Unfiltered Sessions

ELEVATE Your Team’s PRODUCTIVITY Through EFFECTIVE Delegation with Traci Bermingham

• Philip Sessions • Episode 253

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Streamline your small business with expert insights from Traci Birmingham, founder of the Business Alignment Method. Traci, who’s adapted corporate strategies from companies like Charles Schwab and Visa, shares practical methods for refining roles and optimizing workflows to free up time and boost productivity. Her proven system empowers entrepreneurs to create customized structures that promote growth, offering valuable advice for everyone from startups to seasoned business owners. 
  
Learn effective delegation techniques tailored for small businesses. Traci covers how to start with simple tasks and scale to marketing and leadership roles, all while highlighting the impact of Virtual Assistants in handling routine work. Discover Traci’s preference for dynamic, visual guides over traditional SOPs and how tools like Loom can transform communication and task delegation, particularly with remote teams. With a focus on communication and project management tools like Monday.com, Traci provides actionable advice to strengthen team cohesion, drive retention, and streamline operations. 
 
NOTABLE QUOTES 
"We want it cheaper, faster, and better all at the same time, which you can't typically have all three of those." – Philip 
"Get yourself a work management tool and you as a solopreneur, can bring some of the corporate management into your day so that you can help to structure the work that you're doing." – Traci 
"With small businesses, you can be making eight figures in today's world with a very small team." – Traci 
"If you're hiring a VA, you need to be extremely clear about the task that needs to be performed." – Traci 
"I think SOPs are dead." – Traci 
"How-to document rather than an SOP, because everything changes all the time." – Philip  
"I don't want things to pile up. It's so easy to make a simple tweak here and there.” – Traci 
"Building a team that actually kind of wants to do the work that they've got in front of them makes such a huge difference in being able to grow and scale." – Traci 
"Get yourself a good work management tool where you can track everything." – Traci 
"Make sure you automate as much as possible." – Traci 
"Get out ahead of stuff as much as possible." – Traci 
 
RESOURCES 
Traci 
Website: https://goaldi.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goaldiglow  
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/traci-bermingham-goaldi  
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goaldi  
 
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

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Speaker 1:

What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Speaking Sessions podcast. I've got Tracy Birmingham here and she is a business integrator and founder of the Business Alignment Method. She helps overwhelmed virtual business owners to reclaim at least 20 hours per week of their time so they can take their business from a hot mess to a hell. Yes, and today we're going to actually talk about some of what she's done working for big corporations and she decided to bring those systems, those processes, all the good side of big corporate world and bring it into small business so we can learn how to actually implement that and create that corporate-like structure without being the bloat of a corporate environment everything. But before we get into that, tracy, welcome to the show.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much. I'm so excited to be here.

Speaker 1:

Yeah Well, tell us more about your background. I kind of teach you up that you've been in the corporate world and now obviously you're doing your own thing now and everything. You've been in the corporate world and now obviously you're doing your own thing now and everything. But talk to us about that corporate background to really give us an understanding of who Tracy is, where she came from, and then, of course, bring us into where you're at today and who you're helping.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so I grew up in San Diego, lived in San Francisco for about 10 years and while I was in San Francisco I was, I got my project management certification and I was launching products and services for the big guys Charles Schwab, visa, del Monte Foods, the Gap, banana Republic, williams-sonoma, right. So all of those I probably launched, with my teams, about a billion dollars or, I'm sorry, a billion dollars worth of sales and products into the marketplace. You know, over that time they were huge projects, multi, you know, 50 to 100 team members per project, millions of dollars worth in a budget and they would last two to three years to get them launched. So I had just a ton of experience working with them. And then, about 15 years ago, I got married, started having kids and my first I have four boys. My first son was born in San Francisco and his changing table was in the kitchen because it was such a tiny space in San Francisco and his changing tables table was in the kitchen because it was such a tiny space in San Francisco. So we moved to North Carolina, east coast, uh, and there is no corporate. We're small town USA, there's no corporate anything here.

