Angie Colee (00:03):
Welcome to Permission to Kick Ass. The show that gives you a virtual seat at the bar for the real conversations that happen between entrepreneurs. I'm interviewing all kinds of business owners from those just a few years into freelancing to CEOs, Heming nine figure companies. If you've ever worried that everyone else just seems to get it and you're missing something or messing things up, this show is for you. I'm your host, Angie Colee, and let's get to it. Hey, and welcome back to Permission to Kick Ass with me today is my new friend, Kaci Ackerman. Say hi.
Kaci Ackerman (00:38):
Hey, how's it going?
Angie Colee (00:40):
Awesome. Tell us a little bit about your business and what you do.
Kaci Ackerman (00:42):
Yeah, of course. So again, my name's Kaci Ackerman, and I am a click up expert. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Um, and I specialize in building out, click up for service-based businesses. Um, and I also have a background in management with businesses and systems and creation and stuff like that.
Angie Colee (01:02):
Nice. That's, that's so important. I know that I work with, and I coach a lot of creative freelancers, folks that, you know, typically rebel against the idea of systems and feels like it's a little bit too constraining. Actually, I would argue that creativity loves constraints and that you have a process, whether you think you do or not, it's
Kaci Ackerman (01:20):
Just they always have a process. <Laugh>. Mm-Hmm.
Angie Colee (01:22):
<Affirmative>. It's just that you may be resisting documenting it, which could, which could actually make your life a hell of a lot easier. But we won't go down. Yes. Maybe we'll go down that red path later,
Kaci Ackerman (01:31):
<Laugh>.
Angie Colee (01:32):
But I don't know, like systems is, it's so important to the creative process. And I know that a lot of the frustrations especially on the freelance side, like I work with a lot of copywriters, a lot of graphic designers, folks that do service-based businesses. You know, they get into the, to trouble with communications with their clients. And I tell them, you know, part of that is just keeping in regular communication as you're following the steps of the process and reminding them, okay, so we're at this step. This is what I need from you. Okay, so we're at this step. This is what I need from you. But if you don't actually have these processes outlined, it's really hard for you to explain it in a way that's comforting to the client and then they wind up wigging out. Is that something you would agree with?
Kaci Ackerman (02:16):
<Laugh>? Yeah. And it's so, like you said, a lot of times they do have a process, it's just in their head and oftentimes it is so confined and dependent on them to where that's where we kind of switch gears and change things. Cuz I would totally agree. Like they have the process that's in their head, but then their entire business is just dependent on them and they have no way to, you know, if they want to grow or if they want to just not work as much. They don't really have that option because it's so constraining on their creativity. But what's interesting is when I work with them, it often opens up like, well, I do all of these extra things that have nothing to do with writing mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And I'm like, okay, why are, are you doing them <laugh>? Right. Like, we can stay
Angie Colee (03:02):
Your not genius.
Kaci Ackerman (03:03):
Yes. Yes. And that's one thing like I love doing and the reason I am who I am and what I do is because for me it's a challenge. I get to build something custom for every single person I work with and it definitely keeps me on my toes of their process and how to make their process easier for them and put it into a system to allow them to, you know, to save time or hire somebody to offload some of it different, you know, there's different options based off where you're at. But that's why I love what I do, cuz I get to like mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, like listen to them talk and I'm like, okay, we can do X, Y, and Z and then you will save all of your Friday
Angie Colee (03:40):
<Laugh>. Yes. Oh my gosh. That is something that I have been working really hard. Well, I've got a new business partner of the last six months and I've been working pretty, I'm, I'm the operations person and she's the visionary and we have been working on putting some systems in place that allowed us to take well, Thanksgiving week F off and short, short version of that is the system is deciding in advance, we're off the week of Thanksgiving. Yeah. We will make all of the work fit into the remaining time that is not Thanksgiving week. Yep. That is a system and a process too. And it started with when we were onboarding people in like August, September, telling them, by the way, we take this holiday off and we take this holiday off. If you don't take those holidays off, we highly recommend it, but No, no shade here. Do what you do. Yeah. We will be unavailable that week. And so, like, systems can be simple. It it's, it's real easy to kind of get in your head and think a little bit too much about it if you're not a systems type person.
Kaci Ackerman (04:34):
Yes. And there is a thing of org over organization or over mm-hmm. <Affirmative> systemizing things if you don't have the brain for it.
Angie Colee (04:42):
Oh yes. Oh yes. And it's, it's funny cuz I was actually talking yesterday with a friend who is, she was thinking about starting a podcast and so she wanted to ask me about mine. I'm like, I'm, I'm far from an expert. Here's this course that I took that I recommend because it walks you through all the basics. But then I started showing her all of these systems that I've created around the production about, I think I've mentioned it maybe a time or two on the podcast, but we've got it to a point where I show up on Wednesdays and I record and I get to have fantastic conversations with lovely people. And then my VA takes over and moves those files over to the editor who takes it and makes it sound freaking awesome. Who passes it to the writer who does all the show notes and the graphics and the programming cramming of the email. And all I have to do is come in and say, approved, do some edits here, and then it goes out. And I get to have the most fun just having the conversations and everything else happens without me. But that wasn't something that I started with. In fact, the, the thing that I had to focus on the most when I started the show was just reaching out to people and say, Hey, I'm starting a show. Would you be
Kaci Ackerman (05:40):
Again, <laugh>? Yeah, yeah. But you even need a process for that, right? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, because you have to collect info from the guest, you have to make sure that they have the zoom link. You have to make sure that they know what kind of audio they need to have. You know, the quiet, like, I love the email that you send out ahead of time mm-hmm. <Affirmative> because it, you know, specifically states like, make sure you're in a quiet area. Make sure you have good audio, make sure you're not having, you know, like construction being done on your walls. <Laugh> like <laugh>, you know,
Angie Colee (06:06):
<Laugh> or thunderstorms moving through with the open window like I'm dealing with right now,
Kaci Ackerman (06:10):
<Laugh>. But all of that is a process and a system. And the best part about it is, I'm assuming you can correct me if I'm wrong, but once you put it in place, it's automated. Yes. So you are not having to worry about sending out that email, you know, the night before because all of it's automated. So now you are taking the if you will, fun, exciting part of the podcast, which like you said is doing what you're doing right now mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and you get to offload the rest of it and not worry about the rest of it because it's all in a system, a process. Everyone knows what they need to be doing when it's due and when it goes live and all those pieces. And like you said, you're just here to approve or make some edits.
