Sustainable Business Growth Through Strategic Dialogue with Sarah Ziesler

Unlock the secrets of strategic communication with Sarah Ziesler, founder of Shine, ShEO! We uncover the strategic nuances behind empowering women entrepreneurs and fostering sustainable growth in today's dynamic market. From the art of timing in system implementation to the delicate balance of cultural communication norms, our discussion offers invaluable insights into fostering effective team dynamics and customer relations.

Join us as we navigate the intricate terrain of cultural communication, illuminating the subtle yet impactful differences between American and German social norms. Through personal anecdotes and cautionary tales, we emphasize the importance of clear, concise communication in driving organizational change. As we wrap up, we ignite a spark of inspiration, delving into the transformative power of self-belief and the courage to embrace entrepreneurship. With Sarah's guidance, we empower listeners to embrace their vision, set SMART goals, and cultivate a communication culture that propels businesses toward enduring success.

NOTABLE QUOTES
"The processes and systems are a little bit more fluid, because as your business grows, your processes and systems do change, so it's really important to always improve them and always change them accordingly." – Sarah
“It's always important to understand the people that I'm working with.”  – Sarah
"When we start planning a new growth strategy within a company, we start with visuals. How does your organizational chart look like today versus where you want to be?"  – Sarah
"Growing fast is great, but [there are] a lot of things that fall through the cracks too, and you have to make sure that you're keeping things in check." – Sarah
"I have very open communication when it comes to my team. There's nothing that someone can't say without being heard." – Sarah
"You can't become a better leader if your team is not able to communicate with you on things and help hold you accountable too." – Philip
“What we [first] do to get them back into that control seat of their business is get that clarity back." – Sarah
"So most of the time when you feel out of control, it's just because you don't see the steps or you don't see the path of where you're going." – Sarah
“All your brain needs is simple, short, [and] small steps to take action.” – Sarah
"Your team wants to know where we're headed. They want to be a part of the business and be a part of your mission." – Sarah
“Sometimes you communicate something that the other person understands totally differently.” – Sarah
“Having a very open dialogue, open conversation, and then having good frequent communication will help. Keep it simple, don't try to automate the whole process.”  – Philip
“It's so important to not only just implement systems and processes and business strategy but also communicate because you have to have that buy-in from your team.”  – Philip
“Believe more in yourself, 'cause you can do it. Start before you're ready, just jump in.” – Sarah

RESOURCES
Sarah
Website: https://www.shinesheo.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/1537039703401184 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shinesheo
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/shinesheo/
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp1JQKJ6vPtZGVq_4suBKjQ

Philip
Digital Course: https://www.speakingsessions.com/digital-course
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamphilipsessions/?hl=en
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@philipsessions
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/philip-sessions-b2986563/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/therealphilipsessions

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:16

What's up, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Speaking Sessions podcast. This is Phillip Sessions, your public speaking and communication coach, and I'm here today with Sarah Ciesler. I probably butchered that again, but that's all right, we're going to move through it and she can correct me later. But she is a business strategist working with women entrepreneurs running service-based businesses, helping them increase their productivity and revenue by implementing strategies and systems that align with you and your business, or align with them and their business, and today we're going to talk not only about business strategies, but how in the world do you start communicating those with your team, with your customers? Because as you're changing up these strategies and how you do things as a business, your employees and your customers tend to start getting frustrated because that's not the way we used to do it, and that's what we're going to talk about today. But, sarah, welcome to the show. We're excited to have you here with your expertise.

Speaker 2: 1:18

Thank you for having me. I'm happy to be here. Thanks, Bill.

Speaker 1: 1:22

Yeah, yeah. So tell us a little bit more like how in the world. Well, first of all, why did you decide to go focus on women? And then, what made you decide to focus on business strategy as far as your business goes?