Speaker 2:

So, uh, during that time I went virtual and I what I realized was, um, what seems really simple in corporate America? Because for the most part, when you get into corporate America, your role is defined right, everyone's role is defined. For the most part, we know what we're doing. We might get frustrated because they're not doing it how we need them to do it, but it's defined. Small businesses you have to define that yourself. Experiences you have to define that yourself. And so what happens is you start out usually as a solopreneur in a small business, right, so you're wearing all the hats and then you start to bring team members on and if you don't define like corporate does, if you don't define what the workflow looks like, what the job roles, all of all of those things, you're spinning your wheels and there's dropped balls and there's bottlenecks and there's you're doing way, you're working way harder than you ever thought possible, getting everything done, making sure everything is happening. And so what I do is I come in and I help to clean all of that up and I help to take, like, the corporate systems that are in place and we come in, we create those for your business, but we customize them to your business so that it doesn't feel bulky and heavy, like the corporate side of things sometimes does right.

Speaker 2:

I remember with Del Monte Foods it would for us like, let's say that there was an error on a you know, like a typo on a label. It would take six months to get that label changed Right, like it was small business. If you've got two weeks for something, it's a luxury to get it out the door and done Right. So those kinds of differences, so we incorporate those into the small businesses and what happens is we free, we simplify everything, we free up your time, your team's time and most of the time you come out with a better product or a better service because you've streamlined and you've smoothed everything. So that you know, if you think about corporate America, they find ways to stamp things right. They just they. They figure out a process, they stamp it and then they do it again and again and again and again. And the faster you can get at that, the more money you make, the more time you've got, the faster you grow. That's what we do over on the small business side now.

Speaker 1:

I love that and I agree that's. The thing that's really mind boggling to me a little bit when it comes to the corporate world is like you literally have this one thing that you do. Maybe it's a couple of things, but it's like you said, it's clearly defined. You do these things. You do not step outside of that. You can if you want, but you're not going to get any benefit for that because that's not part of your role. But you're not going to get any benefit for that because that's not part of your role. Unless if you clearly, let's say, you were just an engineer and you started doing management stuff, then maybe you'll get something. But if you were an electrical engineer, you did design, but you started doing some programming as well, maybe not, unless it was a big thing that you changed Versus small business. It's kind of looked at holistically like wow, you're able to pick up so many different things for me, let me give you some more money because of that. So it's definitely a mindset shift there.

Speaker 1:

But at the same time, that big business, because you do this thing, you get specialized in that you get better and better and better and more efficient and higher quality and it costs you less time for that, all these things that go into factor to make things cheaper. We want it cheaper, faster and better all at the same time, which you can't typically have all three of those. We try and do that in the big corporate world and so bringing that over to small business is a huge thing. So we're obviously as a solopreneur. You don't have that opportunity because you just have to do everything. It's just you. But at what point do you feel it is kind of the best spot for a small business owner Like how many employees for them to really start actually incorporating these systems like the big corporate corporations and I'd say and when I say that I mean as well like where you have specific people only doing like one type of role instead of doing wearing multiple hats?

Speaker 2:

Good question. It is different. I honestly think. So there are ways for the solopreneur right now with tech and automations, like get yourself a work management tool, work management tool and you as a solopreneur, can actually bring some of the corporate just even management of things into your day so that you can actually help to structure the work that you're doing over time. I honestly believe, if you want to grow your business, start right now in bringing someone on. I'm a huge fan of Upwork, uh, I find most of my team members for myself and my clients through that. Um, but there's every budget right. Like, let's say, you've got a hundred bucks a month available within your budget to bring someone on, bring them on.

Speaker 2:

And usually the way it goes when you're, when you're delegating and you're starting that process, the first things you want to do are the admin right. Those are the simple tasks, the simple email follow-ups, the you know all of those those simple tasks that are easy to do. But even if it frees up five minutes of your time, that's five minutes of your time to go put into a higher level task, right. So go find a VA right that can can help, for maybe it's a few hours a month, right, but they can free up a few hours of your month. But you take that time that you're saving and you put it into a higher value. You make an extra sales call that month, you write like whatever that is to help and so that it will help you to grow.

