#3: Part 2: What I’d Do If I Had to Rebuild My Businesses From Scratch

If you’ve ever felt like burning it all down and starting over—this one’s for you. In this episode, I’m sharing the exact strategies I’d use if I had to rebuild my business from scratch… again. This is part two, so if you haven’t listened to part one yet, hit pause and go back—it gives you all the emotional and energetic groundwork that led to this phase.

This time, I’m diving straight into the tactical side. From hiring intentionally from day one, to building systems as we go (instead of scrambling to catch up), I’m giving you a behind-the-scenes look at how we built Magnetic Profits the right way.

Here’s what we cover:

• Why hiring early isn’t just a cost—it’s an investment in your capacity to grow
• How I learned (the hard way) that partnerships aren’t for me
• My approach to building systems around the roles that drive the most profit
• Why complexity kills momentum, and clarity is everything
• The real reason your VA might not be the solution to everything
• The 80/20 Rule we use internally to delegate effectively and build leadership
• The five core business pillars I assess with every client: sales, marketing, client delivery, operations, and team
• What “work-optional” means, and how you can start working toward it today

You’ll also hear about the exact project management tools we use, how we approach internal training and documentation, and why your offers might be confusing your clients more than converting them.

This episode is loaded with actionable takeaways, real stories (like that time I bought out my business partner 8 months in), and a breakdown of the delegation framework that’s been a game-changer for me and my team.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

⚙️ Asana 

⚙️ Notion 

⚙️ Loom 

⚙️ Scribe How

☎️ Schedule a consult call to see how our firm can support your business

There were no books or other podcasts explicitly mentioned in this episode. If you’d like anything expanded or want more resources, let me know!

Thanks for listening. If this episode inspired you in some way, take a screenshot of you listening on your device and post it to your Instagram stories and tag me, @magneticprofits.

For more information about The Magnetic Millionaire Podcast or interest in our services or offers visit our resources below:

Visit our website: magneticprofits.com

Check out our courses: magneticprofits.com/services

Check out our podcast page: magneticprofits.com/podcast

Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/alyssa-lang-mb

Connect on Instagram: instagram.com/magneticprofits

Connect on Facebook: facebook.com/magneticbookkeeping

Transcript

003 - Part 2 What I’d Do

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[00:00:00] Welcome to part two of what I would do if I had to rebuild the business from scratch. I'm so excited because if you did not listen to part one, I highly recommend that you go back to that episode and listen to part one. It is where I really deep dive into the things that I needed as an individual.

Things like setting my boundaries, doing the 80 20 rule, which we're gonna deep dive, like I promised in part one that I was gonna deep dive into the full strategy of our 80 20 rule, and I shared so much. I opened up about a lot of the experiences that I. Had gone through and through my journey within myself as I journeyed on to three different businesses over nine years, and just the different changes and the things that I had to implement along the way and the things that I'm still currently learning more from the emotional and the energetic side.

Now, in this episode, I love me some strategy. If you're anything like me than you're gonna. Love this episode because strategy is literally my last name and I'm so excited to be deep diving into it because in today's episode we're gonna be talking about the actual systems team, things that I actually put into [00:01:00] place as I rebuilt the businesses.

And like I mentioned in part one, I actually did get the chance to rebuild them with three different companies. Every time a new company emerges, I'm able to take the past things that didn't work out for us and implement them for better change for the future. So without further ado. Let's go in and dive into today's episode.

Part two of what I would do differently if I had to start the business all over again from scratch. So I kind of really opened up a bit more on part one. So you're probably just popping right over to part two. So I'm not gonna get too deep into the personal story behind what I've kind of implemented.

But the one thing that I will say is that you don't need to burn the business down to really reset the tone of your business. Reset the journey. Where are you going? It's just all about a couple of little tweaks here and there. I think this common misconception that most people feel that you really truly have to make all these changes that you have to fully destroy a system, fully fire a team when usually it's just a couple of little things that you might need to tweak.