Speaker 2: 1:35

That's a good question. When I started out as a coach and I think I did this like the typical, like entrepreneurial thing of like I can help everybody, I offer services for everybody and throughout, you know, going through my own journey as an entrepreneur, I realized, hey, there's a specific niche that I really, truly want to focus on, that I attract, and that happened to be women. Now, I had male coaches still, you know, have from time to time, but I do, specifically with Shinshio, focus on women Just because I feel the niche there. I've spent over $50,000 in coaching and I realized how much bad stuff is out there, so I really wanted to create a platform for women specifically to get everything they need, and that's kind of how we started. As far as business strategy goes, that's just my my thing, that's just what I'm really good at, and so, like, I believe that you as a coach should only, you know teach things that you are an expert in, which is why you know we have other coaches within Shinshio and strategies definitely mine.

Speaker 1: 2:45

Yeah. So tell me real quick about the Shinshio or CEO, or no, it is Shio. Sorry, it's a play on CEO there. There I go messing it up and everything but Shinshio. So tell us a little bit about that really quick, because that obviously goes into your women entrepreneur space. Maybe the CEO instead of CEO and everything. But tell us a little bit about that and how that all came about too. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 3:10

So I started out as a coach. Folks started focusing on women and really started creating a business coaching platform for women entrepreneurs, as we were growing tremendously. Last year I was, you know. My vision for this was to have masterminds, for people to come together. It was, in a way, to create a platform where you can get marketing advice, sales advice, business energy alignment advice and operations and systems. So I brought four coaches on, so it was no longer just Sarah's. These are coaching. And Shinshio fell into my lab. I always loved the word play from you know like you caught it she, she, eo. Now, you know, some people don't get it, but that's fine. Usually, you know, once I explain it, they're like oh my God, that's brilliant. I'm like I love it a lot. And so we were branded last year to really, you know, focus on hey, this is a platform and it's no longer just me coaching. So that's how Shinshio came about last year and it's been. It's been a lot of fun. I really enjoy it.

Speaker 1: 4:14

I like that and platforms like that are so important for us to be able to grow as individuals, as business owners, as people trying to lead businesses, because, like you said, we don't have all the skills and you as a coach and I as a coach we can't teach on every single thing.

Speaker 1: 4:33

We might be able to dabble a little bit, but if you really want that true expertise and that really sound advice, you need to go to other people. Of course, we can talk about our experience with marketing, sales, business strategy, whatever it is, but it's just our experience. It's not necessarily something that could help somebody else completely, where, if you go to another coach that has that expertise, they can help you out a lot more. So it's really cool that you created this platform as well. But let's dive into business strategies now, because this is something that, as you know way better than me, a lot of people struggle with creating a strategy and putting those systems and processes in place. So when would you suggest for people to start working on those systems and processes? Right, right, when they decide they're going to start a business or wait till they kind of have a minimal viable product or 10 years in the business. Where should we really start with these systems and processes?

Speaker 2: 5:34

So I think for systems and processes, you don't quite start right at the bat. We usually work with entrepreneurs who are a little bit more experienced when it comes to business, because at the beginning you're still trying to figure things out, you're trying to find your niche kind of like my own entrepreneurial journey, from helping everybody to really honing in and focusing on women. But as far as strategy goes, you should start from the beginning. Like, obviously, any type of thing in business or otherwise, any goal that you set, it should come with a strategy on how you're going to reach it and how you're going to get there. The processes and systems is something that's a little bit more fluid, because as your business grows, your processes and systems do change and so it's really important to always improve them and always change them accordingly.

Speaker 1: 6:23

Okay, and how do we go about? Let's focus in real quick on systems and processes. How do we go about as these change? Because, like you just said, they're very fluid and you're right, as your company grows, as you get new people, people understand things differently and that's probably to me one of the hardest things really trying to write a system and process or an SOP standard operating procedure which is part of systems and processes from scratch. Because you're like, okay, I've got all this knowledge in my head. I just kind of know where to click, what to do, and then writing that down. So obviously there's iterations there. But how do you go about working with the team or you as let's get our feet into the business owner or the leader, about making sure, as we're changing up these systems and process a little bit, how are we communicating? A lot of that.

