I Burned Out Twice Before I Fixed This (with Kelly Lorenzen)

If your to-do list never gets shorter, this episode is for you.

On this episode of The KeyHire Small Business Podcast, Corey Harlock sits down with Kelly Lorenzen, CEO of KLM Consulting, Marketing, and Management, a firm with 24 years of experience helping family owned businesses start, grow, and scale. Kelly introduces her CODA method, a practical framework for helping business owners identify what they should keep, outsource, delegate, and automate so they can finally step into the role of true CEO.

The conversation opens with a striking statistic: 75% of entrepreneur business owners have limited to low levels of delegator talent, according to Gallup, and 42% of small business owners experienced burnout last year. These numbers set the stage for a discussion about why so many owners end up trapped doing work they should have handed off long ago, and what it costs them.

Kelly walks through the CODA method step by step. K is for the tasks only the owner can truly do: hiring decisions, culture, key partnerships. O is for tasks that should be outsourced to fractional experts, a fractional CFO or a fractional CMO, people who can do the work faster and better at a fraction of the cost of a full time hire. D is for tasks that can be delegated to the existing team, often to people who have been quietly waiting for the chance to step up. And A is for tasks that can be automated entirely, using the AI and operations tools now available to even the smallest businesses.

One of the most practical ideas in the episode is how to build the delegation infrastructure. Kelly recommends creating video SOPs by recording yourself doing the task, on Zoom, on a phone, wherever it happens. That library becomes the training foundation for every future hire, so the work gets done the right way even when the owner is not in the room.

Corey and Kelly also dig into the mindset challenges that make delegation so hard. The type A personality that builds a business is often the same personality that refuses to let go of it. The 80-20 rule applies here: someone else doing something 80% as well as the owner is still getting it done, and with time, coaching, and the right system, that person may get to 100%.

The episode closes with Kelly's practical advice for getting started: pick one major thing that would relieve real pressure, find the right person or partner to take it, and then keep going, one item at a time, one week at a time. The goal is not to hand everything off overnight, it is to build enough momentum that the owner wants to keep clearing the list.

If you are a small business owner who is doing too much, wearing too many hats, and wondering why you started this thing in the first place, this episode gives you a clear path forward.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Most owners aren't wired to delegate: 75% of entrepreneurs have limited to low delegator talent and 42% of small business owners burned out last year, and the CODA method (Keep, Outsource, Delegate, Automate) gives owners a structured way to figure out what to keep and what to hand off.
• Do what you love and outsource everything else: pick the tasks you dislike, are slow at, or that drain your energy, and give those away first rather than trying to hand off everything at once.
• Record yourself doing the job before you hire someone to do it: video SOPs, recorded on Zoom or a phone, become a training library so new hires can do the work the same way even when the owner isn't in the room.
• Mismatched delegation breaks good employees: handing someone two roles that use opposite sides of their brain, like accounting and social media, sets them up to fail at both; the fix is aligning tasks with what each person is actually good at, even if that means shifting duties across several people.
• The 80-20 rule makes letting go easier: someone else doing a task 80% as well as the owner still counts as done, and with coaching and time they can get to 100%; expecting perfection on day one is what causes owners to snatch tasks back.
• Start with one thing, not everything: pick the single task that would relieve the most pressure, find the right person or partner for it, and keep working through the list one item at a time instead of trying to overhaul everything at once.

LINKS & RESOURCES

Connect with Kelly Lorenzen: https://www.duplicatemyself.com

Connect with Corey Harlock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coreyharlock/

Learn more about KeyHire Solutions: https://www.keyhire.solutions

Subscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-keyhire-small-business-podcast/id1643962763

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1FT9oqXSek3jMfiKrZPLQs

EPISODE CHAPTERS

• 0:00 – Introduction: the stats on delegation and burnout
• 2:29 – What the CODA method stands for and how it works
• 4:54 – Why business owners get addicted to chaos instead of their product
• 7:26 – Overcoming the mindset that makes delegation so hard
• 10:05 – How to run the CODA method with your own team, step by step
• 11:47 – Building video SOPs so the work gets done without you
• 14:48 – The delegation mistake that breaks people: mismatched duties
• 21:24 – Deciding what to truly keep, and taking the elevator to the C-suite
• 23:26 – The 80-20 rule and giving people time to get to 100%
• 28:05 – Kelly's advice for getting started with delegation