There are times though, when you do have to fire the employee that you do have to burn the system down. [00:02:00] I get it, but there's usually a majority of the time that's not usually the case. And so we're gonna dive into some of those strategies that I've learned along the way. I have gotten to implement and it's something that I also like to pass along to you guys to in hopes that you will implement something like this along your journey as well.

So a big thing that I did was I hired early and really intentionally when I did build the businesses again from scratch. And this is something that I know and understand. If you are not someone who plans to have another business, that's totally fine. This is a way for you to actually take a step back.

And really evaluate the current people that you have hired, or maybe you haven't hired at all or you have felt very limited because you feel like there's not enough talent, I just can't find someone, I can't afford to hire full time. Whatever that might look like for you. I will say for me it was hiring an early and intentionally so I wasn't messing around like the second company that came around, like I didn't still understand.

What it really meant to build a successful business. It took like the third time to finally get the point that like, okay, systems right from the beginning, [00:03:00] hiring from the very beginning doing all these different things, right? And so when we talk about hiring early, what I did was I didn't want to be drowning in.

Other people's work. I loved being able to support our clients. So when we created Magnetic Profits here, the company actually started originally as Magnetic Bookkeeping Consulting, and I brought on a business partner and that business partner, while I was very excited about this, and this is where this can go, the downfall is I really thought that I just needed a business partner when in reality I needed more people to just do the work.

And having a business partner sometimes just isn't for everyone. And to be honest, it's a whole nother episode for a whole nother day. I realized through that partnership partnerships were not for me. And so I actually bought her out eight months later. I did give her an offer to say, either can buy me out, I could buy you out, or we dissolve the company that there was no way that I was gonna be a partner.

And that was just because I felt like I was ready to sprint and I felt like she was kind of trudging in slower water. And it was just differences of personalities and just differences of what we were doing. So. At the very beginning though, when this company had [00:04:00] gotten created, it was originally a different name.

We rebranded about, I wanna say like, it's been about a year since we've rebranded to Magnetic Profits because we do things beyond just the bookkeeping. We're more on the advisor side and we actually do a lot more fractional CFO. That's where we really excel with our clients, and so anyways. It was so, so needed for me that originally I thought it was like bringing on a partner that just didn't work out.

But even at the very beginning as well, while that partner was still with me, I did bring on a bookkeeper right away to make sure to take care of all of our bookkeeping clients. We brought in someone to be able to help us with the backends, like, cleanups. We brought someone in to help us with operations.

It was one of those things where I was like, I'm not messing around. I'm not doing all this work because where I sit. Best in the seat with our clients is through some sort of an advisory lens or supporting our other advisors to support our clients, AKA. Showing them the things that I've learned over the years of entrepreneurship and how we can infuse that into our clients.

The big visionary, the one who's really moving and steering the ship and getting it to the next destination. And so that was super huge for me. I focused on the role that actually created the [00:05:00] most clarity upfront. And so what I mean by this is I think a lot of people will make this mistake, and it's okay if this is calling you out.

This is coming from a lot of love is that a lot of people are like, I just need a va. It's gonna solve all my problems. No the fuck you don't. Like a VA is not going to just be the thing that's gonna change your life. Well, a VA can start there or an assistant can support you in that. That is not the end all, be all thing that you should need, especially if you're someone who has.

Multiple employees across multiple locations, different departments, whatever that might look like for you, or if you're a listener who really has never hired someone. While an assistant is a great starting point, it is not something that you should not have an assistant who's doing your bookkeeping.

Also, your social media manager who's also managing your inbox, who's also managing. 50 other things. Well, if you find that unicorn and they work really well for you, then props to you, but that's usually not going to be the case. I see this a lot with people not getting clear on the roles that they have in place.

So for me, from the beginning it was always like, Nope, we just know exactly what we need. We need people to deliver on the service first to our clients, and [00:06:00] then we can figure out and let everything else fall into place. I want you to ask yourself, what roles will actually free up my current zone of genius and drive profit?

And so a lot of the times, there are so many moments in the business where we're so focused on like wearing all the hats that you might not realize how much the company is very dependent on you. What we need to do is have you in the right seat as the owner and the founder. That way you can truly expand.