Angie Colee (06:52):
Yeah. And it was, it was interesting, like, there's two things that I wanna bring up with that. One was that I noticed that I had to come up with a process when I found myself, I wanna say it was probably like episode 20, it was early on in the show, but I found myself on like, I, I released these on like Tuesday at midnight. It's an arb arbitrary time that I came up with, but it's something that I published and I like hold myself to with public peer pressure. So I do that and I find myself on like Tuesday evening sitting down frantically trying to write all of the show assets and get all the graphics created. And I had a moment of frustration that night where I was just like, what the hell is stopping me right now? I am a writer by trade.
Angie Colee (07:30):
Why am I having so much trouble putting my butt in a chair and writing something awesome about this show that I'm incredibly passionate about releasing into the world? What is the blocker? So like in a moment of frustration, I sat down and made like a 20 minute super ramly video where I just went from start to finish for my va, who's also a systems person and said, this is what I do step by step to get an episode published help. And doing that actually gave me a lot of clarity cuz I realized that one of the things that was holding me back from actually producing this was that in my mind I had four big steps find guest, record, edit, publish, and I was ignoring all of the little steps that happened in each of those categories. Yes. And so when all of those little steps that I was not acknowledging were adding up, I was getting stressed, overwhelmed, feeling rushed, feeling unprepared.
Angie Colee (08:22):
And then the other piece of it, you know, once I started to get these systems in place, which I definitely relied on a VA to like help me parse that rambly video down into a series of steps, was that it allowed us to look at places where there were bottlenecks and alleviate those bottlenecks systematically. Like we definitely didn't go from one ramly 20 minute stressed out video at nine o'clock at night to the system that I've got today. But it was a series of steps over time where we're realizing, okay, at this step when somebody is booking their appointment, that's when we can get their bio, their answers to these questions, their headshot, all of this stuff that we're gonna need so that we don't have to come back to this later a week before it goes out. And like stress out that we don't have the assets, we just have them upfront.
Angie Colee (09:07):
You know, and another thing that we talked about before the call was that I added questions to the intake form right before you book your recording spot. And I said, you know, nine times outta 10, I don't even follow the questions there. They're there because I started to recognize that my guests needed the questions to feel comfortable and feel prepared for the show. And then when they had answered those questions and we knew kind of what we were gonna talk about, they were much more comfortable with my format, which is to just follow the conversation wherever it
Kaci Ackerman (09:34):
Goes. Yeah. Yeah. And you can, I know we're talking specifically about, you know, podcasts and, and producing a podcast, but there's, so I love that you mentioned all of the small steps that go into mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, the big steps, and I talk about this all the time, and my favorite example with this also is social media. So mm-hmm. <Affirmative> people like dread social media. Right. And it's because they more than likely have something on their to-do list that says make content <laugh>. Yeah. Or, you know, like create social media posts. And that is such a big task that you keep putting it off like, oh, I'll do that tomorrow, I'll do that next week, I'll do that next month. And then your months, you know, down the road with no content out there mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and you're not, you know, making those relationships and connections and stuff. And so it's the same idea though of understanding that there's so many smaller steps that go along with that. Yeah. And the best part about finding those smaller steps is you uncover the areas that you don't need to be in.
Angie Colee (10:36):
Yes.
Kaci Ackerman (10:36):
You know, so for instance, like with yours, you've streamlined so much of it now, like you said, where you basically just record mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and the rest is, is offloaded. But if you're not, at that point, let's take again social media for example. You don't need to schedule your content.
Angie Colee (10:52):
Yep.
Kaci Ackerman (10:52):
So when you start to unravel the actual idea of like, make content or, you know, so create social media, you start to see those pieces where like, oh, I could hire somebody, you know, 15 hours a month, 20 hours a month to come in and help me with these little pieces. And that unloads so much of not only your time, but your energy and your brain power mm-hmm. <Affirmative> that you are now connecting with new people. You now have the energy to go foster new relationships. You have the energy to sign a new clients. Yeah. Because you're not bogged down with all of these pieces that don't serve you or that you feel like this is so daunting, I just am not gonna do it. And I'm gonna say stuck forever, you know? Yes. Which we all know does not move your business forward. <Laugh>,
Angie Colee (11:41):
It was inter, I was on a podcast yesterday actually, where I was talking about kind of simplicity and ease and why you don't have to create something that's a hundred percent new, never been seen before in order to be a standout. And we talked about this concept that I just kind of like invented off the cuff. I'm, I'm sure it's out there as like an official term or something, but you know, how we have nickel and dimming ourselves into a bad financial situation where we take on, you know, tiny payment, timing, tiny payment until we're paying thousands of dollars a month. I feel like we do that with our production as well in terms of business. Like, I can't tell you how many people, and like these are professional people, people that do email marketing or social media marketing for a living. And when it comes to their own business, it's a cobbler's kid situation where it's like, all right, well I'll just wake up tomorrow and I'll, I'll write an email because I need to write a daily email.