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Did you know that 75% of entrepreneur business owners have limited to low levels of delegator talent as Gallup states? And 42% of small business owners experienced experienced burnout last month. And that comes from Forbes and Harvard Business Review. We're going to teach you how to delegate, get things off your plate today. We have a great show for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Welcome to the Key Hire Small Business Podcast, hosted by Corey Harlock, creator of Key Hire Solutions, where small business owners learn how to build stronger teams, simplify growth, and scale confidently. Got feedback or topic ideas? Send us a text. If you're listening on a handheld device, tap the link in the show notes to message the show. Subscribe or follow on your favorite platform. And follow Key Hire Solutions on social media for more insights and updates between episodes. To learn more about how KeyHire can help scale your business, visit KeyHire.solutions. Connect with Corey on LinkedIn through the link in the show notes. Mention you're a listener, and he'll accept your request. And now, on with the show. Here's your host, Corey Harlock.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

All right. If you haven't had a chance, go back a couple episodes and listen to our round table. We're talking about how to generate consistent leads. We had a great lively conversation with that. So if you haven't had a chance to listen to some experts talking about how to generate leads for your business, I know everyone's talking about that or thinking about that right now. Times are tough. Uh leads are valuable, and you got to find those people who are buying. So if you want, if you want some insight, that's a great episode for you. Okay, let's get into it. Today our guest is Kelly, Kelly Lorenzen, and she is the Chief Executive Officer of KLM Consulting, Marketing and Management. Uh she uh oh Matt, never mind. We're gonna have to do an edit. Sorry about all right, let's get into it. Our guest today is Kelly Lorenzen. She's the Chief Executive Officer of the KLM Consulting, Marketing, and Management, and they're a firm helping family-owned business start, start, grow, and scale. She's got 24 years of entrepreneurial experience and expertise in sales, marketing, operations, and business development. Matt, let's bring on Kelly. How are you?

SPEAKER_02 2:27

I'm good. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

It's our pleasure. Thank you for being with us today. Where what part of the country are you sitting in?

SPEAKER_02 2:34

I think you're in Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

That's what I was gonna say, Arizona. How's the weather?

SPEAKER_03 2:40

Hot.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

It's that time of year, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:43

It is crazy.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Well, look, um, I was when we first met, I was really interested. You have a lot of really cool experience, but one of the uh things that stood out to me uh was your CODA method, the way you kind of help small business owners transition. This is my definition. Please feel free to to mold and shape it once I'm done. But the what I took away from it is the big the hardest transition for a business owner is to go from the doing everything in the business to bringing in a professional management team and then managing the people and the outcomes versus the day-to-day tactical stuff. And this coda method is something that stood out to me. It's like, oh, hey, this is how you help these uh owners transition or make this transition. Am I close?

SPEAKER_02 3:35

Yes, you are. Good job.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Hey, thank you. A plus, all right. Cool. So walk us through, and we always like to start with definitions. So why don't you walk us through your coda method and we can talk about it a little bit?

SPEAKER_02 3:48

Sure. Sure. So uh I came up with the a thing that will help owners figure out what is still on their plate that they shouldn't be responsible for. So I named it coda k o-d a. So K stands for the things that you should keep, O stands for the things you should outsource, D is for delegate, and A is for automate. So I help clients walk through the tasks uh that should not be on their plate anymore as a business owner if you want to be the true CEO of your business, uh, and how to find those people uh to outsource to who to delegate on your team to you know to do what things. And then there's so much AI technology now, and so what can you automate uh so that you're really only responsible for the K things on your plate anymore, you know, the partnerships and the hiring decisions and the culture and everything you were talking about before.

SPEAKER_00 4:53

I have a theory. Um, it is not proven scientifically, but uh business owners, when they start a business, especially once they start to grow and scale, and things get hard, if they live in that world too long, they get what I call addicted to the chaos versus their product or service. And they put the value on the product and service, not by the deliverable, but by how hard they have to work to deliver it. Does that resonate with you at all?

SPEAKER_02 5:29

Yes. I think we're all guilty of that at some point in our in our journey.

unknown 5:37

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 5:38

For sure. But this your coda method sounds like this is a way to transition out of that.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 5:45

I mean, it everything doesn't have to be hard. There's it's you they're gonna you're gonna go through tough patches, but you can have an operation that grows and scales and is running is well run, and things are gonna happen day to day that that are gonna be challenging and tough, but business doesn't always have to be hard, and it sounds like the coda method is a way of compartmentalizing things, obviously, stripping away what the busy stuff and focusing on the right things.