I know so many of our clients have come working with us of being like, I want four to five locations. I wanna expand in this way and I wanna go here and I wanna create this other company. I'm like. Great. But you're in all those places, like how is that gonna be your reality? And so we need to make sure that we can find ways to free up our time.

And that's usually the first place that you're gonna start, is with your time. And then it frees up your team's time. 'cause you'll also start to see a pattern within your team as well where your team, you'll say like your operations manager, like they're doing maybe some assistant work. And they can't really shine as an operations manager 'cause you're too busy trying to make them be the onboarding specialist and the cleanup person and this person and this person.

Whatever that looks [00:07:00] like in your business. It's all the same, right. Hiring isn't an expense. It truly is something that's going to be an expansion thing for you. It's gonna help take you things to the next level. And while, yes, it is something that you can deduct, and yes, technically it's an expense within the business, I just think that a lot of people only see it for the cost and they don't see the long-term effects of actually hiring.

So when I started all over again. Hiring was one of the first things that we did. Second thing that we did was we built systems as we went, instead of waiting to build them later. And so this is a mistake I see a lot of people make. Like I said, if you're currently already in the thick of it and you've been in business for quite some time and you guys need to clean up some systems, you will have to like kind of take a step back and like kind of reevaluate them.

But in my opinion, it's kind of a lot easier than you think it is. Sometimes it's all about just like documenting and recording what you're currently doing. Maybe something via loom, written out processes. There's things like Scribe, how there's so many different softwares out there that can help you with this, but from the beginning when I started the business again, was I [00:08:00] documented literally everything and my number one core focus, going back to the role that I decided to hire, was I decided to create the systems around the role.

That we actually needed to hire that was gonna give us the fastest, quickest results to profits. So what I mean by this is for us, that looked like bringing on someone within the team to actually deliver on the services that we promised here at Magnetic. I. So what does that mean? How can we document the systems that they are therefore going to deliver?

Why would I focus on creating a system about how we pay invoices within the company? If right now that's not the number one priority, the number one priority is getting our clients taken care of. So therefore we're gonna focus on that system. So if you're currently in the thick of it and you're like, man, there's just so many systems I could be working on everything.

I have this rule of thumb that I teach inside my workflow Queen company, where I talk about pick one process and work on it for one quarter. Does not mean that you should ignore all the other things that are kind of coming up, the little fires that get put out. But I will say that should be your number one [00:09:00] focus.

So let's just take onboarding. So if you're someone who is a service provider, or maybe you're a designer, maybe you are another accounting firm, maybe you're someone who provides copywriting, whatever that might look like for you. Let's focus for one quarter on your onboarding system. How can we make it better?

How can we automate it? What can we do to document it so that every time you guys onboard, you're using that opportunity to actually start documenting stuff. And so that was a huge thing that we implemented from the very beginning. And then also a project management tool. And this was a non-negotiable for me.

My very first business, I didn't have a project management system until I think two years into the business. And to this day, I'm like, holy shit, I can't imagine like, I think it was like. Yeah, I, I can't even imagine what my business would be like if I actually implemented the project management from the beginning, but I know that was part of my journey to eventually understand the headache of why I needed one so bad.

So we use Asana across all the companies, and it's Asana I've been using for about 7, 8 years now, and I'm obsessed. It works really well for us, but it's different strokes for different folks. I know some people who use [00:10:00] notion for tasks like, and if it works for you, it works people. At the end of the day, leaving everything in your head and also in your team's head is not going to take you to the next level.

Pro tip. If you do it more than once, guys or twice, whatever that might be, your boundary, your definition, then systematize it. So if I'm constantly doing the same thing over and over again, so whether that's you or your team, 'cause this isn't something that you should be listening to this podcast episode and not giving this and infusing this into your team, highly recommend.

You have a conversation with your team to say if you're repeating the same thing more than twice, you need to systematize it. It is a standard within our team. So the next thing that I would actually implement is prioritizing clarity over complexity. This is huge, guys, because we all know that we can all be just complex.

