Ep 4: Solo vs. Team: The Entrepreneur's Dilemma – Navigating Growth with an Online Business Manager

To all my entrepreneur friends who are doing it by yourself... I see you! I am celebrating you! However, this episode reminds you that doing it yourself doesn't always have to be the answer and that encouraging #hustleculture is not a win.

I lay bare the truths about the solo grind and the transformative impact a team can have on your success.

I hope you enjoy this episode.

This is an episode you won't want to miss!! Watch the full episode here

Thank you for being a part of The Konnection Hub Podcast. Please share your takeaways with us here on Instagram and rate on whatever platform you are listening on. I appreciate every one of you!

If you are looking for an Online Business Manager for your business? Shoot me an email at info@letskonnect.ca or visit my Instagram to learn more. 

Todays Sponsor is Konnection Canada.  At Konnection Canada, our mission is to foster connections among entrepreneurs across Canada, celebrating their unique talents and diverse backgrounds. We are dedicated to building a vibrant community where everyone, regardless of the stage of their business, has a seat at the table. Through our platform, we strive to empower individuals, facilitate collaboration, and inspire growth in the entrepreneurial landscape.

Join us in Calgary Alberta in October 2024 for their very first weekend event. 

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi and welcome to the Connection Hub podcast. My name is Cassandra and I'm so happy that you're here. This is a space where we are having real conversations with real entrepreneurs. We aren't here to sugarcoat the realities of being your own CEO. We are all about raw, uncensored conversations that dive into the triumphs, struggles and secrets of real life business owners I'm so happy you're here and secrets of real-life business owners. I'm so happy you're here and I hope you enjoy this episode. Hello everyone and welcome to the Connection Hub podcast. I'm your host, cassandra Arsenault, an online social media manager and online business manager. Today, we are sponsored by Connection Canada, a cross-Canada movement helping entrepreneurs connect and network with each other. Their first event is in Calgary in the fall of 2024, and I will leave all the details in the links below. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1: 1:03

Today I wanted to come on and talk about team and hiring within your business. Now, as an entrepreneur, I have been in businesses that have multiple people on their team, that have contractors in their spaces and who work solo and for myself. I have worked solo for the remainder of my business, and is it something I want to continue? It's possible, but I also understand the very purposeful way of hiring somebody and understanding what you actually need in your business. Not having a team is not a flex. There are so many people out there that run multiple million dollar businesses and say that they do it all by themselves, and while you may think, wow, that's amazing, what I hear in that is that there's burnout, struggle, stress that doesn't actually need to be happening, and their business is actually a billion dollar business that they're just missing out on it. So when you think about your business, there are a lot of things that you have to do as an entrepreneur. There are accounting responsibilities, marketing, customer relationship, customer service, tech support, admin the actual job that you got into your business to do and within that, there are a lot of things that you are good at, and there are a lot of things that drain your energy, that actually don't serve you, and so when you spend a lot of hours on tasks that aren't benefiting your business, if you spend a lot of hours on tasks that are actually draining your energy, you're getting out of your zone of genius. You're getting out of that state of flow because you're so consumed by this next task. Oftentimes, those are the tasks that a lot of people will avoid.

Speaker 1: 2:49

I'm the first person to admit when I have to go do my bookkeeping at the end of the month, it takes me forever. I hate doing it. I block off a day in my calendar because I know I am going to go for a walk, run around the block, do anything other than doing that? But I recognize how important it is for my business and so once a month I sit down and I take a look at everything. Now I've recognized my weaknesses in that. I've recognized that there are some things that I'm willing to push through. That's my monthly bookkeeping, because it's not that hefty. And there are some things that I'm not willing to negotiate on, and that is my accounting taxes process at the end of the year. I hire that out every single year. Somebody else does that because I don't feel comfortable doing it. I am not going to be here sitting stressing, being a bundle of anxiety, trying to get through that. Someone else is going to do that for me Now, as an online business manager, I go into businesses all the time.

Speaker 1: 3:51

Not having a team is not going to help you scale and grow your business to the spaces that you want it to be. So when I come in as your online business manager. I do things a little differently. I come in and I really take a look at your business. I give it an audit. I'm like where are things missing? Where can we adjust things? How can we make things flow better? What isn't working? What is working? How are your customers feeling through this process? And then from there, we implement systems and processes to make this better.

Speaker 1: 4:22

Now, some people hire for the wrong people. That's often where virtual assistants end up laying. So virtual assistants is someone who can come in and help you virtually, so they don't need to be in the same city as you, but they're essentially like an admin person for your business. Now, this person is not a strategist. This person is not a marketing expert. This person is not a systems expert. This person is not a marketing expert. This person is not a systems expert. This person is coming in to help you do what you're already doing. That's often where virtual assistants stand. That's not a bad thing. Oftentimes, when I come in as an online business manager, I take a look, I do my audit, I share what we're going to implement. We implement the systems. I build the house and the virtual assistant comes in and keeps the house up and manages the house. We need them. It's not a bad thing to have them in your business.

Speaker 1: 5:20

What I find often in the industry is that people are hiring virtual assistants in hopes that they are strategists, in hopes that they are salespeople, in hopes that they are marketing experts, and what ends up happening is they end up not wanting to work with this person long-term because they're not fulfilling the need that the business actually has. So I was talking to a client recently and she said hey, cass, I'm looking to hire a virtual assistant. We were having a conversation inside of a mastermind thread and I said that's amazing, amazing. Tell me more about what you're desiring. She said I want somebody to come in and look at my social media. I think I need somebody to come in and tell me more of what I need to do. And we talked about it and what I figured out is that she doesn't need a virtual assistant. Yet what she actually needs is a social media strategist. She, she needs somebody to build out the strategy for the virtual assistant to execute on.

