hands to just jump in real quick. You mentioned hands and head, this may be a new, a new idea for people listening, what what what are hands that we all have hands in heads? What is she talking about? What exactly?

Veronica Yanhs 16:50
Yeah, so hands are people who are task oriented people who are waiting for you to give them a task or something to do. Whereas someone who’s strategy oriented heads, they are hot, they are hired or brought on to create direction to create the plan. Like for instance, if you hired a virtual assistant, a lot of people when I see this online, and they’re like, Oh, well, my virtual assistant should be able to do this and this and this and this, and I’m just like, oh, create marketing strategy and executing like that is not a virtual assistant. And that’s actually not fair at all. Because then you’re like, under paying somebody for a skill set, that should be so much like so much. So much more money should be allocated than what their chart, they’re asking this person to say, okay, per hour is. So when you talk about hands versus heads and who you need to hire, it’s like first list of all the things that you need off your plate, because then at least I know, hey, I can take all of these things I need off my plate, and then now you can group them into into a role. So you’re essentially creating a role that is unique to your business and exactly what you as the founder need to do what you do best, rather than say, I just need a marketing director or a marketing assistant. It’s like, what does that really mean? So when you then look at all the things that you need off your plate, and you group them together, you get to create your own role, and it’s tailored exactly to who you are looking for what you need. And you can be so much more specific in the responsibilities and accountabilities area, and also figure out how to create process. And not to get back to this hands versus head thing because I’m having like two conversations at once. Because this is where this is where my brain lives. Yeah. If you do not have the operational or business experience to be able to create that strategy. This is then where you need to hire someone that is strategy minded to help you. So for instance, Chris, like you and I, we’re pretty good at operations and automations Sure, we can hire someone ahead, strategy to maybe give us insight or another perspective that we might not have. But I would say I would say we both know what we’re doing. So this is where then because I have the strategy and capability I can be more confident hiring someone that’s task oriented and hands because I can create the strategy and tell them what to do. But on the flip side, I know nothing about Facebook ads, and to hire an assistant to do Facebook ads where I lacked the experience. So it’s like the blindfolded leading the blindfolded. That is not a good use of anybody’s time. So if I don’t have the experience or the knowledge this is where I would go hire someone that’s ahead or strategy oriented to help create the systems the process the strategies, that then I could go hire somebody hands wise to do for me or I do myself.

Chris Davis 19:59
I see He’s a very

Veronica Yanhs 20:00
long winded answer to two questions.

Chris Davis 20:05
So good now now we get into the dialogue, everyone. And you. First off, you have me thinking, Veronica that I love the tic tac toe board because you being the center, and you identifying your zone of genius, that is what dictates your approach to hiring in the marketplace. Not some scripted, hey, do this this than that. Because as, as you the example you gave if you’re already operational, if you have that capacity to do and be strategies. So if you’re not, if you’re not on YouTube watching this, Veronica has drawn on her iPad, a circle in the middle in those eight areas right around the circle. And it it’s so it’s so simple, it feels wrong to not have known this prior to right. But people always get this messed up because they’re like, oh, so and so hired a social media person. Who was it? I need social media too. And it’s like, well, pause timeout. Did you go through the exercise? What’s your zone of genius, you can’t hire that social media person, because you have no heads that understand social media. So now you’re relying on hands to be both. And that’s not going to work? That’s not fair. Yeah, it’s not fair to either one, either one, right.