Speaker 2: 7:14

So I think, when it comes to communication, there's different ways of communicating. Right, and I mean you're more than expert in that than I am, but for me it's always important to understand, okay, the people that I'm working with. What is their communication language? There's a lot of people that need written processes, but I've come to find out that visuals help a lot too, and so what we do is we start out with visuals. When we start planning a new growth strategy within a company, we look at, we start with just the organizational chart, like how does your organizational chart look like today versus where you wanna be? And then, what are these different steps? Now, that's for strategy creation.

Speaker 2: 7:55

When we focus and hone in on processes and systems, we look at today's org chart and all of the people that are involved. I mean you might have someone for marketing, you might have a sales team that's included, you might have people that work within operations, and so then it's really starting out with, okay, what are their different titles, what is their job description? And based off of those job descriptions, we have the different tasks that they do, and then we create SOPs accordingly to that. If you're the business owner, most likely, especially in the beginning stages. You have worked in all of these different areas and you know the different things that need to happen, so we start writing out SOPs with them, and then it's really just.

Speaker 2: 8:42

I mean, standard operating procedures are for people that love processes, they love them. For people that are like, oh, this is so much paperwork. We just start out drafting things and then, when it comes to SOPs, I always like to have different stages where it's SOP creation, then you review it and then you keep it under review, so you basically put it on a schedule where you continuously review the SOP in case something needs to change. Another thing that I also do with SOPs is I always like to have that visual part still included, like you said hey, I got to click there and then click there and then I do this and that we usually follow through with visuals so that people can see and read both of those things, and it just makes that easier.

Speaker 1: 9:27

Okay, and then I've heard like different ways, so it sounds more like you're doing not necessarily pinned to paper, but maybe it's like a Word doc or something like that. Have you also done the other side where you just do like a screen recording, kind of showing that, and this would obviously be something that's on the computer versus something that's real world, if you will? So have you done screen recordings as well for just start with SOPs?

Speaker 2: 9:51

Yeah, we've done screen recordings Like a lot of times. When we have clients that are walking us through a process, it's easier to just do a screen recording, because then you have everything that you can go back to. Or when you're trying recording like a training for a new employee, screen recordings are helpful too. It just depends what field they're in and what type of employee. I mean, you have the ones that work out in the shop or you have the ones that go to clients. They might not have that laptop accessibility, and so it really just depends on how we lay it all out. When you do videos, though, you do want to have at least one sheet that has all of the different videos outlined, so that you kind of have you create a losing the English word here like a content.

Speaker 1: 10:35

Like table of contents or something.

Speaker 2: 10:37

Yeah, like a table of content there you go, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: 10:40

So if you didn't hear that, sarah is actually from Germany originally, so that's where, english being her second language, sometimes it's hard, but I mean, you definitely have great English.

Speaker 2: 10:51

So thank you. Yeah, Sometimes I lose some words where I'm like dang it. I can tell you the German word right now, but I don't know the English word.

Speaker 1: 10:58

So yeah, I'm complete opposite way. I'm taking German right now and I'm like I know what I want to say. I have no clue what that word is for that. So it's not, I just lost the word, I just haven't found the word yet I get that struggle there. It is definitely difficult to deal with that, which is obviously a lot with communication, which actually just to kind of go on this rabbit hole a little bit. But how do you feel that communication has been different from being like German versus, I guess, speaking with Germans in Dutch or German whenever, versus speaking with Americans in English? Like how has that kind of been different for you? Or maybe even just English to Germans versus English to Americans?

Speaker 2: 11:43

I think the biggest embarrassing moment for me, I guess, was when I came to the US and started working here in corporate. You know, in Germany you would call someone up and be like hey, can you send me that, doc? Thanks, talk to you later. And I like, kind of just in my German ways, communicated like that in the English language until, like, an employee said, hi, sarah, yes, I had a great weekend, thank you so much for asking me. That came at me like that and I'm like, oh, okay, small talk, like I'm missing the small talk. So I think a big communication differentiator when it comes to like the German culture, to the English culture, is that small talk. I feel like I'm still learning how to be a good small talk person because I'm like I just want to get to the point, let's go. So I think that that was a big like difference.