It's the best way that I could say it because I get it guys. I am literally that person will overcomplicate the littlest thing in the whole entire world, but. What I always like to say is that people, even with your offers, guys, this is something we do with our clients as well, is we [00:11:00] evaluate their whole entire offer suite.

We're looking at what type type of offers, what type of projects do you have in place? What type of team is actually executing on that? What's that cost, what all the different parts of that is. And a lot of the times what we see is a lot of complexity in those offers. And what I mean by that is just overcomplicating, the way that you explain to the client what you guys even offer.

It also can mean. Over writing things out on a sales page that just don't need to be there, that don't make sense for the buyer, and that you're also not getting feedback on what makes the most sense for them. And like these, I see this all the time. Like, oh, we've got a 12 month payment plan, but also that same program.

We have a four month and a five month and an eight month and a 10 month, and it's just like, holy shit, there's so many of these, right? So when we start to look at things and just get a little bit more clear rather than complex, it actually serves yourself better in the business. And that's actually something that we do does not matter if you are new or if you're someone who is a eight figure business owner.

If your offers aren't clear and you're making them more complex just to look sexy and cool, it's only gonna get you [00:12:00] so far. Next is marketing. This is a big part of our prioritizing. The clarity over complexity is marketing. Clear messaging and a couple of channels here and there. I see people trying to be on TikTok and LinkedIn and, Instagram and all these places, and while they could serve you really well, it depends on the business.

Everything that we do with our clients here at Magnetic is when we're looking through, we have this offer that we call the 360 Business to review, where essentially we'll review all different components of the business to look at where you're leaking, any profits where we can actually just expand on the systems, the offers, the structure, and give you guys like a plan and a strategy that helps.

Take things to the next level and can really expand the business and really save a lot of money in the meantime. And this is one of those other things that people will come to me and be like, Alyssa. You know, my biggest problem, and I'm gonna expand on this in a couple episodes, my biggest problem is, Alyssa, we need to be on Instagram and we need to be here.

And I'm like, but do you, because you're just making things too complex, if maybe that's not even needing to be the case. And usually data is the driver for that of that decision that we'll make. 'cause a lot of the [00:13:00] times you're not even tracking data to know that maybe you actually need. To be on these other channels, or can we just pour into the channels that are working really well?

So clarity over complexity, internal operations, maybe it's about streamlining workflows. Maybe if it's fewer meetings, more autonomy. It's just a lot of the times, like I shared in part one of the episode around my 80 20 rule, that I have this problem where I used to think in the past that I had to set the tone for the whole entire project for someone before handing it off, and it was a whole thing.

And it just got to the point where I realized that why not just give the team the time to actually shine? If you hired smart ass people, because I know you're a smart person, you probably most likely hired smart people. If you didn't and you know they're not working out, then maybe they're just not the right fit for you.

Right. I. And the next one is my 80 20 rule that I told you guys. I would promise you in part one that I would give you the actual full breakdown of what our 80 20, rule is. And I'm gonna share with you the exact strategy, my exact steps when I'm delegating, and not just me. This is something that we infused on our operations team.

It's something that we've infused into our clients. It's something that we've [00:14:00] infused into my other company as well. It is something that shows up in so many different ways. It can also even show up in your life as well. So here, here's how it works. Step one, I give my team just enough information for a particular project, not necessarily every detail, just to get started.

And like I mentioned in part one, this is not something that is for, I don't know. Let me just take a quick example. Let's just say that you're asking a team member to download a coaching call. If you have a course and you have a coaching call. And you ask them to download it. You're not gonna sit there and do this like 80 20 rule download this thing.

Like what I mean by this is these are usually for larger things. While it can be applied to smaller tasks, this is like looking at like higher a delegation to be able to let go and allow people more autonomy on the team. So I give the team member just enough information to start. This is also something our operations manager does as well, and not every detail.

Because if you hired smart people, it is a responsibility in step two of the team member to ask the right questions to get information from you. It is a hell of a lot easier than you sitting there being like, I need to give them this, this, this, and answer all the questions [00:15:00] before they even have them, and get this all set up and ready to go.