Angie Colee (12:29):
And then tomorrow they wake up and one of the kids is sick and like the power goes out and a whole bunch of things that distract them and then they wind up not writing that email. And then it just kind of snowballs from there. And I, I suspect to me it's because like we add a bunch of small tasks like that to our plate that require our plates, that require a lot of task switching and jumping from, okay, well it'll be a quick email, so I'll do that, then it'll be a quick social post and then I'll do that. And then like, that's just hours of your morning gone without you even realizing it. Is that something that you
Kaci Ackerman (12:59):
Notice? Yes. And I preach all the time having a dedicated space or time in the week to actually work on your business for those pieces mm-hmm. <Affirmative> often the term as a CEO day, and really what that comes down to is you are carving out dedicated time in your week to focus on your business. Now that doesn't mean that you're going to create a month's worth of content or, you know, write 20 emails in that day. That's where you get to break down those pieces. So maybe mm-hmm. <Affirmative> on maybe your CEO day is gonna be Fridays from eight to noon. Maybe that's, you know, you have four hours, so on the first Friday of the month, you're going to just plan out your content. That's it. Yeah. You're just gonna plan. And that's, that's such a small task. And maybe you decide to write two emails.
Kaci Ackerman (13:45):
Typically on my CEO days, I like to write two emails, so I'm kind of two weeks ahead, you know, and I feel good about it because if I do miss a Monday, mine are on Monday. But if I do miss the Monday, I don't feel so rushed and anxious, you know, about getting things done. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so then, you know, the next, the next c e o day, you write a couple more emails and you also start to create your content or you, you know, write copy or you do so you do pieces of it. But it all circles back to where at the end of the month your content is created and scheduled and done and you know, your, your emails are written and tested out and ready to go. And so that is where I feel it's really important is actually carving out that time. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and the Kick Asser is though, to holding boundaries with yourself, which I know as business owners that's really hard <laugh>, especially when we're at home and we have life and we could be doing other things. But what's really important, and it took even me time, you know, to, to get this way outside of my c e o hours, I do not work on my business. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>
Angie Colee (14:50):
Oh,
Kaci Ackerman (14:51):
Interesting. Is not, not a thing. So for instance, my schedule right now is Mondays are my c e O day, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are client related or like, you know, this like recording stuff, different stuff like that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and then Fridays is what I would call like a personal day. And basically I just don't work or I do if I want to or I go run my errands or whatever. So I have a schedule that works really well for me. And the point is I work, if you will, really hard Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday mm-hmm. <Affirmative> so that I can have the flexibility in the rest of the week.
Angie Colee (15:25):
Yes. You know, you know, that was a concept that I rebelled against for a while. I love, you know, I wrote this down and I circled it, that you wrote feeling rushed and anxious if you had to sit down Monday morning and come up with that email. And I feel like that is something that we don't really talk about enough in entrepreneurship and the fact that you can't create your best work from a rushed and anxious state of mind Yeah. That is just kind of a good enough is good enough. Which there's nothing wrong with that. If you have to go with good enough is good enough, fine. And no self-judgment. No. You know, this is permission to Kick Ass. We don't judge here even on crappy days, on down days, on days when we're feeling especially human. But if you can prevent yourself from having to create in an anxious space all the time, build that space in.
Angie Colee (16:10):
And I, that ties into the second idea, which was that I rebelled for years against themed days or time blocks. <Laugh>. I felt like that would box me in and trap me in that I wouldn't be able to come up with all the creative ideas that I need to come with up with. But the funny thing is that like putting gates around that time and saying, this is focus time, this is call time, this is recording day actually freed me up. And I have actually a very similar schedule to you, which I don't take calls on Mondays or Fridays mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and Tuesday and Thursday are like coaching calls that I do with clients. Wednesday is podcast recording day and that's it. That's that's awesome. Cuz it means if there's a random Wednesday where nobody books the time, which happens every once in a while, I got Wednesday off to do whatever I want to catch up on work. Exactly. Anything but Yep. It's all, yeah. It's, it's freed up so much of my time because I don't have all of these thoughts constantly competing for my attention going, you need to do this and you need to do that. Okay, well, podcast stuff. That is Wednesday, today is Tuesday. We're not even worrying about that. That's, that's fine. Yep. It's been so freeing, which is not something I would've expected before I went through the process.
Kaci Ackerman (17:20):
<Laugh>. Yeah. You know, and that's one of my, that's one of my like core values in my business is freedom and, and growth along with that. And it's interesting because like you said, a lot of people, especially a lot of creative mm-hmm. <Affirmative> entrepreneurs feel that way about time blocking or theme days, that it's very constrictive and, and they need to be in a very creative mood to write. And I do understand that, but the flip side of that is what kind of freedom are you creating for yourself Yourself. Yeah. When you don't have a schedule, you're not, you're actually, if you don't have some sort of structure like a baseline structure if you will, you actually are hindering yourself. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> from the freedom that you're searching for or that from the freedom you're wanting because you wake up every single day and you're like, oh, what am I gonna do today?