Speaker 2:

But what I see a lot and what has worked the best with clients is the first thing you want to get off your plate is admin. The next level up that you want to go is fulfillment. The next level up is marketing. The next level up is sales and then the next level up kind of to pull yourself completely out of the business is the leadership Right, and so kind of going through those levels and those stages will help you to bring people in.

Speaker 2:

With small businesses, you can be making eight figures within today, in today's world, eight, nine figures with a very small team, right, and they can wear different hats and they can have specialties, depending on what you need. But I think if you kind of follow those rules and those phases, it helps tremendously in being able to but always, always, always, because I see this a lot as soon as you delegate and get stuff off your plate and build those systems, those kind of corporate systems. You need to be pulling your time out to perform higher level tasks that only you can perform. You need to do that over and over again. I see so many small business owners who like get rid of the smaller tasks but then they just load on with other small tasks Right and admin tasks that they kind of keep doing those things and you always need to pull it out and do the higher level and just keep doing that over and over and over again.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, there's. There's two spots I want to go with this and for those who don't know what a VA is, that's a virtual assistant, so typically somebody overseas, or maybe Latin America so they're not in America, essentially or the United States let's be more specific there so they're going to be somebody that is typically cheaper when it comes to that virtual assistant, to help take those things on. I want to go two directions here. One is how do we identify these tasks, first of all, and secondly, do we have to have SOPs or standard operating procedures in place completely in order to start delegating these tasks?

Speaker 2:

Such good questions. Okay, so tell me what was the first question.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, how do we identify the tasks that we want to offload?

Speaker 2:

Yes, so you, my thing is always the thing you hate to do. Get rid of that first right or the thing that what if it's sales?

Speaker 1:

What if it's outreach? You know, doing the cold calls, stuff like that. So there are certain things.

Speaker 2:

Yep, so that's again that would be the sales right. So things Yep, so that's again that would be the sales right. So that's kind of going up there. So it depends. Actually I'm going to say that. So it depends.

Speaker 2:

So things like outreach right, there could be tasks. If you're hiring a VA, someone who maybe English is not their first language, you need to be extremely clear about the task that needs to be performed. A lot of times, what I do with that is like I'll create scripts, right. So if your outreach is maybe it's cold emailing right, in that case, you can write a script that a virtual assistant can come in and work on doing those emails for you, right? So there are things that they can work on. You just need to be very, very clear on what you need done and how you need it done.

Speaker 2:

That goes into the second part of SOPs and all of the fun SOPs, right? Like everyone hates SOPs, I do this. I think this stuff is fascinating, I think it's so cool. I hate SOPs. So here's what I do instead, because I think SOPs are dead, especially because the world is changing so fast Right now. The tools that we use, the, even where. The tools that we use the, the, uh, the, but even where the buttons are right, like on the tools that we use, like, let's say, we use, um, you know, uh, uh, an email like Klaviyo for email marketing, right, like to go load our emails in we might create, take hours to create this whole document, and then we go into Klaviyo and Klaviyo has switched around where the buttons are, and so then you've now created this whole thing and it's completely. The look and feel of the page is completely different.

Speaker 2:

So here's what I do instead. I will go through and I will. I don't take extra time to create SOPs. I while I'm doing the work. So let's say, for example, I'm loading an email right into into my software. What I do is I record myself. I use loomcom. It's amazing, but I will record myself and I will walk through.

Speaker 2:

The next, let's say, I send out, you know, an email every Tuesday. The next, let's say I send out, you know an email every Tuesday. So next Monday, when I'm loading everything into my email autoresponder, I will record myself loading the email in. I'll explain why I'm clicking the buttons. I'm clicking what I'm doing here. I want the picture right here, I want this, I want this font, I want it to be this size. I go through everything that I want to go through and then I took no extra time doing it. I just, while I was loading the task that I needed, I just grabbed a video for it. Then what I do with that video is I create a.

Speaker 2:

I use mondaycom as my work management tool for myself and my team and I highly recommend it.