Veronica Yanhs 21:30
And so when it comes to hiring, and especially when it comes to operations, for me, at least, we, we get into this situation all the time, we see a an organization, they either have operational team members, maybe like 123, even. But they all don’t necessarily know what they’re doing. Like they know that something sucks. They know that things hurt things, or chafing. But they lacked that strategy to know how to go beyond the band aid solution. And so that’s why that’s why we get hired because even if you are a company with the CEO, oh, like I said, at the end of the day, we’ve worked with companies that have CEOs, Director of Operations, like any type of like, title down the line, it doesn’t matter, because I like I said to me, titles are really, really obsolete. And then when you’re able to help the CEO, actually create strategy that they might not have the experience to, it allows them to be able to stay in their zone of genius, maybe continue managing the day to day business, because they don’t have time to think of more strategy, because the business is so busy, and already in itself. And this is where we come in. And what I love doing is being able to take team members that have been hired as hands, and give them that knowledge so that they become strategy oriented, so that when we inevitably leave, everybody’s set up for success, we’ve taught them how to fish in the best of ways so that they can be more proactive and helpful for their team members. And oftentimes, when companies don’t have CEOs we love to work with our clients say, hey, instead of hiring a CEO, hire us we’ll create all the systems and processes and the strategies you need will help you hire an Operations Coordinator, manager, whatever the title is, so that they can be promoted to the CEO role, if it’s right when we’re ready to leave. And that team member has buy in that team members here because they care. That caring aspect in hiring is so rare, because a lot of times people are just there for the money. So it’s like when you’re able to nurture someone with good operations, it keeps them around like good operations, keeps talent so that you’re not just like this revolving door of hiring and firing.

Chris Davis 23:56
Yeah, I agree to that. Because there, there was a time in my business where my operations were all over the place. I mean, we were doing everything and stuff was last minute there was real, there really wasn’t any structure. It was just kind of like throwing it out there. And let’s hurry up and get it done no SOPs in place that you know, very, it was a stressful environment. And I had created it, Veronica, because of my time in the startup space. And usually, a lot of startups will operate like that, you know, it was not uncommon for me to wake up in the morning, check Voxer or check my email and say, Hey, last night we decided to run a promo Can we get a landing page up by noon, right? And I’m like, oh, shoot, okay, landing, build a landing page, get it connected. So I just

Chris Davis 24:50
carelessly took that approach into my business. But when I saw how regular freelancers responded to that type of chaos and lack lack of structure and systems. It scared people away. And I lost some really good hands. I know I did. I didn’t know at the time why. But looking back, you know, I knew it before but hearing you say it, it’s just kind of reiterating and highlighting it to someone, someone who’s listening that may have done the same thing, or maybe you’re experiencing that, like, why do people keep leaving? It may be because your ops are are lacking quite a bit. So let me ask you this, I was thinking about this while you were talking about the heads and hands and you in the middle and everything focused on around your zone of genius and complementing that. I’m going to shoot out some scenarios here. And I want you to advise this fictitious avatar or two or three that I’m about to give you on how you would approach their, their situation. Okay, so I’m gonna give you use case number one, two hits, you have somebody who’s very strategic, very operations focused. And they’re really good at what they do. And they can do some implementation. And what they did is they went in and watched a webinar, and the person said, hey, you need to hire an opera, online operations specialists, Oh, s, to put an O S in your business. And they’re like, Yes, I need an operations person. And they hire that person. Now they have two heads. And the head that they hired may not be as strategic or as well versed in marketing as them. What then do they do? What would you invite advised him to do?

Veronica Yanhs 26:48
Yeah, so this is where we come in, like, we can’t, that we don’t talk about goals enough. Because to meet goals are kind of like the North Star. And that maybe goals is not the right thing. You can even set a theme or intention, some things so that you’re not just operating, running a business without any direction, there’s something that you want to accomplish, whether it’s in the short term in the long term. So if I was to come into the situation and talk to both team members, it’s like, well, what is this founders skill set? Write them all down? Because you said that they had operational skills? I want to know what that is. Yeah, yeah. I also want to know, okay, you got your skills, your strengths, like, I operate on strengths so much, but also maybe because that’s baggage from me come being brought up, you know, Asian, and you’re supposed to elevate your your weaknesses, right? And I’m just like, that’s not efficient at all. I’d rather like make your strength that much better. So what are your strengths? What are your weaknesses? What are your goals, and then I’m going to have the same the operations person that they hired, do the same thing. Oh, so this, this, this quarter, we want to run a lot of webinars and maybe do some lives, turn them into evergreen style, like, be able to have upsells down cells, like create this whole like end to end, run Facebook ads at it. And if this operations person has none of the skill sets that the operation person needs, the founder needs, because they have to play now both roles, right, your CEO and CEO. And it’s like, well, this is if the operations person that they hired doesn’t have the skill set to be able to create like processes and automations for landing pages, like what happens when somebody signs up for your, for your, your webinar? Are they going to be able to get tagged correctly in the email marketing system? And then what happened? Like they don’t have to be responsible for writing the email copy. But it’s like, do they have the skill set to be able to build like the automations, the structure everything you need to go from live to Evergreen? And to manage all that? And they are upsells and down cells, etc? And the answer is yes. Great. This is where they can begin to write down what it is they need, pass it on to the operations person and have them run with it. Right? If you have the skill set to accomplish what I need, I don’t need to babysit you. And hopefully, please write some SOPs and documents and videos as to how you’re doing something so that the person we hire next doesn’t have to like learn from scratch. Then on the flip side, though, if that operations person says I only know how to build clickup dashboards, and Knowshon dashboards and airtable dashboards, but I don’t know anything about how to use Active Campaign if that’s what you use or infusion I clearly I don’t I’m not in the online business world enough anymore. It’s not Infusionsoft anymore. That’s it. Yeah. But you get what I mean, right? If their skill set then doesn’t align that means that this person is just what hired to keep the founder company because you can’t really like support them. So that’s what I would do in this scenario is basically ask where what it was that you’re good at? What is it you’re not good at? And what is it that you want to accomplish in your business in the next 90 days. And if this person you hired cannot support you in doing so then they were not a good hire to begin with. Yeah, then you should look for a different hire.