Kaci Ackerman (18:10):
Oh, well I have all of these tasks, so I guess I'll do those. And then you get distracted with all of these tasks over here mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, and then you're at your computer for 12 hours and you have no idea what you did all day long. <Laugh>. Right. <Laugh>. And, and now it comes to the point where you actually are doing the opposite. You are sacrificing your life for your business. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> when it should be another way around. You should be living your life and your business should be dabbled in there. You know? Oh yes. That's how I want my business anyway. And so it just is interesting. It's a different way of thought. It's a different thought process. And I do think that you know, there's a reason I'm a very systems operation style. I have not one creative bone in my body <laugh>,
Angie Colee (18:56):
Hey, there are different types of creativity. Not all of it is related to creating art or music. Being a creative systems person is still being creative there. Creative engineers, creative creating
Kaci Ackerman (19:06):
My own way. Yes. But it just, for me, it's like it's needed, you know, like mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, we need me and we need the creative people and then we come together and hopefully I can make their lives a little easier. Yes. And show them the areas that they really can, I think, I think there's a lot of mindset blocked too. Oh yeah. For creative entrepreneurs and, and all entrepreneurs not, but I know we're speaking a lot towards creative. And what I mean by that is because their business is so dependent on their creativity, if you will, of like graphic design or copywriting mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, you know, those different things. Website design, it's really hard for them to see how anyone else can help them. Yes. Because they are so focused on the fact that they have to write that copy or they have to design this thing. But again, like, like I said previously, and like you even found when you were starting to, you know, record that stressful video of your podcast, you're seeing all of these small steps that have nothing to do with creativity. Mm-Hmm.
Angie Colee (20:12):
<Affirmative>, they're just production steps. And they don't necessarily require me, like I have wonderful friends who have, you know, started podcasts before me. And here's a hint, you, there's nothing new under the sun. So if there's something that you wanna do and somebody you know is doing it, or somebody that you kind of know is doing it, reach out and ask if they would be willing to help you. The worst that they can say is, no, I'm sorry, I'm too busy. Here are some resources. Maybe they just say no. But, you know, by, by good grace, I had a friend who had a podcast and I reached out to her and said, help, I don't even know what I don't know. And she was the one that connected me with somebody who created the show graphics, which by the way, are Canva templates. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, which is exactly why my show, my writer for the show can just go into my Canva account, create the graphics by swapping out the image in the text, and boom, we're good to go.
Angie Colee (21:02):
So like, is that something that I need to be doing? No. Like, that, that is, that, that's not, I'm trying to find a graceful way to say it. So just if I say the words wrong, don't come at me. I don't care. <Laugh> you know, that's, that's something that doesn't require a lot of technical skill. Once you've learned that it's easily, easily replicable, and that's not necessarily something that I need to solve because it's a unique to Angie approach. Right? Right. That is something that just about anybody can do once they're trained. Right. And then there was this other concept that you said about, there was two of them. One was creativity and one was fitting business into your life, which I'm super passionate, passionate about. But creativity, guys, creativity, the way I see it is being able to connect two seemingly unrelated ideas or thoughts.
Angie Colee (21:49):
That's, that's really what it boils down to, at least in Angie's opinion, which on this show is what matters. Right. It's my show <laugh>. And I've put people through exercises about this. Like, tell me what you've, tell me what similarities, what things in common you have with a, a lock and a lamp. And all of a sudden people start to realize like, these two things that don't seem related have things in common. They're connected in ways that aren't obvious on the surface. They have metal components, right. They have usually some sort of rotating system. You might find both of them at a storage facility. See how like creativity works. You start connecting these ideas. And creativity is a discipline. It is a muscle, it needs regular exercise in order to be more effective. And you will see this in prolific writers like Stephen King prolific artists who sit down and create every day.
Angie Colee (22:43):
And that's because part of the creative process right. Is recognizing that not everything that you put out is <laugh> creates great. Yeah. Yeah. I would say I've gotten pretty good at this point, but it's still kind of like 60 40 that what I write the first time is great. And what I write the first time has maybe the seed of what it's eventually gonna become, but is not great. So part of, you know, developing your skill in sitting down in the c e o day and working on your business is building that muscle, that discipline to like, I'm just going to focus. I'm not gonna task switch right now and I'm going to be okay. At least this is with me. I'm gonna be okay with turning out crap because I know turning out crap is part of the process to getting to that gold nugget that's gonna turn into something good. And if I don't sit down and force myself to clear out all the garbage, then I'm never gonna find the gold. So yeah.
Kaci Ackerman (23:34):
Yeah. I love that. I totally love that. And it's so true because, you know, you have your dedicated business time and then you come to it the next week you're refreshed as well. So now you're, yes, you're looking at this and you're like, wait, this doesn't even align with my business. Why did I write that? And you can, you know mm-hmm. <Affirmative> edit things and you can get new ideas from it because then you can, which is another thing that I absolutely love, is you can create new content from something you wrote, you know, last week or whatever, and you pull out like a, like you said, a good nugget and that's a whole separate post or it's a real mm-hmm. <Affirmative> or, you know, all those different things that we, we all do in this online space, <laugh>. But totally. Like, I I love that. You also know what works for you, which is really important Yes. In this business is understanding what works for you. And I, I don't take that lightly because I do believe that there is, you still need a, a foundation
Angie Colee (24:28):
Yes.
Kaci Ackerman (24:29):
And a and a structure of foundation, but you still want to build it for what works for you. Mm-Hmm. So for me mm-hmm. I'm a morning person. I'm not going to go tell every single person, oh, you need to work from, you know, six o'clock in the morning until nine and you're gonna be the most productive person ever.
Angie Colee (24:46):
Oh. That prescriptive drives me nuts. I am not a morning person. Right. <laugh>. And in fact, that's why, you know, on my call days Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, whether it's recording or it's coaching, I don't have a single call that starts before noon. Yeah. I'm not a morning person. And for people that have requested, well, I don't have any time in the afternoons, the times that you gave me on the link could we do morning? And I will just, I make a big joke of it cuz that's just my personality. Trust me, you do not wanna deal with me in the morning. I am not my best self <laugh>. I am not this happy-go-lucky Angie, that you see right now. I really need the mornings to be able to like breathe, drink copious amounts of coffee and come to center so I can be the happy gol lucky Angie that you love. But like, exactly. Glad you don't live with me. Mornings are not great on Angie Lands. Moving on, let's find an afternoon that works for you.