Speaker 2:

Monday is just a fantastic tool, and what I do with it is I actually have a. I create an automation for my team member, my VA, to do that task. I want them to send the emails out every Tuesday. I want them to load them on Monday. So on Monday that automated tasks pops up and I've actually copy and pasted into that automation the how to video to do that task. So every time that task pops up every Monday to do it, I've got a how to video associated with that. If it ever changes and the buttons change on that item, it is the VA's responsibility, when it changes, to actually create a new video and pop that into the how-to. The cool thing about that is I've had VAs that have left for some reason. I can bring another VA in into the mix and I don't need to train them, because I've already created the training video. It's already in the task. So when that task comes up, they can just do it without any issues whatsoever and without any problem.

Speaker 1:

And that, right, there is a big difference between small business and corporations. Because it's a bittersweet thing, because you feel like you're so valuable, you do so much, you know so much within a corporation. And, yes, there's a bittersweet thing because you feel like you're so valuable, you do so much, you know so much within a corporation and, yes, there's a lot of knowledge lost when somebody with a lot of experience at a big corporation leaves. But at the same time, because of the systems they have in place, unfortunately, you're not really missed out on that much. Now, if it's some kind of new thing, new technology, it's a different story because it's something new. There hasn't been that system put in place for that. But with the small business, you really feel that when that person leaves, obviously when you're under 10 people as well, you notice that the person's left, unlike a corporation where they have hundreds of thousands of people. What's one person gone? You can't tell that and not everybody in the company is going to know that person's there or not, if they even worked there in the first place. But with a small business, obviously based on numbers, you see that. But then also because of that workload, without the automations like you're talking about without those procedures. You really feel it when somebody leaves, and so that that to me is is a huge thing as a small business owner that we need to understand and figure out and get that in place and I like that.

Speaker 1:

Just doing the video, like you've already done the work. You've done it a hundred million times. So, as you're doing it, just record yourself. Loom is a great way to do that. There's a I think it's like a start recorder or record something or another on um, on that's actually integrated into windows. Now this just records, like your clicks and it'll take screenshots of everything. So not quite as good as what you're talking about, because then you can talk through it as well, but it'll actually record to do a left click, a right click, what'd you click on, stuff like that. So that could be a good interim if you can't do loom, but with loom as well, like your face is there, you're able to talk through those actions you're taking as well. So that's a powerful way to really knock out doing a procedure on something like a how to, and I like that.

Speaker 1:

Like you said, the how to document rather than an SOP, because you're right, everything changes all the time, different buttons. Actually, we're recording here on Riverside and I just noticed they have a mark clip button now that they didn't have before. Now everything else looks to be about the same, but they've got a mark clip button down on my side that I can mark clips as I find things interesting and everything which they didn't have. And Zoom used zoom, I'm sure since covid that changed so many times. It was unbelievable in a great way, but it changed so many times that if you had an sop, yeah, you have to go back every time and check that and I and I like that you gave that task to the person doing it because then they could go back, because that's another thing.

Speaker 1:

A lot of people they create the sop and then it's done it. It's like, oh well, we made that 10 years ago and the person has just been doing the job. It never needed to be updated but things changed and so how would you kind of catch that, besides just telling them how often is there like a procedure that you have in place, like every six months we need to look over this and make sure that nothing's changed, or how frequent do you look over these how-tos to make sure that they are updated with the latest and greatest of all the locations of buttons and everything on software.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's, you know it's their responsibility. That is part of their job description. Right, is to make sure that everything's up to date, and we talk about it on a weekly basis. I don't want things to pile up, right, it's so easy to make a simple tweak here and there. It's a heck of a lot harder to let it pile up and then all of a sudden realize you've got a mountain of edits that need to be made and it's just, it's overwhelming.

Speaker 2:

I'm all about, um, think once and then never think again. Right, like, figure it out the first time, do it well, and then just maintain it over time, because it's, you know, it's kind of like a diet. Right, starting a diet and completely changing your food routine is like overwhelming and it's hard to keep and it's hard to maintain and it's hard to go. But if you decided that you know, in doing your routine that first you're going to start drinking eight glasses of water an extra glass of water a day and you do that for a week until you're into a routine of drinking an extra glass of water, and then the next week you drink two glasses of water a week, right, and like, just, if you continue on, and just kind of um. Once you get into that healthy state, it is easy to maintain that right Like over time.