SPEAKER_02 6:22

Yeah, a lot of times um uh people owners, right, business owners, entrepreneurs, especially, uh, who are type A personalities want control of everything, right? So giving, I say, you know, they're they're holding on too much to too much because they don't want to give away their baby. They're like, I'm the only one that you know cares about this enough, and I'm the only one that can do it the right way. And so we walk through a you know, giving you can give away something that you don't like doing. So I have a coined phrase that says, do what you love and outsource everything else, right? Like pick the it doesn't have to be everything, every single thing off your plate. Pick the things that you're like, uh, I don't like that, I'm not good at it, it takes me too long, you know, it's too time sucking or energy sucking. Give those things away and then give it to somebody who's smarter than you. There are a lot of people out there that are smarter than us as business owners to delegate and and and uh outsource to. So just building relationships.

SPEAKER_00 7:26

And that's that goes back to uh a business owner. They start their, I mean, we all started our business because we had a passion for something. Then all the other stuff of running a business happens, and we think, well, that's we we have to be responsible. We talked, I think it was last episode, actually, about that kind of owner being the bottleneck in their own sales department and just not being able to let go. It's that whole, well, you don't do it like me. Well, you're the owner, it's hard to do it like you. We don't have your brain, your knowledge, all that stuff. But oftentimes that process or procedure that the owners put in place isn't it was good enough to get them where they are, but it's not the process that's gonna help them grow. And in my experience at Key Hire, Arizona, it's the hardest thing for a business owner to do mentally is when they bring in a professional leader to trust them to go do their job because if they hire the right person and we're able to, you know, bring that right person into their business, that person will have more knowledge and experience and uh more tools than the business owner. And they have to kind of be okay to say, Arizona, yeah, it's okay, my baby's ugly, right? Tell me my baby's ugly and go fix it. Um but they but they got themselves where they are. And so it's a it's a fine line to walk, and it takes a good deal of humility for someone who's been grinding for however long to say, Arizona, please take this off my hands and do a better job than I can do.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

I know. It it is because of most of us, we have to kind of be that, you know, type A personality control freak to be able to withstand entrepreneurship, right? But it also is kind of a hindrance unless you figure out that you've burnt, like I burnt out twice, you know, had to do it twice to learn my lesson the third time to hire those key, like you're saying, hire those the right people, surround yourself with people smarter than me. Oh my God, now my team is so much smarter than me and all these pieces, you know. So I learned my lesson, but it took two burnout seasons, and I'm hopeful it doesn't have to do that for every business owner, you know.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Yeah, you're part of the 42% of small business owners who experience burnout. There you go. Crazy. So maybe can can you walk us through uh how you implement just high level, how you would implement your CODA method with a business owner.

SPEAKER_02 10:05

Yes. So it this is good to do every quarter, if not once a year, if you can't do it every quarter, at least once a year. Uh you want to brain dump every single thing that you are responsible that you touch. So this can be daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, yearly. Everything. Give me all the tasks, all the things that you are responsible for on a Google Doc. And then next to it, I want you to write either a K, an O, a D, or an A. And I want you to really, really think about the only things that you have to do yourself. So, like a lot of our clients are, you know, in the medical field. So if they're the only doctor, they have to do the provide the medical care, right? So that would be a K or an attorney. If they're the only attorney in the practice, there's only certain things they can do. Everything else can be either outsourced, delegated, or automated. Like get it off your plate. You have to make, you know, you have to decide on the culture of the organization. You have to make the final decisions on on these hiring, you know, on hiring people.

SPEAKER_04 11:21

Right.

SPEAKER_02 11:21

But there's so many tasks that are left on the owner's plate that don't need to be there at all.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Correct. Yeah, agreed. So what mistakes then have you seen as people try to uh before they get into this or as they go through it? What mistakes have you seen business owners make in regard to keeping things, delegating things, uh automating things?