Chris Davis 30:15
So what I hear you saying is, if they have the capacity to carry the operational baby that you have birthed and you’re taking care of, then you can hand it over to them. And because they have that domain expertise, they can then even if it’s not their strong suit the doing because they have that expertise, they can also more accurately hire the hands to do the doing. Yeah, because their mind knows that space and what it takes

Veronica Yanhs 30:49
absolutely like you if you hired me, and I had like startup experience, but no online experience, that can also be the difference between you getting out your launch sequences. That much faster versus like delaying by months, because you’re having to teach this person the online business space. So everybody’s mileage may vary. But if you said if Chris, you said like, hey, I want to do a webinar, I want to launch a webinar to this program or something. And then have it be evergreen, because I have like a group coaching program I always want to have open. Can you run with it? I was like, Yeah, well, first, we need to gather needs and requirements. That’s something that people don’t talk about enough his needs and requirements. I would basically say, Yes, I can do all that. But I actually need to know like, what, what is your overall vision? And I can fill in the blanks, because I’m detail oriented that way. What would you like the end product to look like? How do I know I’ve been successful, and then I can run with it and give you iterations back. But if I said like, um, I don’t know how to build automations, but I can do everything you told me to do. That’s a different vibe, right? You’re gonna be like, Oh, the lot more hand holding. And that’s it. That’s okay. There are people who are out there that you’re just like, I need somebody to take all of my podcast episodes that I’ve done, I need you to transcribe them all, or do whatever it is you need to do to like, create, like, bite sized content. If you give them an SOP, and they know how to follow it, then that’s great. But if you’re asking them to create a process, they might not know how to do so.

Chris Davis 32:21
Yeah, that’s really good. You know, I’m thinking about me, as you’re talking. And I think about my team, my current structure. And I’ve got, we recently had like an all hands meeting, and one of the most consistent thing, and it surprised me that people said about working in the company was how much they learn, right? It’s like, Oh, my God is working here. I’ve just grown so much and learn so much. And I wasn’t expecting that. I just Well, I don’t know what I was expecting, honestly, Veronica, but it was refreshing. It was refreshing to hear it. And putting it in context of this conversation. It’s because I have operational expertise. And I can better instruct my hand, if you give me a pair of hands, I will make them beautiful, they can be all beat up and crusty and Rusty, I can make some hands beautiful, right? So if I’m looking at the, the zone of genius for me, it is would be like getting more hands in place. So that I can strategize and build out more operations to force somebody else with that can partner with my mind to take over. Right? Like, that’s how I see my path to growth. So let’s flip it in. I think I know the answer to this. So everybody, I’m learning on the fly here. I’m like testing her framework as, as I’m talking. Let’s go the other way where you are not operationally sound at all. And I tend to see founders who are kinda like more so visionaries. Right? Never seen a bad idea. Everything’s possible. You know, the second you tell them? No, they heard Yes. It’s like, no, they were wrong here there. This is definitely possible. You can put a house in the clouds. I know it’s possible is like, Oh, what are we trying to do here? Right. So you have that person. And then they go out and they attended a webinar. I said, Hey, look at how to hire offshore talent. They they went to a conference and everyone’s like VA nation, you need five years and look at $5 million coming to your account. And they go out and they hire vas. So now they’ve got hands all over the place. What you come into that company, what is it that you’re instructing them to do and why I think I get it now but because you’re going to do the same thing you did prior. But what does that set up that avatar? What is that screen to you?