Speaker 2:

It's. It's much harder to to to eat junk food for five years and then switch over right, like that difference. So I'm mixing a little bit, but you get my point right Of like it's just it's so it's. It's easier to make tweaks along the way versus the hard stuff is the thinking. So the the less thinking you can do and the more you can use automations and videos and tech and right and your team and all of those things to not think ongoing but still set it up in a way that you get the results and the deliverables that you're looking for every single time, day in and day out. It makes a world of difference.

Speaker 1:

I completely agreed there. And I got one question you mentioned about job descriptions. Now we kind of talked about this a little bit. Obviously, in a big corporation you can have one kind of defined job description. You do this very specific thing that seems very niched, but you have so many people that enough people do enough niche things, that this big thing just kind of happens and you're able to build stuff or do whatever. You're able to create the filament, the sales, the marketing, this, that, the engineering.

Speaker 1:

But with the small business especially, let's say, under 10, I would say 10 employees, everybody's probably going to still be wearing multiple hats and of course this depends on the business and all that stuff too. But let's just assume that everybody still has to wear multiple hats. But you're bringing somebody else in and they're going to have to wear multiple hats, how do you go about creating a job description for them? Or how do you help your clients and suggest to them or coach them through bringing in new people and kind of helping them while maybe they're wearing multiple hats, that they can wear very similar hats, let's say, rather than being an engineer and a salesperson, they're able to be maybe sales and marketing instead, but they're not just sales, or just marketing or just engineering. So how do you guide small business owners as they're bringing in new people to fulfill some of these roles while wearing multiple hats?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, really good. There's a few different ways. You know, chatgpt is like one of my favorite things in the world. So I use ChatGPT like give me a job description for a customer support person who I need them to do X, y, z, right. And so they will give, like it'll give me a list and then I can go tweak right. Again, it's all about the tweaking versus the thinking right. And so they will give like it'll give me a list and then I can go tweak right. Again, it's all about the tweaking versus the thinking right.

Speaker 2:

If you, if I gave you a blank sheet of paper and said write a job description, you'd probably find something better to do, right, like it. Just it's hard. So I would start there. Just get a basic job description, type in what you're looking for, put it in there. Um, I'm very much especially with small business. Uh, to me it's about being fluid, right.

Speaker 2:

So a lot of times I will hire people for teams. Um, it's usually the, the, the things that I don't enjoy doing. I find the person who loves to do that, that type of work or that like I'm an awful copywriter, like I'm that blank page. I will stare at that blank page saying I have no idea, even though I've been doing this for like 25 years, right, like I just it doesn't flow for me. So I'm going to go find the person who loves words, who loves to write copy, and I'm going to partner with them, and that's how I look at my team members, right? So then, if I find someone who loves copy, well, they're going to do the copy for my emails and they're going to do the copy for my website and they're going to write I'm all about what you love.

Speaker 2:

I'm also very fluid when I work with my teams and that, like, sometimes they want to learn a new skill, right, they're interested in something. If somebody is interested in something, I want them doing that job, right, even if it's there. They're right now doing customer support, but they want to learn how to do social media. Ok, go, take that course and bring it back and let's see what you got Like if they're interested. And so I think that with small business, there is a place. You've got these set deliverables that are needed. Who is the best person on your team to be doing those at any given time and have the ability to shift those a little bit? It all still needs to get done. You still need all of those deliverables. You still need to build clients every week, every month, every day, whatever it is right Like that cannot not be done. But you can be a little bit more, uh, creative, based on the skill sets that you have within your team.

Speaker 1:

I like that, you know being very fluid, being very open or agile to trying new things, new avenues as well, allowing them to do that. But and what I kind of noticed there, what you were saying is more like you know the copywriter. It's like what's the actual work they're doing? Not that they are the website person or they're the social media person, email marketing there, they do copywriting and where can that skill be put into? So it's almost like you, you look more at the skill and then what areas can be that that be put into? And now those are their, their job responsibilities and everything. So I like that versus uh, and I'm going back to engineering. But okay, they're an engineer, so they need to do engineer type things, and what are those engineer type things? Now you're looking at the skill instead of the actual job function title, if you will, and everything. So I think that's a great way to really kind of encapsulate multiple different hats without it necessarily feeling like that, because they're doing a skill rather than a job function.

