The Mind Your Time Podcast | Empowering Entrepreneurs to Streamline, Scale, and Live Their Legacy
Are you ready to break free from the chaos of running a business that feels like it’s running you? Welcome to The Mind Your Time Podcast, where we tackle the messy back end of your business so you can finally reclaim your time and energy. Whether you’re just starting your entrepreneurial journey or striving to grow beyond six figures, this podcast is your guide to building a business that enhances your life, not takes it over.
Join me, Shannon Baker—a business operations strategist with over 20 years of experience—on a transformative journey to eliminate overwhelm, streamline operations, and create intentional systems that drive sustainable growth. Using my proven POWER in Motion framework, you’ll learn how to focus on what truly moves the needle in your business, get organized, take consistent action, and create space to refine and adapt for long-term success.
Here’s the thing: your business isn’t just about creating income or leaving something behind—it’s about living your legacy. That means experiencing the fruits of your labor today while building a foundation for the future. It’s about designing a business that supports the life you want now, so you can spend more time doing what truly matters and less time buried in chaos.
Imagine a business that doesn’t constantly demand your attention—a business that runs smoothly, delivers consistent results, and gives you the freedom to enjoy your life. That’s what we’ll build together. Through expert advice, real-life stories, and actionable insights rooted in my POWER in Motion framework, I’ll help you simplify your operations, strengthen your boundaries, and embrace self-care as a non-negotiable part of your strategy.
Your business should serve you, not the other way around. If you’re tired of spinning your wheels, wearing too many hats, and sacrificing your well-being to keep things afloat, it’s time to make a change. This podcast is your roadmap to more freedom, more focus, and more intentional growth—on your terms.
Subscribe now and join me every other week as we tackle the chaos, streamline your operations, and help you create the thriving business and fulfilling life you deserve.
The Mind Your Time Podcast | Empowering Entrepreneurs to Streamline, Scale, and Live Their Legacy
Coffee Chat Take 4: You’re Doing CEO Work Without CEO Systems
Welcome to another Coffee Chat Take! A bite-sized episode designed to feel like a quick voice note from a friend who gets it.
If you’ve been feeling the weight of growth and wondering why it doesn’t feel as good as it looks, this is your reminder: you don’t need to work harder. You need the right structure.
Today, I’m talking about a trap I see way too many consultants fall into, doing CEO-level work without the CEO-level systems to support them. On the outside, things look great. You’re booked out, clients love you, and the opportunities keep coming.
But behind the scenes? You’re juggling endless details, repeating the same tasks, and cleaning up problems that shouldn’t exist in the first place.
If you’re tired of your days being filled with chasing client info, fixing preventable mistakes, or typing the same email for the tenth time, this one’s for you. I’m sharing a real client story that might sound a lot like yours and the one shift that helped her stop working harder and start leading her business like a CEO.
In this short but powerful episode, you’ll learn why success can start to feel heavier instead of lighter, how to pinpoint the process that’s draining you the most, and the simple way to start building systems that give you back your time, energy, and focus.
Resources Mentioned:
Episode 216 - The Must-Fix Business Systems That Make or Break Your Growth
🔍 Want to see exactly what’s going on behind the scenes in your business?
Grab the Back Office POWER Checklist which is a simple, fillable Google Doc you can complete right on your screen. It will help you spot what’s working, what’s missing, and where your systems are quietly slowing you down, so you can focus on fixing the real issues instead of chasing surface-level solutions.
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Thank you for joining me for another coffee chat. Take Now. I was thinking about something you mentioned to me before, that sometimes you look at your calendar and you think I am finally living the dream. This is exactly what I've worked so hard for. You've got the clients, the projects, the opportunities keep coming in. So from the outside, you've definitely made it and congratulations to you because you deserve it. But when you sit down at your desk, you open your laptop, that feeling changes. So instead of excitement, there is a quiet weight that settles in. You already know your day is going to be a mix of chasing details, answering the same questions and putting out fires you did not see coming. So you start thinking well, why does this feel so much harder now that I'm finally succeeding? Well, you're not alone. I had almost the exact same conversation with one of my clients recently.