Veronica Yanhs 34:53
We’ve seen so and there’s no judgement if you’re listening to this, you’re going oh crap, that’s me. There’s no judgment like the fact that you’re listening to this episode and that you care, and that this is something that you want to implement into your business, it’s like, this is what makes me happy, like no judgment zone whatsoever. So when I go into a business like this, and it happens all the time, this in fact, this person had actually 10 hands. She was a, it’s her. She, we work with a lot of subject matter expertise, or people who are like, engineers, or they like have come up with a product idea. Yep. They don’t know how to code, they just want to build the thing. They don’t know how to run a business, or we have someone’s like, I accidentally fell into a business, meaning I wanted to create this widget or something, sell it on Etsy. And suddenly, there’s like, a lot of demand. And then I was told, maybe I can create a business from this. So you, you know what you know. But it’s not business. And it’s not operations. And now you have to like hire all these people to like, manage all the things. So this is where we come in as the the heads, people like us then get hired to say, Okay, we’re going to set the strategy, so that we actually know where it is that you want to go. And maybe all these hands that you hired, you don’t actually need all of these people, because we’ve determined like an architect, you don’t really build unless you have a blueprint, right. So we have an exercise that we walk our clients through that we create for them called the operations blueprint. It’s essentially like a mind map. I love visuals. Because when you make operations, visual, founders and CEOs get really excited, and they’re like, oh, it’s not so like, hairy, scary. And when we’ve understand all the areas like marketing, operations, revenue, operations, internal operations, I don’t do financial operations. But we, you know, we keep that bubble there, but to say, Hey, this is not our expertise, it allows us then set the strategy. So here are all the systems and processes, you need to go from here, to there in the most efficient way. And here is what the support looks like. You can only there’s only so many hours in the day. And if you’re doing multiple things at once, like you’re doing marketing campaigns, and you’re also wanting to make sure that there’s somebody to like, handle the team members, and now you have like 10 hands, we would tell them exactly what it is that they need to do. And then also work with and maybe identify out of the pool of 10, which we identified to actually to kind of pull them up and say, Hey, can you be we like to promote you more as like, instead of a hands, it’s like hands plus, like manager style, so that you can we can teach you what we want to teach you. And have you help support the team members, because they probably are not sure what they’re doing as well. They’re just getting handed tasks left and right. And if there’s no rhyme or reason, they might not know any better if the, if the founder has not imparted that information, like why is so important. When team members understand why they do what they do. Their work ethic is different, the efficiency, the efficacy is different. So we would come in and say, here are all the systems you need to make it better here are then the systems that need to be created. Not only we’re telling them what but it’s like here’s the process map that we’re giving them so that they can actually implement it. And then either we implement it for them, if they do not have the skill set, or we teach the people that we feel could be promoted and could learn the strategy that would be helpful when we inevitably leave to do it with them. So it’s the same concept ish, but it’s more like if we already know that this person has no experience and they’re all they’ve hired all hands, it most likely means that there is no operational strategy, no project plan, no work back schedule, and we go in, interview them all because we always people first and pleasure filled really means we talk with people to understand their needs, requirements, all that good stuff, and, and then we move forward. And then we build and make everything as smooth and seamless as possible. While mentoring them.