Speaker 2:

Right, and it's playing to their strengths.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Right and things that they like. They like doing it. So you're going to have a happier team that performs better than any other teams that you see. Because, like I don't have on any of my teams, I don't have issues with uh, nothing is ever late there. We never miss a deadline. Um, they are, uh, I don't. Uh, they're autonomous.

Speaker 2:

Like, my team is completely autonomous so they can work whenever they choose to work, but it's because we set up our system to allow them to work at the time that works best for them, doing the work that they love to do, and so, because of that, my team members never leave. They're always around, they're always happy, they're always on it. They never miss a deadline, the bottlenecks don't happen, the issues don't happen. Everybody works together. Like, okay, I got that, you take that, I'll do this. It's just lovely. And so building a team that actually kind of wants to do the work that they've got in front of them makes such a huge difference in being able to grow and scale and and day to day right, like I'm not putting out fires all over the place. So, my time, I get it back.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, all over the place. So my time I get it back. Yeah, so to me that sounds like a lot of great communication that has had to happen behind the scenes, setting those expectations and things of that nature. So talk to us through that, because that is definitely something that most small business owners in the corporate world I don't know. Who's worse really, to be honest, when it comes to communication, when it comes to not setting the clear expectations. So how did you go about doing that to make sure that your team runs very smoothly, very efficiently, they're happy with their work? We don't hear all these things in one sentence that are all positive. Specifically, we have negatives within all of this as well. So how did you make that happen? And I think this is another important thing for small business owners really anybody in general, but especially small business owners to learn.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so let me. I think there's a lot to that, right, and let me give you an example of what I do with my team. That has just been phenomenal for us. So, again, I use Mondaycom. There are a ton of work management and project management tools out there. I think over the 25 years that I've been doing this, I've probably used every one of them.

Speaker 2:

What I found, though, is that me, as kind of the project manager, as the leader, the organizer, I'm usually the only one using the tool, telling everybody else what to do, instead of the team actually like they hate the tools, right, and so the team won't go in there at all, and it's me doing it Monday. The team members like Monday. They think it's fun and it's like it's a cool tool, it's visually nice to look at, and so they like being in there. So, number one, get yourself a good work management tool where you can track everything and keep. So. It's like a hub, right. Keep everything in one spot so that it's easy to find, it's easy to manage, it's easy to see what's happening.

Speaker 2:

So I use Monday because my team loves Monday, and so how we set it up is I have one Monday. Calls them boards, right, each page is a board. We have one board. I'm the quarterback for my business and for my clients' businesses for the most part, or I work with them with their quarterback quarterback. Slash, project manager, slash integrator there's all kinds of different names for it, right, and so what we do is again with the Loom videos. I am extremely clear on the deliverable of what I need, so I make sure that sometimes you care how something is done. Sometimes you don't care, right, like, as long as they get you what you need when you need it, you're fine. Right, and I would urge. I've had a couple of clients who will like argue with me over whether I should put it in an Excel spreadsheet or if I should put it on like a Google sheet.

Speaker 1:

Right, and telling me how to do it Right, and it's like.

Speaker 2:

You don't need to be involved in any of that. All you need is this data on a sheet, Right? So give your team the autonomy to if they're getting you what you need, you don't care how they get it done or when they get it done, Right, so that's, that's one thing, and so you need to be extremely clear on your deliverables and what you need from them and when you need it. What I do is I create a one board with here are the projects that we are currently working on whether it's and we've got automation set up so that, like, if every Monday we need to load up an email, that automation pops in there that that task needs to be completed. Right, my team. As soon as I will load a task in for them, I want them to give me a thumbs up I'm on it an acknowledgement that they've seen the task, so that I can take it off my brain Like, okay, maybe they're not working on it right now, they don't need to, but it's now off my brain that they know that it needs to be done. Right, it hasn't just fallen through the cracks and it's gone. So they just give me a thumbs up. I got it, we. It hasn't just fallen through the cracks and it's gone. So they just give me a thumbs up I got it, we're good to go. I'm very clear. This is when I need this completed. They get me what I need within that and we work within Monday has options to you.