Kaci Ackerman (25:33):
<Laugh>. Do you have one of those coffee cups that says like, don't talk to me. Not right now. Getting close, maybe later. And it's like, oh my gosh, depending on how much coffee you have drank.
Angie Colee (25:42):
No, but I, I do have, my sister and I have this in common, like we have a weird mug collection. And when I finally settle down, since I'm a digital nomad, I plan on having like a big mug display so that I can probably display all of my weird mugs. But I did have for a while, a great one, a handmade one that said, have a great day on the side. And then when I drank it, it was flipping the middle finger on the bottom <laugh>.
Angie Colee (26:04):
And I will like, in my final day is in my day job before I got fed up and I quit to start my own freelance business. I was definitely, I was like, what are you gonna do fire me? I already freaking quit. So I was taking that mug and just sitting in meetings like
Kaci Ackerman (26:17):
Are
Angie Colee (26:18):
You getting the message <laugh>? I don't care. I'm a little feisty in case you haven't figured that out
Kaci Ackerman (26:27):
Of the show. So if you haven't figured it out, note to everybody that's gonna be on Andrew's podcast Not before noon.
Angie Colee (26:34):
<Laugh>. Not before noon. That's the I I need to make that into a tagline or a shirt or something. Not before noon. Yeah. And yeah, that's something that I lear all of this that we're talking about, about with these systems by the way, is trial and error. It's not like I woke up one day, took a c e o day and said, this is the system that is gonna work for me from now until perpetuity. I started with going okay, calls on Tuesdays and Thursdays and then went crap. Not in the mornings. No, not in the mornings. So now it's calls on Thursdays from 2:00 AM or 12:12 PM to like, I think it was 5:00 PM I just had five hours of calls available. Well then I started running into problems where like folks in the in Europe didn't have any suitable times to talk to me and folks in Australia didn't have any suitable times to talk to me.
Angie Colee (27:15):
So then it was like, okay, in certain, on certain days, in certain periods, if I know that somebody from Europe is going to get on the phone with me, I will release a certain amount of spots from like 10:00 AM so that we can talk. And that will still give me some time to kind of get my head on straight, even if I won't be a hundred percent. Yeah. And then some days I keep appointments later until like seven or 8:00 PM so that I can have some reasonable hours for people overseas. Like this was just a step-by-step process when, you know, I'm talking to people and they're saying, I don't have any times on your calendar that work for me. Is there any wiggle room here? And I would start to make these adjustments. Yeah, it, it's just a process. So like give yourself grace and freedom to experiment
Kaci Ackerman (27:54):
And even as the systems, you know, expert I am and the click up expert that I am, I, we actually just changed our social media process this year. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, we changed how we're doing stuff. And it's more about like the strategy, but then there's also a process that, you know, that has to go along with that. And so I am constantly if you will, auditing my own systems and improving them. And then also since it's like my, you know, zone of genius, I love it because I can then give it to other people and say mm-hmm <affirmative>, here's this awesome new system I've done. Or you know, try it out. Let me know if you like it or, yeah. I can give people tips around this. So I often have a lot of people in my dms asking me, you know, like, I do X, Y, and Z but I don't know how to get a handle on this.
Kaci Ackerman (28:43):
And so I can ask them more about their personal stuff. And for me, since I have created, you know, systems for the last three years, I can think of different ways, but I always, always, always in the conversation with this is trial and error. So. Yep. The thing is, is this may sound like the perfect thing on paper when you write it all out and you have your brain dump and then you work your little workflow, you know, all the whole, the whole thing, you know, the, what I call the fun part <laugh>. Cause you get to like draw and you get to, you know, do different things. But
Angie Colee (29:14):
Do you like color coded spreadsheets? Don't lie.
Kaci Ackerman (29:16):
I don't, I don't like spreadsheets but <laugh>. But I, what I will say though is whenever that's finished I always say, you know, you need to test this out. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> for a couple weeks, maybe a month. And if you are not doing it, if you find that you are having your process be overdue and you get to that point like you did Tuesday at five o'clock in the afternoon telling yourself you still have to publish a podcast. Yeah. The system is not for you. Yeah. And you need to go back to the drawing board and you need to figure out what actually works for you. Yes. And that's what I mean by having your business in your life versus dictating your life and controlling your life. You know,
Angie Colee (29:54):
Resistance is just good data. Like Yeah. I, I don't think shame, I think shame is a ridiculous emotion cuz it stops us from doing better and then we just sit there and we wallow about how we are and that doesn't actually help us get out of unstuck mode. Yes. But if you can look back at it and you know, that actually it ties in perfectly with what I told you the podcast process started and, and what it has evolved into. You know, I, I sent them that 20 minute panicked rambly video and she sent me back a process and we had like documents located in different places. She created a tracking spreadsheet all of this great stuff. But then we noticed over time, over the next few weeks that I was the bottleneck in one of the steps, which namely was finding a way to get the recordings from my computer cuz I don't record to the cloud cuz it compresses the mumbo jumbo audio stuff.
Angie Colee (30:41):
I record it locally so that I can send the high quality file to my editor. But then I wasn't stopping after everything rendered and moving those files over to the editor. So we did some brainstorming and this is where I love, you know, letting go of this idea that you have to figure out everything on your own. Bounce ideas around with people that you trust. Because when I talked to my VA about like how do we get this off my computer to an editor in a much more efficient way, you know what we discovered, this is magical. What a time to be alive in technology. Google Drive has an app and we were already working out of Google Drive anyway. So what we did was we downloaded the app to my desktop and we synced it to the podcast folder on Google Drive. And now I just literally record these files directly to the podcast folder on Google Drive. As soon as I'm done recording and this thing renders, my assistant has access to it because she has access to my Google Drive. Talk about innovative solutions out there. Now I don't need to like psych myself up or judge myself for not doing something as simple as sending recordings to my editor.