Speaker 1: 12:30

Yeah, and it is funny. I would say for the most part, yeah, a lot of Americans definitely want that small talk, but when we get around entrepreneurs like us, we can get straight into it a lot of times too. So it's not necessarily rude, I guess it just depends on the person for sure. But yeah, definitely, I would say, for if you want to give a generality, most Americans would want that small talk first and everything. So that's definitely a tough thing, and I know another thing for Germans that they have trouble with is, of course, the American greeting is hey, how's it going? And we don't actually want to know how it's going, we just say how's it going and then move on. And so for Germans it's like oh oh, oh, oh, you didn't want to actually talk. Like that's kind of weird.

Speaker 2: 13:17

I hear that from Germans a lot, where like Americans are like that fake, nice, I'm like they just ask are you doing? But they don't actually want an answer, and I'm like you know. It's kind of nice to go into a place, though, and someone greets you, Whereas when you go to Germany somewhere, nobody says anything. So it's just a preference thing.

Speaker 1: 13:35

Yeah, yeah for sure. And the other one just before then we'll get off. The rabbit hole here is is that, like in America, you say, oh, excuse me, as you're going in between people? If they're standing in a line, you just need to get through the line, rather than going around Like, oh, we have to say excuse me, excuse me, and go through. Like Germans, you just kind of go through. And that was definitely a hard one for me Because I'm like that guy's being a jerk and I was in Germany, was it probably two years ago? They did that. And I'm like what in the world? They're like how rude. And I was like, wait a second, that's, that's just normal culture for them. That's not rude in there for them. And I was like, okay, let's, let's step off my high horse here.

Speaker 2: 14:15

Yeah, it is really really normal, like when I go back now to the grocery store, like the, the safety distance that you have in the in the US is a lot wider than it is in Germany. So now when I go to the grocery store, people like left and right and I'm like, oh my God, so many people are so close to me Like, yes, it's definitely different. Different there, yeah.

Speaker 1: 14:35

Yeah, yeah, which I mean it is all part of communication and learning how the culture works in everything. But let's go ahead and dive back into the actual thoughts of our podcast here. So just really random side rabbit hole tangent that we went on there, but but love it. This is what we do with podcasts we go on these little tangents and learn from different people from different cultures. So hopefully I'll learn from that. But, going back to the business strategy, I want us to to dive into really that customer focus of how do we start communicating this to our customers. So really, do you have like a story or something that you can share of kind of a bad, embarrassing experience that maybe is your own, or maybe a client that you worked with where, hey, we're changing up this process and the process of changing and communicating? That was maybe a little embarrassing or it didn't go as expected, and then how did y'all recover from that?

Speaker 2: 16:21

Probably not with my clients, but definitely with my team, because I move really fast sometimes and I'll like come up with a new idea and I'm like we're changing this way. And so what I've learned through my own entrepreneurial experience is just, I'll have an idea, I completely switch, I start working on it, I tell the team this is what we're doing now, as I'm still creating the rest of the idea. So then my team will start working and then in the middle of it I'll just change it up again and be like, hey, now, price is this, now process is this, now, this is what we're doing for the client. And then they have to change it again and they're like freaking out because they're like Sarah, we already you know. So I've learned through that of just moving my team too fast in a direction that isn't solidified yet, that they just need certain data beforehand. So we changed the process to okay, I'll take this time until I have this created. Then we move into the team and communicate it.

Speaker 2: 17:21

So I think a lot of communication issues can happen when entrepreneurs, especially leaders, come up with a new idea. They tell the team and say, hey, this is the route we're going now and the team has almost zero information as to what the leader wants right now, and it happened to me too. Just because we're fast-moving people, we're entrepreneurs, so that's usually how it goes. But with clients I'm more strategic. With clients, for sure, I think I put a lot on my team, more and so than I could do with my clients. So there goes your embarrassing story. Thanks for asking.