SPEAKER_02 11:46

They are too stuck on holding on to too much of it. They're like, well, that's that's really like I'm not gonna be able to find an expert in that, or you know, oh, I'm the only one that knows how to do that. But if we create video SOPs, we I say get on Zoom, hit record, do the thing you were going to do, you know, or if it has to be in real life, right? Like set up an actual, we have construction clients, set up an actual video camera, do the task, and then that goes into a video, you know, library that your next hire can be trained on all of those video SOPs so they can do it exactly how you would do it, and that's for your internal team. For your external team, you need to find this, you know, CFO, fractional CFO, CMO, all these people that are they they can do it at a fraction of the cost and a fraction of the time because they're fast and efficient at it way better than you are.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Correct. And they'll probably, especially when you get into these um marketing and finance, they'll they will have a greater understanding of what especially in the finance side of it. Arizona, if you're gonna need to go to the bank one day, they're gonna understand what needs to be done and how your books need to look to do that, or you're working towards an exit, or you're working towards an acquisition or something.

SPEAKER_03 13:15

Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

You can't kind of have you can't have ad hoc records and go to the bank or go to Arizona um Arizona whoever you're going to to make an acquisition, they're gonna say this this is you have to go back and clean this up for us, and then someone might come in and swoop that acquisition out from under you or something. So it's important to get these experts in place, depending on what your goals are and where you want to go with the business.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

Correct. Yeah. And the those those decisions, I'm sure you help people with of like what's the next hire? Who is the most important for right now in my business? And you know, sometimes they have a good amount of team, but they're in the wrong seats. And then figuring out what the right seats, oh my gosh, I have somebody on my team that could do all my social media or all, you know, they could become the CMO and then I could hire somebody else to do social, like, you know, so just help having experts like you come in and and figure out, you know, who's supposed to be where and what's missing. And then if it's experts like us that are CMO or CSO fractionally that just come in and go, okay, short term, I'm gonna clean everything up in your marketing department, and then I'm gonna hire you uh, you know, have you hire a CMO, right? That's in-house, but it doesn't have to be right away. They figure, oh my gosh, I'm gonna have to pay all this money right away. Not necessarily like let's let's get there, like eventually, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

And a lot of people might in that case have an agency that's overseeing their marketing, and then they just need to hire a marketing coordinator, which is which is way more uh approachable for a small business budget than getting a director or someone in marketing. And I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but oftentimes a business owner, a mistake they might make is they want to so if they're offloading right, the keep, the offload, the what was uh they're trying to offload and delegate, um they might take two roles that somehow they think go together, but they don't. And they'll do what I call they'll break an employee's neck, meaning they'll get them to do a task that has them going this way, and then they get them to the other task they give them is exactly the opposite way you use your brain and work, right? It could be accounting. Oh, they do great accounting, we'll get them to do our social media. Well, those are you're using different parts of your brain, and you have to be a creative person versus a process person. And then both suffer. And now they say, Well, I don't know what happened to so-and-so. They used to be so good, but now they can't even keep up. And they're they used to be great at accounting, but now that's slipping, and our social media is not doing what it's supposed to. But we what we don't realize is we set them up to fail. Errors by so I I think that's an interesting conversation is when we're offloading and delegating, making sure we have people like yourself to make sure we're we're aligning people with their duties and not snapping their neck back and forth. So they're gonna struggle at both or all of their duties.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

I know it's really important because, and we'll go through job descriptions, you know, and I'm like, that with this piece needs to go to a whole other person, you know, like they'll come and say, okay, so I think I need, you know, like when we walk through this, okay, we see that there's these chunk of things that needs to be outsourced. Well, okay, then we're gonna be fractional for now. You know, we need a fractional CFO for now, right? Or a or HR for this, these little things, and you and they worry that they're gonna have to hire a full-time person. Oh my gosh, it's gonna cost me so much money. No, we can figure out there's so many of us that are really good fractionally that can, you know, do these different things to help them until they get to a financial place that they eventually you should have all your seats in in your own organization and have the org chart all filled up all nice, but that takes a long while to get there. I mean, you're talking, you know, couple million dollar business, and we're still just bootstrapping it and you know, figuring it out as we go, not until you get to like 15, 20 million, and then you're like, okay, now I can have every seat filled.

unknown 17:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 17:53

And it doesn't happen overnight. That's the you know, these businesses that are Arizona have their original kind of leadership team that have just taken off. Arizone, Arizona, and they start wondering why people can't keep up because they don't have the capacity. The grizz the business has outgrown their ability. And oftentimes that business owner will say things like Arizona, Arizona. But I'd just hire this one person, we'll be okay. And I always have to say, Arizona, if we could hire this one person, you'll be better.