Chris Davis 39:00
This is this is good because I I just saw this. It’s like you become the borrowed brain. Right? They don’t have it they don’t have it in the but I was I was talking about you being the borrowed brain. Right? They don’t have they hired the hands and they don’t know how to utilize them effectively. And this goes back when I when I think about your bio, how you were talking about making marketing and sales more effective, right, like making you more effective is is okay you’re missing the brain, you CEO or not the brain, but you have hands don’t know how helpful they are and don’t know how many you need. But let’s introduce a brain so that we can really start to make sense of this right? And then I I would say in the first case, it is there’s a brain there. So you’re coming in to assess if this is the right brain, that would be able to be coupled with hands enhance plus, to be able to achieve the goal. Both cases, you need to understand what the goal is, because that’s what you’re assessing the hands. And that’s how you’re going to operate as a brain, whether it’s borrowed or whether you’re you’re brokering, you know, to get things done. So to me that, that makes sense. So so what I do everybody is I try not to talk too much to Veronica or any of the guests beforehand, because I like to discover and put myself in your seat while we’re going. So that I feel like it makes for better content when someone is not like seating the questions and like, Okay, here’s everything that we’re going to ask. So this is not scripted. And I’m actually learning this. As we speak, I’ve seen Ronak, I’ve just seen so many different team dynamics, I really have. And it’s different. Working in a startup where you’ve got capital to just hire people and build out departments, you’re essentially hiring brains and hands at the same time, you don’t have that leeway, you don’t you don’t have that elasticity. And when you’re a small business, because you stretch a little too far you’re going to break, they can stretch and bounce back, stretch and bounce back, there’s some some rubber band in them, but there is absolutely nothing you you will snap, it’s like that rusty rubber band that’s been out the bag for so long, it’s so low, you just pull it a little bit in the snaps. And I want people to be mindful of it. And hiring or team building can be very overwhelming. It can be very overwhelming because they just don’t know where to start. So third avatar, what about the person who is me focused, doesn’t have an extra head doesn’t have any hands. But they want to start i I can envision the tic tac toe circle map, I know you’re going to run them through that and find their zone of genius. But what could what should somebody like that expect? Is it hiring a company like yours that takes runs everything for them for a while and then starts to find people to then take over those those processes? Or is it like, Okay, we’ll show you where to get started? And once you get started, then come back to us? And you know, we’ll be figured out? What is the path for that person?

Veronica Yanhs 42:38
Yeah, my favorite path is the one where we’re in it with them. But we’ve worked with so many clients where so when we work with fine, let me just back up. We there’s always an a phase where we audit and assess what’s going on, because I think it’s irresponsible for consultants just to say like, oh, based on the sales call or 120 minute chat, I know exactly what you need. Granted, one, I have done this long enough, and that based on the 20 minute call that we have or 30 minute call, I know what our clients more or less need. But then the assessment phase, the audit, we get to go into the nitty gritty, we’re looking at their tech stack, we’re looking at what their project management looks like sales process, and we’re looking at everything we’re looking at where they’re leaking money, what are some potential future problems that we can anticipate that they don’t even have the capacity to be able to anticipate? So when you’re giving this full information to the clients, depending on who they are a skill set time availability, resource like money, money availability, we give them this assessment and we trust that they will know what the answer is in terms of do they need to go forth and do it themselves for a little bit because they need to figure out more about their business instead of just like the day to day show up. I think I know how to do this, or do they like okay, I have this goal I like I know that in this the numbers check out I’ve done the math, we can make a set we can miss this this can become seven figures plus whatever in the next 13 to 24 months. We just need you to do it because I have no capacity to do it. So at the end of the day, there is no wrong answer. Because we’re not here to like force anybody upon something I’m just biased because I love to be partnering with our clients because like I was telling you co creation and collaboration really get me excited when we’re able to work with them when we can see the shift in their, in their, in their mental and like mental load and whitespace show up because we’re able to create this change. It’s very, very gratifying when they’re like, Oh, I used to hate systems. And I thought this was just something I needed. But now I’m just like I am in it. I get to make the decision. I’m about to be a mom soon. I don’t want to take sales calls. anymore. So how might we make this operational experience more pleasurable for everyone involved so that I can still keep my business running? When I’m when I’m tired of being a mom and I need some, like, adult stimulation and conversation? How am I we switch up the sales process. And I’m like, Oh, well, we could do an application process, there’s so many different ways that don’t really necessarily involve you showing up on camera if you do not feel good. So this is where the word pleasure comes in a lot like a lot of people discount feeling because we’re either told to or maybe it’s the natural, the natural way that somebody exists, like my partner. And I’m just like, your intuition is telling you something. trust it. Yeah, and as you’re most likely the right one, and if we’re not meant to work with you until later, so be it because if working with you now, and it doesn’t like make sense, or it’s stressing you out even more, that’s not going to be a good experience for anybody. So when we come into a business, the phases are always assess, implement, and then like refine, because you can’t just one night stand your operations, I’m not just gonna build your operations, and the systems and processes and call it done. It’s like, we got to test it, we got to stress it, we got to break it so that we can do so before the clients and customers come through it.