Speaker 1:On paper, she was killing it. She was booked out for months, Referrals were pouring in, clients were singing her praises and testimonials and it looked effortless on the outside, but behind the scenes, every single project was taking more time, more energy and more brain space than it should. She was ending most days completely exhausted mentally and emotionally, and not because she didn't love her work or because she didn't know what she was doing, but it was because the way her business was running was just asking too much of her. There were some basic fundamentals in her operations that are missing, and those gaps were costing her more than she realized. Her discovery calls were way too long, and most of them they weren't even with people who were a good fit. Why it's? Because she was starting from scratch every single time. Now, even though she had an online scheduler, there was no intake form attached, so she went into every call with zero context. She had no idea of their budget, no clarity on their priorities, sometimes not even a clear picture of what they actually needed and if she could help them. So this meant that she was spending precious hours on calls that never should have even hit her calendar in the first place.
Speaker 1:And when she did find a good fit, onboarding oh, that was a whole nother race. She was pulling documents from different folders, digging up old emails to copy and paste instructions which were not always correct, and she was relying on her memory to make sure that nothing slipped through the cracks. But things did slip through the cracks. Well, into the project, she realized that she forgot to send a key resource or confirm some important details, and then she would have to stop everything to fix it, and that can be costly. Now I know you're probably thinking well, that's me, but I'm not a messy person. I'm actually super organized in my life. And that's exactly what I told her, because this wasn't about her being careless, lazy or disorganized in her personal life she was on top of things, but in her business she didn't have the kind of systems that a CEO should be able to rely on to keep things moving without them having to touch every single step. So she had the skills of a CEO, but the infrastructure of her business was not meant or put in place to support that.
Speaker 1:And, friend, that's the thing I want you to take away today. Doing CEO work without CEO systems is not sustainable. It doesn't matter how good you are at what you do, it doesn't matter how much your clients adore you. Without the right systems, your business is going to keep taking more from you than it gives back, and I know that you felt it. You know those days where you're exhausted and it's not from the work itself, but it's from all the extra that comes with it being pulled in different directions, having to send repetitive emails, having to search for misplaced client information the mistakes that you shouldn't have to fix in the first place are costing you everything. Ceo systems aren't about making things pretty and it's not a trend. They're about creating consistency, protecting your time, your sanity, your energy, giving your clients a smoother, more professional experience from start to finish.
Speaker 1:Then the last episode of the podcast actually talked about the must fix business systems that either make or break your growth. That's client onboarding, project tracking and communication for starters, and these aren't someday projects. They're the backbone of a business that grows without burning you out. So if you're wondering, well, where do you even start? Here's my advice I want you to pick just one thing, not three, not five, not ten, just one. Pick the process that frustrates you the most or eats up the most time. Maybe it's your onboarding it. It could be your scheduling. Maybe it's how you check in with your clients or give them or deliver your deliverables. Whatever makes you sigh the loudest when you think about having to do it. Start there, and here's why, when you fix just one process in your business that's broken, you start to see a positive domino effect almost immediately, because you get time back, you feel more in control and you make fewer mistakes. That momentum you can keep building on and as you build systems it gets easier to keep going and you don't have to burn it all down or overhaul everything overnight. But you do have to start building those CEO systems now, before your growth becomes the very thing that makes you want to throw in the towel.
Speaker 1:Now, if you want a simple way to figure out exactly what's missing in your backend, then please grab a copy of the Backoffice Power Checklist. It's a quick, eye-opening checklist that you can use to identify exactly where you need to focus on in your systems first, so that you can step into your role as a CEO with confidence and leave the chaos behind. Go to theshannonbakercom forward slash checklist and download a copy today and complete it. You can do that in less than 10 minutes. That's a great first step that you can take today. So that's today's coffee chat take. Remember it's no pressure, just progress. So I'll see you back here next time.