Speaker 1: 6:20

And so when we're hiring in our business, we often miss that mark because we think, okay, well, if I have somebody who's a social media manager come in and just handle the social media. I should grow, I should be gaining clients, I should be having sales. But what they missed the mark on is that that social media manager might not be a strategist, they might not have sales experience. Social media managers are not your salespeople. Those are two different jobs. Social media managers are not your admin assistants. Those are different jobs. Social media managers manage your social media accounts. Social media strategists pull in the strategy piece. They understand your goals in the business. They understand the direction of your business. They offer suggestion and then they build out the social media marketing piece. Right, they build out the social media plan.

Speaker 1: 7:15

So when you're hiring in your business, really think about where you find yourself lacking and not lacking in a bad way, but just disconnected from your potential right. Where do you need that extra help? Is it with the admin tasks? Is it organizing a Google Drive, adding calls to your calendar, emailing back and forth with customers? If so, amazing. Is it somewhere where you want to grow on social media but you feel like you've been missing the mark inside of your messaging and inside of your content? Is it in a space where you've hired a bunch of people and every time they've been the wrong person. Where do you feel that your business is falling apart? Where do you feel your business needs a little extra support? And start hiring for that job, start hiring contractors for those positions.

Speaker 1: 8:06

To not have a team and be running a huge business, a huge company? Or to not have a team and be operating out of a state of burnout, anxiety, stress. That is not a flex. You should not be posting that over social media and sharing that. Yes, I have a team of one and I do it all by myself, or I only have a very minuscule team and we do it all. Meanwhile your team in the back end can't even come up for fresh air or they can't even be sick for a day, because the business would fall apart in the back end. Really understanding that team is what actually grows your movement.

Speaker 1: 8:49

And I'm not saying hire when you're not ready. I'm not saying hire a million people, but rather figure out what your business needs, where your business is lacking, where you feel stressed and anxious, and start filling those gaps in, because once you start filling those gaps in, you can go so much farther faster. That's the thing right when you have somebody in the back end doing the job that it took you two hours to do and it takes them 20 minutes to do. There you go. Now they can move on to the next task, right, but when you are sitting there taking two hours to do it, that's two hours outside of your work that you could be doing. If you charge $100 an hour, you've now lost $200 or $500 or $1,000 or whatever it is. You've now lost that opportunity to make that money, to pull those people in to do that, because you're so focused on trying to get these pieces done.

Speaker 1: 9:48

And so I am the person that asks for help when I need it, and I think that as women, as entrepreneurs, just in general, we need to ask for help. We need to stop promoting hustle culture. We need to stop promoting burnout. That's not okay. Hire the people. They don't have to be long-term hires. I work with clients on different basis. Sometimes we work together for years, sometimes we work together for six months, sometimes we work together month by month. I am not the person to lock you into something that you don't feel ready for or that just isn't needed right now in your business. But what? I am not the person to lock you into something that you don't feel ready for or that just isn't needed right now in your business. But what I am the person to advocate for is hiring to help you.

Speaker 1: 10:32

When you have a team, when you have a collective that works with you, all of a sudden, your business starts to grow faster. You start to feel more aligned. You feel more excited to be there. You get to stay in your zone of genius. You feel more excited to be there. You get to stay in your zone of genius, stay in your zone and ask for help, whether it is learning how to do the new skill yourself or going to get an expert that knows how to do that inside and out. That is where, manager, if you need help with your bookkeeping, you need an accountant. If you need help with social media, you need a social media manager. Or if you need help with marketing, you need a social media strategist, you need a marketing strategist. If you need help getting your ducks in a row and you feel that everything's all over the place, an online business manager can help you with that.

Speaker 1: 11:23

There's lots of different things that you can hire for, and hiring for the right person will allow you for long-term success rather than feeling like you need to turn people over constantly because they're just not the right fit or they're not doing the job that you expected them to do, or they don't know how to do the job you expected them to do. Hiring for the right person is really what's going to help save your business and that is what is going to move the needle forward. So, as you're growing, as you're developing, I really really challenge you to look at where your business needs help. Look at where your business needs guidance and focus in on those places. This is not the time to pretend that you've got it all together. It's not the time to lose your mind and lose your marbles over something that could very easily be fixed. Stop trying to do it all yourself and hire where you need to. They don't have to be long-term people, they don't have to be the end-all, be-all to your business, but they are going to help push the needle forward and get you to that next level so that you can feel more confident and safe inside of your business. Go hire where you need it.

Speaker 1: 12:40

Thank you, guys so much for joining this episode again. I look forward to the next one with you. As always, share it with your friends who need to hear this message. Like and rate it on all your podcasting platforms, and thank you for Connection Canada for sponsoring this week's episode. Connection Canada is a movement across Canada focused in on empowering, masterminding and networking women together so that we can connect the community and build a vibrant collaborative entrepreneurial space. They are fostering connections among Canadian entrepreneurs, celebrating diversity and empowered growth. While they build this community, everyone is welcome, no matter a beginner in business or somebody who's been in business for many, many years. Their very first event is in Calgary, alberta, 2024. And all of their links will be in the show notes if you would like to sponsor and or attend the event. Thank you so much for joining me again. I look forward to the next one.