SPEAKER_03 18:23

Arizona. But Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 18:25

We're not trying to hit a home run here. We need to hit four singles. Like it's a process. So we might make this one higher, and we'll let a little pressure out of the tire, and your life will get a little better, but you're not going to be at home having dinner with the family every night yet.

SPEAKER_03 18:39

Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 18:40

It's a process, and we have to get there. So I think it's a good conversation around when we do delegate and outsource, making sure we're sending it to the right people. And it to use your example, if we have someone who, oh wow, you're you went to school for marketing, I had no idea. And I have you here as my uh administrative assistant. Instead of giving them EA and marketing duties, maybe there's a shift that can happen within, you know, you need to shift a few duties from employee A to B and a few from B to C and a few from C to D to kind of round that back out so you can free that person up to do their job. It's not just, it's not a one-to-one transaction, it's a one-to-many sometimes. And that takes a bit of work, but if you have the right people on your team supporting you, you can you can work that out relatively quickly.

SPEAKER_02 19:34

Yes, and get a little press, like you said, get a little pressure off. You go, you get to go home twice a week, you know, or three times a week, right? To have dinner. I say my favorite, you know, is when a client says, Oh my God, I finally got to take a vacation because of the stuff that we took off, you know, took off their plate. Like we finally got to go out of town and not worry about the business, you know. Oh my, that's such a cool thing, you know, to be able to help. Um, but I think it's important that knowing that it's okay if you make a hire, that you don't have to, it doesn't have to be just that. If you get, if they get in there and you figure out that they're really good at this one thing, let them run with that, and then let's hire you somebody, you know, then let's hire somebody else for for that other role. Like, don't be so stuck on, well, we hired them for this, and it's the only thing they can do, and and whatever. Like, then I always say to my team, if you don't like it or you're not good at it, we're moving, like we're shifting tasks, it's just constant shift of who wants to do what so everybody's happy, you know, doing what they love, right? And getting rid of the stuff they don't want to do.

SPEAKER_00 20:47

Yeah, that makes sense. And I imagine there's some struggles. You you alluded to it earlier with the keep it. Arizone, Arizona, uh people wanting to keep that control, keep their arms around things.

SPEAKER_03 20:58

Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 20:59

What has your experience been there? And how do you have any insight into what is helpful for a business owner when you're having that conversation around Arizona?

SPEAKER_03 21:09

What you really Arizone, Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

You don't want to keep everything, it's got to be a small list. So, how do you help them walk through what do you want to keep? And then before we decide to either outsource or delegate.

SPEAKER_02 21:24

So I they'll they'll start writing, you know, they'll write it all and they'll put K and K and K. We'll put it together, and pretty soon I say, Arizona. This actually could, if we did the process right, if we recorded the process, could this be replicated the same way every time? And I say, Yeah. Okay, then that's either automated, we're gonna figure out a way to automate that, or we're gonna get delegate that to a team member because you can create a process and an SOP around that.

SPEAKER_03 21:56

Right.

SPEAKER_02 21:56

So it's it's just walking through each one and saying, Are you? Sure, you're the only one that can do that? It's like accountability, right? We all need some accountability for what things that we're trying to keep. And I remind them: if you want to be the actual CEO of the business, then you need to take the elevator. Stop struggling and taking the stairs to the C-suite. Oh my God, I gotta, you know, struggle bus. Like get to the top the faster you get rid of everything off your plate except for those three, four little things. These, these, you know, corporate CEOs are not doing all of those tasks, right? So pick the little things. Yep, keep that. You're in now, you're in the C-suite. You took the elevator, and let's get rid of all this other stuff.

SPEAKER_00 22:45

Do you find that they have a the challenge is the mindset of it? 100%. Like of going from day-to-day tactical fingers in every pie versus no, you're only going to report to three three people reporting to you. You'll tell them what you want, they'll tell their team. And if you have any error if you want to get an update, you don't go on the floor and start talking to everyone and gumming up the works. You you gotta respect that kind of flow of communication. Do you find that is one of the challenges biggest challenges you have to kind of unwind within them?

SPEAKER_02 23:25

100%. 100%. Because again, they're like, oh, well, but I do it 100% perfectly. Like, you know, that 80-20 rule, like somebody else can do it 80%, it's still gonna be done, you know.