Kaci Ackerman (31:42):
Right, right. Yep. It is interesting. It can, it can be, it can be such a time, time suck as well as just a mind issue mm-hmm. <Affirmative> of getting past this stuff. And one of the biggest things that I always talk about too, another thing that I hear from people is like, well I only have one client so I can just do things manually because it doesn't really matter. You know, but I always, I always flip the side, the the tables on them and I always say build systems for where you wanna be, not for where you are right now. And I know that's a very coined term. I know, but I still tell people that because it's so important to remember that what you're doing manually right now with your one client is not going to work when you have five clients. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Or when you bring on a virtual assistant, like oh yeah, your virtual assistant cannot read your notebook that's on your desk next to you.
Kaci Ackerman (32:38):
They are virtual <laugh>. Like, you know, they, they can't read your mind, they don't have access. I mean sometimes do they do, but they don't have access, you know, to all your emails especially right away when you're first, you know, getting them trusting and you know, all those things. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But just you have to realize that doing stuff manually and not embracing the systems, especially like with what you said in the time, in the days that we live in right now of Yeah. The technology embracing those things is only going to allow you to grow your business faster. And so if your goal is to have, you know, those, those five clients or fa 5K months or 10 K or whatever those trigger numbers are and you wanna hit those, you have to think about what you would be doing when you're hitting those mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And I can guarantee you it's not you writing on your little sticky note about a task that you need to take care of for the one client that you have.
Angie Colee (33:31):
Right. And you know, to, to tie it back into what I was saying with the, with the process, right. It's easy to get stuck in our heads. This I think connects to that mindset issue personally and judge something as only I can do this or I could actually outsource this. Where I think you really do need the help of somebody operationally minded because they can show you that things that you think are your responsibility and no one else can do. Like me moving files from my personal computer over to somewhere where my editor can access that on the surface without any other details does seem like an Angie problem. Angie has to figure out a way to do this. But because I took it to my VA and said, okay, this is a bottleneck, this is an issue and I'm just not remembering to do it and I don't wanna rush James in his production process cuz he's a genius.
Angie Colee (34:17):
Like let's not put that pressure on him cuz I can't remember to do this. So what is it? Is it like a reminder ping once a week that says go upload all the files but then that I'm gonna resist to because I have to create all these different folders and send him like to the two audio tracks and stuff like that. So she was the one that pointed out oh you know what if Zoom lets you choose the place that you record to, it's usually a generic Zoom folder if you don't set it manually. So why don't we set it manually to the Google Drive and get you set up with the Google Drive app. And she was the one that found that. And now I take it everywhere on every team that I work on. Do you know that there's a Google Drive app? You can just
Kaci Ackerman (34:55):
Create, create
Angie Colee (34:56):
It in a local folder and it'll automatically sync
Kaci Ackerman (34:58):
You blow everyone's mind, right? It's fine. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, look at this, look at what I'm about to show you. <Laugh>.
Angie Colee (35:04):
There ain't no turning back. No there is not.
Kaci Ackerman (35:07):
Yes. And it's, and that's also goes back to fostering those communities and relationships with other entrepreneurs and bouncing off those ideas with people that you trust. And cuz I'm sure that she probably had to research that a little bit. Yeah. Or maybe she even reached out to somebody saying, Hey, do you know any way we can, you know, does anybody have any ideas of how we could like, you know, make this easier? Yeah. And you know, that also just goes hand in hand of like building again those things. And also if you're in that growth phase, having entrepreneur friends is like, in my opinion, crucial because yes,
Kaci Ackerman (35:44):
I grew my whole business on word of mouth. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and having those friends and building those relationships, while I probably haven't worked with most of them since they know me, they trust me and they refer me to people. Absolutely. And they're like, Hey, absolutely you need Kaci. She's the click up queen. She knows everything about click up, go reach out to her. You know, like she's gonna get you all squared away. I've had multiple people come and say like, I heard about you from, you know, X, y, and Z and it's just one of my friends that I've built mm-hmm. <Affirmative> a relationship with and you know, we chat almost every day or whatever, you know?
Angie Colee (36:16):
Yeah. Yeah. And you're something I always get good and ranty about too. If you were somebody that struggles with asking for help, first of all, sending great big hugs because I grew up in South Texas land of southern culture and like I will do this myself. I don't wanna be a burden on anybody with all the love I have. Stop it, stop that nonsense right now. You are not a burden if you ask for help, trust another person to be an adult and tell you whether or not they have the time and the capacity to help for one. Right. Just ask, asking is not an obligation. Number two, if you think about this on the flip side, when I asked for help and granted I was paying my va, but she went and and found this solution to the problem. I don't know whether she reached out to other people or if she just knew it, but if she didn't know it before I tasked her with finding that solution, now she has a solution that she can turn around and sell to other clients.
Angie Colee (37:02):
Yeah. And that she can help her network with. So her helping me helped her and helped her future clients. And like it's a great big old mi mountain avalanche of help now. Yeah. Because I had the bravery and you know, I'm not gonna pretend that it's bravery in the, you know, charging into a burning building sense, but I had the bravery to get out of that self-judgment and say, this is holding it up and it seems like a such a stupidly simple thing. Is there any solution that I'm not seeing that we could use to make it so that I'm not the bottleneck anymore? And then she came back with one and it was awesome.