Speaker 2:

Can you have the status of the task? That needs to be done? You can actually put the how to videos in there also. That needs to be done. You can actually put the how-to videos in there also. But then you can actually communicate, like within there and write notes of okay, here's my first draft of the funnel. Can you give me your feedback on what you think? When I pull that funnel up, I create a loom video and I walk through what changes I need and what I need to see differently, and then I give them that loom video back so that they can go make those edits and we go back and forth until it's in the right spot. But what I'm doing with that loom videos, I'm also teaching them for the next funnel or the next, whatever it is that they're doing. I'm teaching like okay, so this is where these pieces need to go. This is what needs to be in there. This is what it needs to look like. So you're constantly teaching and so they just get better and better and better as you go throughout it.

Speaker 2:

And then we clear off tasks Like our. We laugh because when you finish a task, you click complete and it just like goes away to the completed pile and it just disappears and it's like the serotonin hit of amazing. And so it's, you know, we all love it. And we, we crack up because we're like can I hit the button, Like we're done with that one Right, and like off it goes. And so we, you know, every day I'm loading in the tasks in the morning of if anything new has you know been needed for the day? Um, for any tasks, you know any clients that we have. They go through, they acknowledge that it's happening. We go back and forth on here's. You know, here's the first draft, it's finished, it's done. You know, whatever it is, I acknowledge that it's done. Great job. We send it off and we start again. And that's literally. We just do that over and over and over again.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, and I use Asana myself, so I think it's very similar to Monday. Definitely some differences between all the platforms, of course, but yes, that's a lot of what I do as well, like, hey, we've got I we use like swim lanes, so here's like a swim lane, maybe it's like a brain dump. Here's tasks that I have, tasks for the VA, and then here's like rework or whatever. When we go through that. I haven't gotten to the loom side like you or anything like that, but we'll talk through that. There's reviews that I do based on what it is, what the workloads are and everything where I do that. But yeah, just something where it's visual, you can see and everything. Sometimes you miss those notifications, so then you can also go in there and see, okay, where's that status at, and hopefully you can see through, especially, I'm sure, where you're at, where you probably got hundreds of notifications a day coming through there, because all the different little tasks getting done. That's daunting to try and make sure you checked every task. You can now go into the board and see, okay, here's the status, here's what's going on, and really just manage that project, which is where every business owner I manage that project, which is where every business owner I feel like should want to be getting to is more managing it, and it's definitely a hard thing, especially when you've been the person being that worker be working with your hands, doing the actual work to step back, but it is such a huge role to play. I mean, when we look you mentioned quarterback when we look at football teams, who's the person that's always praised the most? It's the quarterback. It's because they're the one that is stepping back. They're looking at the whole field. Are we going to run the ball? Are we going to pass the ball? What's going on? Where are the defensive players at? Where are the obstacles in other words, in business at? And you're able to make decisions based on that. You're able to help move things forward. You're able to have that conversation and stuff, and so I love that you're using Monday there and I agree that's a great place to go to be able to see the status of things, and people can see that over time as well, and the people that we're working with that are helping us are able to see that. Also. What are those next things that they need to do? What's going on?

Speaker 1:

But you mentioned at the beginning setting a deadline. That's something that, as small business owners, I found that they don't communicate often and I'm guilty of that too Like, hey, let's just get this done. And of course in my mind I'm like, okay, this is a task that's very important, it needs to get done ASAP. But I never set a deadline, I never said how important it was. I just said, hey, get this task done. But then I also gave three other tasks Well, which one was most important? Which one need to get done first? And now they just pick one and I've seen that in the corporate world, where that happens a lot of times too, where there's no deadline and I get it to some extent.