Chris Davis 46:14
Yes, yes, please do that, please do that. So I mean, I’m, I’m really enjoying this conversation. Because I think that a lot of times, there are so many good businesses that are the right opps away. Right, the right system away. And the reason I say it is because I see it all the time, you know, they’ll come to me prematurely for automation. And it’s just like, you know, what, I’ve got a, there’s a lot of potential here, but you’re not quite ready. And I’m not the one to sit down and process mapping and do all of this, I can I have that skill set. That’s not what I do for business, though, you know, I can pull it out of the back pocket if I need to, and use it. But you’re gonna want somebody that can do that, and partner with you in a brain capacity to give operations like how I envision it is there’s some off the shelf operations that you would say every business needs, right? So like, let’s implement those. And then let’s look at performance. How are things going? How close are we to your goal, you know, XYZ, then they start to tweak. I don’t do that. Right? So I’ve got to wait patiently.

Chris Davis 47:41
For those things to be in place. And now it’s like, Okay, would you like to increase the efficiency of such things. And now we can start talking about the introduction of technology. Now, the good thing with you is, you’re you’re building out the systems in the ops, with technology in mind, it’s not an afterthought, like, Oh, I didn’t realize we could send emails at that point. And it didn’t have to be somebody, right, like you’re aware of the technology. So I’m hoping I’m hoping that that’s encouraging for you all who have, who are either looking to hire. And if you’ve hired and you found yourself a little bit frustrated, hopefully some of these use cases that we gave, provide an insight on where that frustration is coming from. Because Ronak I can only imagine you see this more more often than me. But there’s, there can often be times where the right person can be placed in the company with the wrong expectation. And then the wrong person placed with the right expectation. Either way, there’s a frustration that the person looks at the person as the issue and not the actual system.

Veronica Yanhs 48:54
Pressure, like when we interview team members, we always interview team members. So if that’s something you want to take away, in for your business today, like just talk to your team members. Here, let me give you four easy questions you can ask or five? What’s going Well, right now? What’s not going well? Or if that doesn’t sit right with you? What could be better? Is there anything that you’ve learned in the role that you’re at? Like, these are pretty open ended questions, but enough for people to know? Like, if they want to take off on somewhere they can? And then the answer is always. And then the other one is like what’s your zone of genius? What is something that comes so naturally to you that it doesn’t feel like work? Because if you have somebody in their zone of excellence like that, to me is you’re really good at it just like you were just saying, Chris, you’re really good at it. But you’re like, I can do it really well. There’s there’s that that little shift changes everything. But when we put you in your zone of genius, to me, it’s about Yes, it’s caring about people but it’s also operational efficiency. as well, yeah. So it’s, it all ties together. So interview your team members ask them what their zone of genius is, because there’s nothing worse than saying someone who is like an expert, graphic designer, and they’re forced to like store emails every day. Right? You know what I mean? So it’s like, just talk to your team members don’t make assumptions. It’s okay, if you’re wrong, because the fact that you care, I don’t like we see all these articles about tech companies laying people off or that employees don’t feel taken care of. It’s just like, little things like this will show that you care, and will show them that you are invested in their well being. And that’s just like a win win for everybody.

Chris Davis 50:42
Yeah, yeah. hiring

Veronica Yanhs 50:45
team members, it’s a lot more responsibility than just treating people like robots. And I know that’s not our intention. But it’s just like, sometimes we default into what we’ve learned. And so this is why like, people first and pleasure field operations to me are so important, because it takes into account the humanity in all of us, that are affected by your operations, whether it’s an internal team or customers, stakeholders, investors, etc.