Speaker 1: 17:59

Yeah, of course. Of course we had embarrassing. We talked about you being German and all this stuff, so we had to go into that. No, but no it's. I mean, it's such a great example because we all do that as, especially as visionaries and entrepreneurs. We've got this idea and then we've got a new idea two hours later and then, two minutes after that, we've got another idea. We think this is going to be the home run and we continue to change and iterate in our minds. We've worked through all this. This is all there, it all makes sense and it comes together, but we don't communicate that to our team and our team can't follow the train of thought that we have, because what we're communicating is only a small portion of all the steps that are there that we can see as a visionary, and so it's a little surprising, since you do systems and processes and business strategy, I would think that's very integrator heavy instead of visionary heavy, but that you do do that. And so what are some of these like mental things that you do? You kind of mentioned it briefly, but what are some of those mental things or even physical things that you do to make sure that you do slow down?

Speaker 1: 19:10

And I want some details here because there's a lot of visionaries that listen to this podcast.

Speaker 1: 19:14

There are a lot of entrepreneurs that this is what they struggle with every day, and it's not even just in business, I mean, it's in personal life as well, and I've told a story about dog food several times of just saying, oh, ants by the dog food. And then my wife later says, oh, I found ants by a dog food in the laundry room and I missed out on in the laundry room portion and that's where I met and I'm like, what's where I meant? And I'm like, but I didn't express that portion to her when we have the dog food bowl and the breakfast nook, but then we've got the dog food container in the laundry room. So it's like I didn't use a couple of words to explain exactly what I meant. And that's what happens with us a lot of times. I'm curious what kind of systems and processes have you put in place to make sure that your visionary mind actually transfers all that information needed to the team to be able to help out the audience?

Speaker 2: 20:05

Yeah. So I guess, on a mental level, what I've done there's you know, we have tons of ideas on a daily basis, right? I mean constantly like we want to change this, we want to add this, we want to do something new. So what I've created, we've created a launch strategy at the beginning of the year where we clearly outline different things that we're doing this year and what our biggest focuses are for the month. Because as your team grows, certain things do kind of slow down because of the extra communication that you have to do, the certain implementation that's going on. So what I've done for because I have a couple ideas that I really want to implement soon, they go on a I call it a parking lot list. Like we have to make sure that we're focusing on the things we're currently working on so that we launch that and we really put in the work that we do. If we don't do that, it's going to fail. It's not going to be as successful as it could be if we put 100% focus on that. So that's why additional things I put on a parking lot list to when we are done with those and we have launched those and they are implemented and there's a process for it.

Speaker 2: 21:07

I then get to move to the next thing, which sometimes is hard because you get excited about new ideas and you want to do them fast, but that's kind of how I put myself in place. And then I work with two amazing coaches myself too for the business, and one of them is also very strategic, just like me, so he keeps me in check as far as strategy goes. And then the other one she keeps me in check as far as how fast, the speed I'm going with the business, because growing fast is great, but there's a lot of things that fall through the tracks too, and you have to make sure that you're keeping things in check. So those are two things that I do on a mental and strategic level to assure that we're not messing certain things up in the business just because we have a great new idea and we're going full force in a two, a different direction right now, leaving everything hanging that it's not done over here yet.

Speaker 1: 22:02

I like that parking lot idea.

Speaker 1: 22:03

I think that's such a great thing and I know I've done that like in a workshop where we've got all these ideas, we've got plans for the year, three years, five years down the road and then it's like, oh, but all these other things would be cool.

Speaker 1: 22:15

Well, let's throw it there in the parking lot so we don't forget about it, but, and then maybe we can put them back in where maybe they fit in with one of the goals, one of our priorities that we have and everything.