Speaker 1:

Sometimes you can't say, hey, we need this done at this time, but what's the importance on that? Give me something that I can know what I need to focus on, where the focus needs to be and everything. So I think it's something as well that we need to make sure that we're communicating. So could you elaborate on that a little bit more? I think that's something I said, something like I said. I think that's very important, especially when it comes to communication as a leader, as a business owner, whether it be to a consultant, be to a coach, be to an employee or just somebody that's 1099, that we're communicating those things like that importance and deadlines. So could you kind of explain that a little bit and give us some tips on how to make sure we're effectively communicating that and not maybe not even just verbally? I found as well a lot of times what's what's heard verbally is not actually what's meant. So how do we go about making sure that's that's crystal clear somewhere as well?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so a couple of things. Number one make sure you automate as much as possible, so, and what that will do is that will stabilize the work for both you and your team. So look at what do you need to do daily, right. Make a list, right. You need to check your emails. You need to check your Slack messages. You need to check your social media comments, right. Like, what are the things that need to be done daily? Automate those so that there is a daily task that goes for the team on what's needed. What do you need to do weekly? Every Monday, you need to do this. Every Wednesday, you need to do this, like what are those things weekly Do, monthly, quarterly, annually Right. Set those up so that they are automated, so that there is consistency and a foundation throughout your business so that you are consistently getting the work done over time.

Speaker 2:

Your team then starts to know every Monday, I need to do this right. Every Tuesday, I need to do this. The cool thing about that is that when new stuff comes up, you can they already know, kind of what their tasks are for the day, and they need to fit this in right. You want to get out ahead of stuff as much as possible. So that's where a weekly meeting comes in, where you review what you did last week, you review what you've got on your plate and then you review what you've got for the next week right. For the most part, I don't give my. I manage and get out ahead as much as possible on everything, like I usually don't. The only times I ever have urgent situations is when a client can you urgently get me this, or I totally screwed this up. Can you come fix it Right, like those sorts of things that we need to jump in right away. For the most part, I plan things as much ahead as possible so that, like my team knows, this is coming Right and if it's not coming and it's an urgent thing, they know to jump in right away.

Speaker 2:

That being said, anytime, we've got kind of a we call it the Monday 10 commandments right, every single task that we have. It has to have a due date, it has to have a person assigned. If it is not in Monday, it doesn't exist. Meaning if it's a verbal question, if it's an emailed question, if it's a slacked, something doesn't count, doesn't right? So we literally create this hub of 100% information. We've also got a set of statuses that we have clearly defined, on whether it's in progress, if it's in review, if it's in, if it needs a manager approval, if it needs client approval, right. So we've also got a set of statuses as well as notes on okay, here's what I need you to do with this task, right?

Speaker 2:

So we've got kind of 10 commandments where every single task that is on that board has to have these items, and I know I'm missing a few, right, but it's basically that this is what you need to know to complete this task. This is the information that you need to complete this task, and so it's all already in there for them and so it's easy, right. Like it then makes it so easy for the team to complete it and to get it done, because you've got consistency of tasks. You've gotten out ahead of all of your tasks, so they know what the workload is. So maybe if it's due on Wednesday and they know they've got a crazy Monday, they know that they're going to work on that on Tuesday, right. So they can kind of figure out their own schedules on what's needed. And then, if every tasks has what they need, so when they sit down to go do it, they've got all of the information. It's easy for them to do it and they can get it done quite quickly.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that's awesome, definitely really clearly defined and figure out what those things are that you're pretty much always need. I mean, there's always little nuances that come up, of course, but there's always those things that deadlines, like you said, you know what questions need to be answered. There's, there's things that we know are going to come with every single project. So figure out what those are. Yeah, try and automate those. For sure, tracy, this has been. It's been a lot of fun talking about this. I know we've really just talked about systems, essentially processes within business, but if people want to learn more from you, they maybe even want to work with you. Where's the best place for them to reach out to you?

Speaker 2:

Yep, you can go to my website goldiecomG, o, a, l, d, icom, um, and we've got everything. I'm rolling out a new delegation masterclass, so be on the lookout for that, um. But you know, it's all things delegation, on just what we've talked about, but more in depth than actually. If you've got Monday right, like we've got the Monday boards that you can just load them, the templates, directly in, and if you need help or you need assistance as well, we're there. So that's where you go to contact us and get started.

Speaker 1:

Awesome. Well, Tracy, thank you so much for your time. I appreciate it.

Speaker 2:

Thank you very much. This was absolutely wonderful.

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Philip Sessions

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