Kaci Ackerman (37:34):
Yeah. Well and like you said, so a big piece of this too is also like your self-awareness mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So you realized, you know what, I am putting pressure on my team to rush out podcasts because I'm not uploading them when I should mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. So how do we make this situation better? Yeah. And that alone is like, like I don't really know what I'm thinking of, but like a great c e o mindset I should say. Just because you are so aware of who you are and yourself and you just know it's not gonna happen. Like you're just Yeah. You're just so honest with it, you know? And that's such a big piece of running a business because you have now seen like, okay, I need to figure this out so that my team is healthy and my team likes working with me and they're mm-hmm. <Affirmative>
Kaci Ackerman (38:20):
Empowered to do a really good job because I'm not, you know, shoving them 17 podcast episodes that need to go out tomorrow, all, you know, that kind of stuff. And it's almost like you just always wanna get better. So it's like a constant like improvement of your business. And I think that that's a super, super important piece of running a business and business growth. And also just yourself of, if you know who you are and you're really honest with yourself mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, it's so easy to, like you said, ask for help and then also make sure that you're not that bottleneck. And one thing you mentioned about the graphics, about how, like it's not Angie dependent, one thing I wanna tagline on that is you creating a graphic for your podcast literally makes you no money. Yeah. None. It costs me money. Yeah, exactly. So also thinking about that, so when you're in this creative state and you're thinking about the big picture of I have to create all the copy cuz that's what makes me money, right?
Kaci Ackerman (39:17):
Okay. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> awesome. It does. I have to create all the graphics because I'm a graphic designer. That's what makes me money. Yes it does. But just emailing your client on an update of where you're at with the project make you money. Probably not. And I can even take it even one step further and we haven't talked a ton about click up, but click up can actually automate all of that with like a click of a button where it like just sends off a little email saying we're at this phase of your project and now you need to fill out this form so that I can continue with the project it's due on this day. Nice. Automated with a click of a button. <Laugh>. So there's, there's so much awesome out there though in this day and age of technology and then also just support with admin mm-hmm. <Affirmative>.
Kaci Ackerman (39:56):
And you just have to ask yourself when you're auditing yourself and you're auditing your business, if you are, if you have this vision of growing and you know, getting back your time, either, you know, growing in the sense of saving time or even financially different avenues there. But it all comes down to, with these tasks, do they actually make you money? Yes. And, and if someone else does it, is it still going to be good? Because I remember, I think this was Jenna, I think this was like Jenna, KU, I don't remember who, but one of those big gurus, you know Yeah. <Laugh>. She mentioned that a big turning point for her was realizing that it didn't have to be a specific shade of orange. Yeah. It just seemed to be orange mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And so she had to stop worrying that it wasn't, you know, this specific shade and that it was just done and it got done and it was out there and she had to let that go.
Kaci Ackerman (40:51):
Yeah. And it's better than perfect. Yes. It's better than perfect because now you have your podcast out there and you have your mm-hmm. <Affirmative> content out there and you have someone supporting you so that you can take Fridays off or you have Yeah. Pickup supporting you to where you don't even have to hire somebody because you're not, you know, necessarily at that point. And you have systems built to kind of trigger off automations. You have a system set for your clients with maybe a dashboard that they log into and can see, you know, those status of their project. There's so many different avenues out there of what you can do. And just the most important thing is allowing you to let things go. Yes. And really like seeing, you know, obviously my business is, you know, a a graphic design business or a podcasting business or whatever, but the key or the copywriting business, sorry. But the key Kick Asser is all of these admin pieces are really just time, busy, busy tasks. Yeah. And time, time sucking tasks and find ways to either eliminate them mm-hmm. <Affirmative> or automate them or hire help. Yes. Because now you've freed up, I don't even know, hours and hours and hours and now you can bring on new clients, you can start mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, you know, doubling your income. You can, or instead of doubling your income, you can keep the income, but then you're working half the time. Yes.
Kaci Ackerman (42:09):
So you've doubled your income without adding any clients.
Angie Colee (42:13):
<Laugh> more money is not always the answer guys. Often we expand our lifestyles or our working hours to accommodate the extra hours. Yeah. So, you know, sometimes it's a good result to cut our time in half and keep the income and in insane keep the income the same. <Laugh> <laugh>. Yeah. And everything that I just heard you say now is so brilliant. So brilliant. Like one of the the things that I wanted to unpack, like I think something that holds us back so much, especially folks on the newer end of the spectrum to entrepreneurship is, you know, they're so afraid of putting themselves out there, but they're almost ashamed to admit to themselves, right? That self-awareness that, that they're afraid. So they indulge in a lot of busy work like creating graphics, like obsessing on the perfect shade of orange stuff that makes them feel very busy and productive but is costing them money because you're not using that time to make money.
Angie Colee (43:01):
Right. Or you are literally paying somebody to create something for you instead of making them money. And so that's something that I often challenge my clients with. Like, is this costing you money or is this making you money? And I'm not trying to be reductive here or make it like it's all about the money or anything like that. But you ha you have to get real practical sometimes and look at the systems that you've built and what you're doing is is this costing me money? Is reaching out and manually setting appointments with my clients, costing me money? Can I pay 25, 30 bucks for a calendar software and just set my hours once and let people pick their own times on my calendar versus spending hours of back and forth. If you actually calculate out what you charge per hour, whether it's the hundred bucks, whether it's 500 bucks, whatever, if you spent an hour going back and forth trying to set up this meeting and you charge $500 an hour, you just lost $500 cause that was an hour that you couldn't bill somebody for doing actual work cuz
Kaci Ackerman (43:59):
You were Yep. Setting appointments. And another thing too, so you're talking money and you, you're always like, you know, you do say it's not all about the money, but you can also flip this on a time aspect too. So if people aren't, I'm very money driven. So for me, like me too, when I, when I think about those things I am, it's all dolly signs. Like all the time I'm like uhhuh, <affirmative> dollar signs going down the train, <laugh> or you know, going in my bank account. Those different things. But if that's not what drives you or if that's not what's important to you, think about this, is this costing you time or is this saving you time?