Speaker 1: 22:26

So that's. I mean, it's a great idea and I think that it doesn't help completely from the visionary wanting to go do everything now, but it definitely helps a little bit because at least it gets out of your mind a little bit and you can tell people and then people on your team can at least be like, yeah, don't think that'll work, or oh, actually you know what that might fit over here. So maybe somebody else sees it and it can grow some legs if it fits in with the priorities and everything. And I'm kind of curious from the flip side, has anybody ever been like, hey, sarah, this doesn't fit in? They've kind of had to put you back in your place, because sometimes that leading up is as a difficult conversation to have, and so I'm curious if that's happened and how you've really cultivated that environment to be able to lead up and say things to you when maybe you're in the wrong, based on the strategy that's been set up already.

Speaker 2: 23:20

Definitely I have very open communication when it comes to my team. There's nothing that someone can't say without being heard, just because we want to make sure that we are openly communicating. First of all for the fact that most issues on a relationship in business or anywhere really happened because of miscommunication. And so I mean we had a meeting four weeks ago, I believe, and one of my team members sat me down there like, okay, we went really fast into this direction. I need more details. Like you need to stop, hold on, give me the info. And so that kind of starts giving me the idea too. I'm like, okay, I did go really fast into that idea. Again, here's all the info. Here's like the visionary has it all mapped out in their head, but your team doesn't yet.

Speaker 2: 24:09

And so I do really want open communication within my team. So whenever that happens, they usually tell me there's something, for example in January, that we took out, and I'm like, oh great, then we can move the timeline up, like let's just do this earlier, cause that's. I'm like, let's go. And it was actually from my marketing team side. They're like, no, like let's just not do that. And then we walked through the process again and I was like, okay, that makes sense. Yeah, no, let's just leave it as it is, because there's a time and a place for it.

Speaker 1: 24:42

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 24:45

So not that for sure.

Speaker 1: 24:46

Yeah, and that's definitely a tough thing. There's so many of us entrepreneurs that struggle with that that we just want everything now let's. Oh, we took that out. Okay, cool, we got more time. Like, not really, I mean, that just gave us the ability to focus in more on the things we're already doing. And so, yeah, it definitely is that that battle back and forth, but that's good that y'all have that open communication there.

Speaker 1: 25:08

That's such an important thing for leaders to have, for their team to be able to create that culture and that environment, to be able to keep each other and check, really, because you can't become a better leader if your team is not able to be able to communicate with you on things and help hold you accountable too. A lot of times, unfortunately, it seems one way street and it's I'm the leader, I hold you accountable, but not the other way around, and that's typically when the business starts to go downhill, because that, you know, people leave jobs because of a bad manager, not because of the work being too much or they don't like to work or anything like that. It's all I would say. I don't know what the percentage is. I'd probably say at least 90% of the time it's because of their manager, which is so sad that you know that's why people leave, but it's the reality and so we need to be able to have that open communication and you mentioned in your bio I didn't bring this up but you help businesses fill in control as visionaries with all of these things.

Speaker 1: 26:12

That's where I would suspect that systems and processes come in there in that business strategy. But for that entrepreneur that maybe feels like their business is a little out of control, it's out of their hands a little bit, what are some suggestions that you would give them to help them get their business back in control? Maybe we can, like do these couple of steps, and I know I left it pretty broad there. So if you wanna hone in on something specifically, that'll work too. But give us a couple of steps we could do to take some action to help bring our business back into control.

Speaker 2: 26:46

Before we do that, I just wanna, you know, talk a little bit more about that sense of control, because you know, as an entrepreneur, you always want to be in control of your business, which is kind of that fake control, because true control doesn't exist. So when you start losing control over your business, you have signs of you're getting, you have anxiety, you're overwhelmed, you're stressed out, you're being pulled in so many directions and you specifically have a lack of clarity. So usually when business owners come to me and they say, hey, I've lost control, I can't figure this out, they don't necessarily say I've lost control. They say I feel really stressed, I'm really overwhelmed, I don't know how to get to the next level and I'm very unsure as to where I'm at right now, going in what direction. And so what we firstly do to get them back into that control seat of their business as a business owner, is get that clarity back. So we go back to the why, we go back to the goals and what we do from there.