SPEAKER_00 23:38

Yeah, and someone might be able to be able to do it a hundred percent perfectly as well in time. Yes, not tomorrow, but maybe in three months. And if you let them go through the make those mistakes and you have patience and you can correct them and give them feedback, they'll get there. I mean, maybe that's another point we're talking about. Once we start to delegate and outsource, it doesn't mean things the next day are getting done perfectly, or to your standard, or the way you want them as a business owner. There is a there's gonna be some transition time here and some hiccups and bumps in the road.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

Correct. Yeah, it's never gonna be exactly how you want it. But if you hire correctly, if you put their people in the right seat on the bus, it is faster, you will get there faster. And if people work on their systems and their operations and their, you know, other processes sooner in their in their journey, in their business journey, it's then you have less of that problem on the back end, you know, when you start to like so if there's a down, you can see like people go, oh my gosh, that's a roller coaster ride and I'm in a downturn, then work on your processes and your systems now so that when it comes back up again, you're ready to make those hires, you're ready to do all of you know, get rid of all the stuff because you need to be the visionary. The business cannot scale as fast as you're gonna want it to scale if you don't have time to think bigger and work on big partnerships and work on like how are we gonna scale this thing? Aerosome.

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Right. Yeah, that's that's a great point. There is you have to be patient, you have to respect the process and be willing to coach. I think the impulse of a lot of us is okay. Well, you told me to delegate this, it's been two weeks, every week it's been screwed up, and I have to go fix it anyway, so why don't I just take it back?

SPEAKER_02 25:53

They all want to do that, but but the again, like working through, and that's what the the important about having somebody like us to to help walk them through. Please, we need to okay. What is the process? We need to record this, we need to give the training, proper training to the team. And then somebody needs to be the accountability partner. How are they doing? What hiccups are they? The person that you put in place, like what are they feeling? Is there it what's missing? Like, why is it not getting done correctly, right? Is it communication? Is it training? Like, what's the issue? Okay, let's let's fix that and then let's work on it and then you can expand. But the second, it's really cool. The second we get a major thing off their plate, um, whether it's like their finances or their bookkeeping or their marketing or whatever the major like pieces off, and they can breathe and they finally start to go, oh my God, I just met with this person and I just had this deal come up. And I just then, you know, you can see like, see, that's what I was trying to get at is like the the expansion is so much greater the second you get rid of all the basic, all the plain tasks.

SPEAKER_00 27:09

Yeah. I agree. It's you get them out of the weeds, the day-to-day tactical, and then you start to see the vision that creativity starts coming back, and they start getting excited about oh, we can do this, we can do that. I have I always use the the term I have the horsepower behind me now. I have these these leaders and capable people. I can turn this the day-to-day stuff over to, and I can go focus on bigger, better things.

SPEAKER_02 27:36

It's so much better.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

It's pretty cool. Yeah, it's it's a really cool experience.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

To see that.

SPEAKER_00 27:43

Why don't we we're kind of moving through this? So I always like to end with um advice. You know, if if if I'm a business owner who's in the weeds, you know, a lot of the things we brought up have resonated with them and or them, and they're saying, Yeah, I do that. Yeah, I do that. Oh, I'd love to be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 28:05

How what are your top three to five pieces of advice for them to get them pointed in the right direction if they if they want to in and in particular if they want to use your coda method? How do we get started doing that in um Arizona beyond Arizone lettering everything out, you know, delegate or designating?

SPEAKER_03 28:25

Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 28:26

But then what are the next steps after that? I've designated.

SPEAKER_03 28:29

How do I then Arizone, Arizone, Arizona, Arizona?

SPEAKER_00 28:33

Delegate things out, outsource things, and automate things. How do I know which goes where? And Arizona. How do I start that process?

SPEAKER_02 28:43

Uh coach or consultant is the best one to help you because you need the accountability, you need somebody else who's smart in you know, whichever thing like you're working on, right? So somebody like us, or if they already have a business coach, okay, help me hold me accountable to get rid of one thing a week. One okay.

SPEAKER_00 29:04

That's a good distinction.

SPEAKER_02 29:06

Pick it doesn't have to be, oh my God, I gotta do all, I gotta find somebody for all these things right now. No, no, no, that's gonna be too overwhelming. Pick the one major thing that would give you some breathing room and then figure out a partner, you know, like a vendor, an outsourced, you know, fractional person like us, or do that key higher and pick that one person that would take a lot of that off your plate. But but you only gotta you gotta do one at a time because otherwise it's too overwhelming for them.