Chris Davis 51:13
Yeah, everybody’s impacted. And you, you just, you, you want to create an environment where everybody wins. And it is, as the owner of the company is your responsibility. I just really dislike finger pointing when someone’s not performing, because that’s often like, that’s the easy thing. Right? Like, you can look at somebody and be like, Oh, they’re homeless. It’s any idiot can see that. But why? What are the events that led up to that? Understand? Why is this person performing? Well, let me check myself, am I clear on my expectations? Did I clearly communicate? What’s what’s expected in this row? And then from what’s expected in this row? Is that even realistic? It? Did I just write three rolls into one job description. You know, so I would imagine to this is part of the interview process and understanding like, hey, based on what we found, you’ve got like, three people doing a 10 person job here. So all that frustration and in debate that you’ve had, and sometimes coming down hard on your team, that’s really a huge issue and less of them. So I just as a as a people, lead founder, meaning I lead with people in mind first, I just I, I will, I’ll take the blame before anybody else in a minute. So Veronica, I’ve, I’ve got to, it’s I wish I didn’t have to, but I’ve got to in this because I will keep going on this. I’m in my sweet spot here. There still, I still have questions. I’ve got notes in front of me, things that I wanted to ask, but we’ll get to them another time. Somebody listened to this tech founder, small business owner, somebody who is successful, and they just don’t know how to break through the current ceiling that they’re facing. And you may have said something or enlighten them, or perhaps opened a curiosity loop around operations. And maybe this is the missing piece that they’ve been looking for. Where can they find you? Where can they connect to to find out more and maybe even have to assess their business,

Veronica Yanhs 53:39
we have various ways in which we can hang out together. So you can sign up for my newsletter, just the tip. Wednesdays I sent out, I send out newsletters on Wednesdays because it’s hump day. For what like there’s what’s one small thing you can do to make your operations more pleasurable than it was yesterday. And sometimes a lot of is just even like introspective questions like, what’s going well, what’s not going well, right? So like little actionable things you can take, or you can even download my 50 Plus SLP ideas guide. So you’re like, Oh, I know, I need to create standard operating procedures, but I don’t know what to even create them on. Because there’s so many, this guy will give you ideas and also tell you what you should prioritize first, second, third, etc. And lastly, if you and I’ll give you all the links, if you want to work together, have us work on operations, magic on you assess your business or even like partner with you as like the operations brain. Absolutely. We can give you the link for that as well. And that to us is we start with operations audit, and then we move forward from there. So with all of this information, it’s like we’re giving people different ways in which they can become more process driven and rather than just solutions driven, because when you create process you’re taking In your habit, and you’re documenting it, and you’re able to then create this consistent, reliable, more easeful way of operating rather than just starting from scratch and creating such a heavy cognitive load on everybody. So newsletter, I got a guide, we can work together. I’ll give press all the links. So you’ve got options.

Chris Davis 55:23
Yes. So by the time you are here, this you will have the everything is in the show notes. So you can go to the show notes right now, and see all of those links, click them and take advantage at whatever level you’d like to so Veronica, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. I really appreciate it always a great time, automation and ops, it just, it just goes so well together, it flows so well. I think that there’s a lot of potential and really expounding on that to help these business owners properly leverage both for success so thank you for coming on the podcast

Veronica Yanhs 56:06
always having me. We’re getting in so much fun trouble. We’ve got ideas brewing, so yes, there

Chris Davis 56:11
are some ideas brewing. Yes, listeners, thank you for taking out the time. I’m always honored especially if you hear this this means you listen to the end. Oh my goodness, even if you listen at 2x speed thank you for listener listening thank you for your listenership

Chris Davis 56:30
and it does not go unseen and unappreciated. So thank you for that everybody. Continue continue continue to automate responsibly, my friends. Thank you for tuning in to this episode of The all systems go podcast. If you enjoyed it, make sure that you’re subscribed at the time of recording the all systems go podcast is free to subscribe to, and it can be found in Apple podcast, Google podcast, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts new episodes are released every Thursday, so make sure you’re subscribed so that you don’t miss out on while you’re at it. Please leave us a five star rating and review to show some love but also to help future listeners more easily find the podcast so they can experience the value of goodness as well. We’ve compiled all resources mentioned on the podcast, as well as other resources that are extremely valuable and effective at helping you grow your marketing automation skills quickly. And you can access them all at all systems go podcast.com Thanks again for listening. And until next time, I see you online Automate responsibly, my friends.