Speaker 2: 27:49

As far as you know, creating strategy that I do with every client once they sign on the first three things that we do is we go back to the why, we clarify that, we make sure that's solid. We create goals, new goals based off of where they're at to where they wanna go, which is usually the easy part and then we create a strategy on how we're going to get there. Most of the time I'm actually every single time I go through this process my clients look at this and they're like, oh wow, this makes so much sense, like I can see the path now. So most of the time when you feel out of control, it's just because you don't see the steps or you don't see the path of where you're going. So it's really just that simple Couple of things that I always like to mention, as you always want to set smart goals and you wanna create a roadmap which is part of the strategy that I create with my clients that clearly show actions as simple as you can write them down, so that when you go to take that action, your brain is not trying to figure out what is step one.

Speaker 2: 28:57

You already went through that planning stage and you already planned those things out, because that really gives you the strategy and the pathway to walk that path and take one step at a time. When I go through this process, I usually have my clients do it first, because then I can kind of see what's really missing in their way of thinking in their business and then we kind of simplify it, really bring it out. But a lot of times it's like start marketing. Start marketing is like such a big topic that anytime you put that on your to-do list you're not gonna get anything done, because brain is like what kind of marketing am I posting on social media? Am I redoing a website? What am I actually doing? And so what? I've realized that a lot of times it's a lot simpler. All your brain needs is simple, short, small steps to go take action, which is immediately gonna put you back in control, because now you're being productive instead of just busy trying to put fires out in your business.

Speaker 1: 30:01

So true, I've seen that for myself and I've seen that for other people where it's like, okay, I've got to do this huge thing. And so, even in an interview like this, when I keep it really broad, it makes it harder for the guests to be able to answer the question. So this goes with interviews really, anything but the more focused in you can do it, which goes back to what we talked about at the beginning. You niche down to women that you help with business strategies, because then people recognized you for that. But same thing with our goals, with where we're trying to get our business to build, get back on track. It's all about focusing in. It's like you mentioned as well when we have this huge, wide, open focus, it's really hard to say what are we actually aiming at. So, like you said, the smart goals if you're just trying to say marketing, you know, oh yeah, I want to get better at marketing. Okay, cool. What does that mean? Yeah, there's so many aspects of that. Same with sales I want to get better at sales, okay cool, what does that mean exactly? And that's the same thing that happens for me when people come to me about help with their speech. Like all right, cool.

Speaker 1: 31:07

So, first thing, like, what's the outcome that you want to have from this in the first place? And sometimes they know that, sometimes they don't, but they're just like, oh, I just want to get up and speak, okay cool, but what are we going to speak about? That's, how are people going to say I want you, sarah, to come speak at my event, when you just say I'm a speaker Like, that doesn't help me know if you're going to help my audience or not, and so, and we definitely need to focus in for sure. So I like that. That's. I agree with you there.

Speaker 1: 31:38

That's the way that we can start to gain that control. And so great tips for us to be able to help gain that control. And just to bring it back to our team or to our customers. How do we then translate that? So we finally figured out how we're going to get our business in control. Figure out why, figure out the strategy behind that and everything. How do we start to get that team or our customers under control with our new strategy there and our new focus, rather, so with that, I think you know you as a visionary and the business owner.

Speaker 2: 32:13

You create the roadmap, you create the strategy, you create the direction you want to go. I think the first thing to make the team understand and to communicate with the team is say this is direction we are going, because your team wants to know where we're headed, they want to be a part of the business and be a part of your mission, right? And so we see companies that are really really good at that and really good at communicating that with their customers and with their team, and what it creates is now everybody's working towards the same goal, even though they're not the business owner. So I think that step number one is really clearly communicating hey, this is our mission, this is where we're going and this is how we're going to do it, because your team's there to help you get there and handle certain parts of that strategy that you need to reach your goals With your clients. I mean, we create this with our clients as well, and so they usually also just become a part of Shanshiyo and the Shanshiyo community by just coming to our events that we are now doing on a monthly basis just to get the clients together and do some more networking, and so we communicate with them as well as to what new things are happening within Shanshiyo, like we just started a book club. That way they kind of say, hey, we are growing, we are expanding, we are moving in different directions, but we're still here to take care of you.