That's just chaos. It's just going to stress you out. It's going to overwhelm you. It's gonna feel like there's a lot of moving parts and pieces that you're missing, and then you're gonna feel like, might as well just freaking do this. Right? So that's step two. Step three is they take the task or project to that team member to 80% completion without me.

And like I said, this could be something that my operations manager could do. The same thing, the 80 20 rule with another team member. So same thing. I had to do this because guys, as much as you're probably resisting this a little bit, same thing with my management team. They all were like, I don't know about all that.

Like I have to give 'em all the answers and set them up strategically and give 'em all the things and like they're gonna fail if I don't. And I'm like, no guys, trust the process. Tell them to do it without you. And if they have questions along the way, that's okay. But we have boundaries and parameters and we give our team examples of what questions you can and can't ask for these types of projects.

Because sometimes we don't want dumb questions, right? We do want questions that are gonna be useful for the project and you know, if I delegate [00:16:00] to my team that I want you to, I don't know, create a whole new podcast, like, we'll use this podcast that we're coming out here. And I said give, do the whole podcast if you're coming back and saying like, what do you want the title to be?

That's a not a good question. The right question would be, Hey Alyssa, I have a couple of options over here for some of the titles. There's about three to five of 'em. Here's the one that I think is probably gonna be the best, but however I want your feedback to make sure that I'm on the right track. Now that my friend is a really great question.

So along the way they can ask these questions, but really what we want them to do in step three is to take their project or task up to 80% complete. Without me needing to be involved or without the person who's delegating it involved. Step number four is that they will bring it back to whoever delegated it or to me, whatever, whoever it might be for you.

It might be you for review and give feedback. So this is where. I, if this isn't my case and I'm delegating this thing to me, I'm not sitting there being like, okay, well let me take it over the last 20% and finish it up and, and knock it out. That's really not gonna train your team to be able to execute without you.

You actually need to [00:17:00] empower them. But this is where you're giving feedback. So I might say something like, let's use the example of creating a whole new podcast. That's a massive undertaking, and let's just say my team member got it up to 80%. And this doesn't mean that just one team member needs to work on it.

You have to give them permissions of like who they can use on the team in order to take this, project to completion. But that's another episode for another day. And let's just say that they are, they got a lot of this foundation done. They have the RSS set up, they've got the title 'cause we nailed it down and we've got all these things.

And we're at the last 20%. They would come to me and be like, this is what we've created so far. These are the design elements. This is what our strategy's gonna be. This is how we're gonna bring in new, podcast listeners. This is what our KPIs are gonna be. And that's what I used to say. I don't like that design.

I think that's really cute. Let's pick this title. I don't like that part of the strategy. Let's actually fix it up a little bit. Let's do this from this angle. I have an idea. And that's where I'm just verbalizing and giving feedback and allowing them the opportunity to understand how my brain operates to therefore delegate better.

And [00:18:00] then from there, this is step five. They actually turn around and complete the last and final 20% and check back for approval for whoever is the one that is supposed to be guiding them. Eventually, you won't really need to do a lot of this like. 80 20 in the long term, but like for certain projects it might make sense.

But sometimes you really don't need to even do an 80 20 rule. Usually you could just tell your team member to do something and they could do it. It really depends on the complexity and what you're trying to roll out, so you're just having to use that. And so that's something that's been. Pivotal for me, in particular, and being able to pass it on to my management team now is so incredible.

And it is 100% something that you can implement. So we just went and got back from a Zion retreat a couple of weeks ago with 30 of our clients, and we were all in the jacuzzi and we were sharing like, what's one thing that. You know, you could potentially share with someone that was maybe a mistake that you made or an experience that you went through that you just don't want them to have to go through it like you, mine was the 80 20 rule, and so I remember sitting in the jacuzzi and there was about 15 of the [00:19:00] women there, and I remember like sharing this.

They were like Alyssa, this is so incredible, like because they have heard the 80 20 rule, but they didn't hear it in the way that I had shared, almost like in this step-by-step breakdown. And they were like, holy shit, this just makes sense. And so many people were like, oh my God. That was like the best strategy I've ever heard.