Angie Colee (44:35):
Yes, same idea. If I had to, if I had to schedule all the appointments, do all of the show writing interface with my editor and everybody set up all the emails, do all of that manual stuff behind the scenes, I think this is just quick math off the top of my head, but that would add another 10 to 15 hours back to my week and make things completely overwhelming.
Kaci Ackerman (44:56):
Which in reality if we're looking at that, you know 40 hour work week, that's more than an entire workday. Yeah. If you work eight hours a day,
Angie Colee (45:05):
Yeah.
Kaci Ackerman (45:05):
That's more,
Angie Colee (45:06):
Wow. Yeah. I hadn't even thought about that. That's like a two old days of my wor my week spending on admin tasks that I'm not really suited to and it would actually take me a hell of a lot longer because that's not a strength of mine to do all of that stuff. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. Versus having it automated, having an assistant to help me with things and you know, but again, I wanna circle back to all of this. Like if you are feeling resistance towards systematizing your business or you're thinking that there's no way that I can handle things off, I want you to look for two key signs. And this is gonna require some, some discomfort, some emotional awareness of yourself. But if you are noticing shame around not getting things done or you're noticing resistance to doing certain tasks, those are things to keep note of. Maybe keep yourself a journal like stuff I don't wanna do stuff I'm not doing and start to reach out for help and ask people, is this something a VA can help with? Is this something that Kaci Ackerman can help with <laugh>, can we automate this? Yeah. Shame as a sign. Use it as a tool instead of something to stop yourself.
Kaci Ackerman (46:07):
Yeah. And I wanna also just add to that because I love that idea of like, if you are feeling those things, definitely that's where you can start to audit that situation. Yep. Another thing is if you have no idea how to get started with systems, so maybe you do know that you need them, you're kind of past the point of the shame or resistance, but you also just don't know how to even figure out those small steps, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> do exactly what Angie did and literally record yourself because then you're gonna be explaining on the video what you're doing and you are going to uncover all of those pieces of the system. Yes. And that's the biggest piece. So we talk a big another trigger term in this online space or SOPs and blah blah blah, <laugh>, you know and I always tell people, just start recording Loom videos or whatever software you use I use, but just start recording videos because you can hire a VA and tell them I have videos recorded, but I need your help giving them all written, you know, like yes to where it's actual written process that we can look at and decide if things need to be changed or whatever.
Kaci Ackerman (47:12):
A VA can help you with that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Cause your system is actually probably already there now. Yeah. If you are needing the expert side of things of like, well, I wanna make this system better, or I wanna optimize it or automate it, then maybe you should be looking for a systems or operations person, but mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, if you're currently like, just wanting to get things off your plate and you just don't know how to get started, just start with recording your everything you do. Yeah.
Angie Colee (47:38):
That's it. <Laugh>, I was so worried when I made that video because I, I felt like I was gonna missteps, but what happened was, and I, I mentioned the word rambly for a reason, because I was going through it and I told them, I'm just gonna pretend like I am publishing an episode from start to finish, and I'm, I'm gonna do things. And so there were times where I'd stop and go, oh crap, I forgot a step. Actually, what I would do here is I have to do this thing first so that I can do this next thing that we're gonna talk about. And I wound up actually capturing all of it in a very rambly roundabout process. But then she was able to take that, kind of, transcribe it, reorganize it, put it in the order that I was doing it, even though I didn't film the best video about it. Yeah. And then we were able to make it more efficient from there.
Kaci Ackerman (48:20):
Exactly. Exactly. And so that's the perfect way to get started too. It's just, yeah. Doing that. And I even to this day do that, I'll start recording something and I'm like, oh my gosh, this is a total crap shoot. Total mess of a video. And then I just hand it off to, I have a VA and also a content person. I hand it off to whichever one, and then if there's any questions they ask me and we, you know, hash that part of it out <laugh>, but, but oftentimes they're like five, 10 minutes of me just literally rambling and like going back and forth on my screen and all this crazy stuff. <Laugh>.
Angie Colee (48:51):
Yeah. Yeah. Oh man, there's so much goodness here. So much goodness. I think we're gonna have to do it part two, Kaci. I honestly do, because there's
Kaci Ackerman (48:59):
So much I love it.
Angie Colee (49:01):
Systems stuff and like head trash and garbage and resistance around reaching out for help that I really just wanna destroy all of that stuff. Ask for help guys. Everybody out here wants to help somebody else succeed. Like we all wanna be part of that success story and, you know, have somebody on the Oscar stage thanking us for helping them make this possible, right? Like it takes a village for all of us to succeed. So for now, I will say fantastic conversation. We'll do a part two. Tell us more about how to find out about your business and your services.
Kaci Ackerman (49:29):
Yeah. so again, I'm Kaci Ackerman and that's all of my social, whoops, that's all my social handles. So you can find me on Instagram Facebook, TikTok, Kaci Ackerman. My website is Kaci Ackerman as well. If you are just getting started with systems, I do have a freebie out there. 10 step process of how to get started with using click up and building out your business. Start to finish through, click up. So grab that if you are needing to get started. But other than that, come on Instagram, I'm super active there. Say hello. I love connecting with new, you know, people and making new connections.
Angie Colee (50:08):
Awesome. And we'll have clickable links to all of that stuff in the show notes so that people can follow you more easily. Ugh, thank you so much for being on the show today. It was a pleasure getting to know you and talking to you and hearing about your
Kaci Ackerman (50:19):
Expertise. Thank you so much for having me.
Angie Colee (50:23):
That's all for now. If you wanna keep that Kick Ass energy high, please take a minute to share this episode with someone that might need a high octane dose. If you could do it, don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the permission to Kick Ass podcast on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and wherever you stream your podcast. I'm your host, Angie Colee, and I'm here rooting for you. Thanks for listening and let's go Kick Ass some.