Speaker 2: 33:43

So there's different communication, whether that's new emails being sent out with Infos. We obviously have a lot of contact with the clients within the coaching sessions. So I have a actually I have a weekly group coaching call on Tuesdays after this, where that's where we use the time to, if there's announcements or organizational things, that we clearly communicate with them. What we then also do is we have weekly check-ins with our clients. Those then tell us if what we communicated is good or not, because sometimes you communicate something that other person understands it totally differently. So that's why I really like our weekly check-ins, because that gives me the time to check in with the client. This is where you're at, this is what success you've had, this is where you're struggling the most, and so we're kind of fixing that communication issue there, because we're backtracking it and making sure that we have that additionally of them communicating with us. It gave you a lot. I liked that, yeah, and I liked that, yeah, having a very open dialogue.

Speaker 1: 34:48

open conversation and then having a good frequency. Oftentimes we think, oh, monthly or every other month, like no, you need to. It's depending on what it is. Having more frequent communication will help, but just being open in the first place. So, again, keep it simple, don't try and automate this whole process. Let's just get on a phone, have a conversation or get on Zoom call, whatever that looks like and have that conversation with your team, with your clients, your customers and everything like that.

Speaker 1: 35:18

I liked that a lot and so, sarah, we appreciate all this value you brought. I share this little bit different aspect for you to think about how to actually communicate this versus implementing it. But I love what you shared there, because it's so important to not only just implement systems and processes and business strategy but also communicate that, because you have to have that buy-in from your team. And if people are curious to learn from you, especially if they're here in the Greenville, south Carolina area, I'm sure you work with people outside of Greenville also, but I know you're doing a lot of events, a lot of cool things here in the local area as well, but if people want to work with you and more specifically, women. I know you're not opposed to men per se, but you're definitely honed in on the women there. Where is the best place for them to be able to reach out to you and be able to start having that conversation?

Speaker 2: 36:08

Yes, so you can just go to our website, shinecheocom. Shee-o is S-H-E-O and that's where you'll find. You know our entire thing, everything that you need as far as information goes. We're also on Facebook, we're on Instagram, we're on LinkedIn and YouTube, so just go look at ShineCheo and feel free to message us.

Speaker 1: 36:28

Also, you got a lot of great content. But let's get to our last question here. So I didn't warn you about this, but I like to ask this of our guests If you could only share one message for the rest of your life, what would that message be?

Speaker 2: 36:42

I think the one message that I would share for the rest of my life is believe more in yourself, Cause you can do it. Start before you're ready, just do it jump in.

Speaker 1: 36:52

I like that. I know we've had some conversations around that, especially with developing the business and everything. Those first couple of years are extremely hard and it feels like such a lonely road and it feels like there's not a lot of traction. But, yeah, just continuing to believe in yourself. So I could, I could see where that would be a message that you would share and one that I'm sure you have lots of conversations with other people, especially your clients, about too, especially as they get going into it.

Speaker 1: 37:18

Starting to talk about business strategy Cause if you've never had any of that in place, that's definitely a tough conversation to start having. And you bring in core values in with that too. All right, we're going to start operating a different way. Well, that's not how we used to do it. So I could see that for sure. Sarah, I appreciate you coming on the show and sharing the value that you did. I know people got a lot out of this, and so make sure that you all go follow Sarah, hit her up for all her knowledge she has so much out there on her social media platforms and definitely get with her and work with her. I definitely trust her. I'm not a woman, but I definitely trust her with the people that she works with. I've seen the things that she's done to help them and what she's doing here in the community, so I fully trust Sarah and the things that she's doing. So, guys, go out there, share your message, because your message matters.

Speaker 2: 38:09

Thank you so much, phillip, for having me on and for your warm shout out. I truly appreciate it.

Speaker 1: 38:14

Of course.