And it's so simple because we all know what the 80 20 rule is, but why don't we apply it to the business? So this works in building ownership within the team. They're part of their project to give 'em a little bit more freedom and less like control on my end. Because as we all know, we're all a type and we're all a little bit controlling.

So that was really hard for me to let that go, but it's gotten easier. And then watching the team kind of like execute this 80 20, way of approaching these projects has actually been the coolest fricking thing ever. It's kinda like watching seeing your kids go off to school. I don't have kids, but I have a dog and I love him, and I'm assuming that if he went to pet school, I'd be quite sad.

And I'd be so proud of him at the same time. So like it was really hard for me to let this go. It also stops this, you know, what's the point in delegating if I've just done most of it by [00:20:00] prepping everything when like it just creates this hamster wheel that isn't healthy for you. So I really wanted to deep dive into a lot of these different components and a lot of these different parts of ways that you can actually create more strategy within really redefining the company.

Like I said, guys, if you really think back and you listen back to this podcast episode. You'll really see that they're just couple of tweaks here. They don't need to be massive, they don't need to be crazy. And I just highly recommend that you kind of segment the different parts of your business to be able to see from different lenses, like what actually needs to be focused on.

So for example, we use a five pillar system, and this is something that we actually do in our 360 business review for our clients is sales, marketing, client, deliverables, operations team, and the way that you guys are removable from the company. A lot of people. Kind of bypass the removable part. We like to call it work optional, and it is something that a lot of people just forget about.

But if we could work on these other components, the sales, the marketing, the client deliverables, the operations, the team, therefore that is a formula for removing yourself from a lot [00:21:00] of the day to day. And it depends on what your goal is. And we'll talk a lot in future episodes. Potentially building your business like you're gonna sell it and all the fun things.

At the end of the day, guys, I highly recommend that you go back and listen to different components, different parts. If you have any questions or you're really struggling with, how do I actually implement these different frameworks? How do I know who to hire? How do I know what systems to build out? How do I know if I can afford it or not?

Seriously reach out to me and my team. This is what our advisors are here for. This is what we actually offer. If you just don't know where to start with the financials, we offer bookkeeping services to help you guys get a lot more clarity as far as the numbers and getting that foundation set.

Without that foundation, you can't get good advisory from really anyone. We also do advisory so that way we can support you guys in really analyzing the different ways that we can support you, whether that's through KPI creation, it could be cashflow projections. It really is whatever makes the most sense.

And then we also have our 360 business review where we deep dive into your business over a series of a couple months, and we will be able to give you a strategy and a plan to really start [00:22:00] making some changes within the business to really take things to the next level. I. If you're interested in chatting about any of that, you can just come email me at support@magneticprofits.com or just shoot me a DM on Instagram.

I love a good voice note, at Magnetic Profits if that's something that you feel called to or just reach out to me and tell me what the hell your problems are, and I'm happy to answer some of your questions. And so, as a recap, real quick, here's what I wanna do if I rebuilt my business tactically and what you could tweak and implement within your business as well.

Hire early and not reactively build systems as you go within the business. Simplify everything from your offers, operations and execution. Use the 80 20 rule to actually delegate with ease with your team. Design your org chart for the future and not for the fire, and all the things that are kind of coming up as we go along, and really rebuilding out things from the lens of your sales, your marketing, your client delivery, your operations and your team.

So therefore, you can remove yourself from the day to day. I cannot wait to be deep diving into more episodes with you [00:23:00] guys and to be really leaning into what it's gonna look like. Our next episode is actually gonna be all about how to build your business, like you're going to sell it, even if you don't plan to.

'cause at the end of the day, we wanna make sure it's. Not dependent on you, but how can we strategically do that? And we're gonna deep dive into that in the next episode. Hope you enjoyed this one. If you want me to expand on anything or you want more context or information, I am building these podcast episodes for you guys.

It is purely for whatever you need support with. If you communicate with me, I know exactly what to give you, and I hope you don't today's episode.