SPEAKER_00 29:38

That's a great distinction. Is there any other advice you would give them about moving through this process?

SPEAKER_02 29:45

Keep going, keep forcing yourself to relook at the list every week and pick the next thing and pick the next thing, right? Do not stop when you're like, oh, I get I got rid of one, I'm good.

SPEAKER_00 29:58

Right, you know, and and I'm guessing you might be working on one or two or three at a time because it takes more than a week to to to find a fractional CFO. Exactly or whatever. Yeah, but you can start that process. Maybe you're talking to people, then the next week you pick another one. So you might have two or three things working at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 30:21

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Um, there might be a caution in there too. You can't just take all the stuff you don't want to do and give it to everyone in your office, regardless. We talked about that before, making sure we're assigning the right duties to the right people and keeping them aligned in their duties.

SPEAKER_03 30:37

Arizona.

SPEAKER_00 30:37

Uh is is you have any insight or tips on how to correctly delegate things into your your current workforce?

SPEAKER_02 30:45

Yeah, I think um, you know, going back to uh well, I ask the team, I'll ask the team, look at this list, tell me the things that you would love to take off the owner's plate.

SPEAKER_00 31:00

Arizona you know, ask an interesting way to look at it.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Asking the team, give me like if you could cherry pick the one thing to take that off the owner's plate, what would you pick? Because usually the team is going to choose the team member is going to choose something that they really love and that they're really good at because they want to shine, right?

SPEAKER_00 31:22

Right, yeah. Yeah, they're gonna want and and they probably have watched that owner struggle doing it and have been thinking to themselves, I could knock that out, no problem, and it would be better quality than they're doing it. Or have you ever experienced they've gone to the owner and said, Let me do that for you, and they keep saying no, no, no, and then eventually they go, Okay, just do it. And then they say, Oh my god, why didn't I do that six months ago?

SPEAKER_02 31:49

Well, it it the the only usually the only way that work the owner will will be okay doing that is if they have a coach or a consultant that's keeping them accountable. Otherwise, they're like, Yeah, I'm good. I don't have time for this. Nobody's watching me, nobody's you know, holding me, holding me a feet to the fire to say, we talked about this, we need to keep delegating, we need to keep outsourcing. But you know, the cool thing is like when we work on automation projects for people and we can shrink time, and then they're like, Oh, can you do another one? Can you do another one? You know what I mean? So when they if we pick those one or two things at the beginning, the first one or two things that they that they're really gonna relieve some pressure, like you said, take the little bit of you know, air out of the tire, that will propel them to go, oh, I want to do it again. I want to do something else because this feels really good. If we take a basic task, a tiny five-minute task off their plate first, it's not gonna work. Like they're gonna be like, Yeah, I can do that. That's no problem. You want to take something that's gonna relieve actual pressure.

SPEAKER_00 32:59

Very interesting. Well, this has been great. Super, super useful information, Kelly. If people are listening and they're thinking, I'd like to learn more about Kelly or speak with Kelly, how can we get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_02 33:11

Our website's duplicatemyself.com. The book is there. Uh, the the hiring tips that we talked about, the coda method is there. Um, so everything is on our website.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Very cool. Is that the only one? Do we have a LinkedIn profile, Matt? There it is. Did I pronounce your last name wrong? I have a I am amazing at I'm probably one of the best in the world at butchering names.

SPEAKER_02 33:36

You actually pronounced it right. Most people say Lorenzo. I'm like, there's no O in it. There's an E and at the end.

SPEAKER_00 33:44

And there's an N, yeah. No, that's amazing. Well, thank you so much. I really enjoyed the conversation. I appreciate you taking the time.

SPEAKER_02 33:50

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 33:51

Very cool conversation. It's funny. I was watching uh a little video clip of Kevin O'Leary today, and uh he was talking about Steve Jobs, and Steve Jobs said, you know, being creative is easy. You only need to accomplish three things a day. He said, Those are your signals, those three things you need to get done a day. Everything else is noise, everything else is there to get in the way of you getting those three things done. And I think that's um meaningful now after speaking with Kelly that I think that's what she's driving at. Get rid of all the noise and focus on what's important to you. Well, I have you here. I have the big ask. Um, if you're listening to us, whatever platform you're listening or watching on, YouTube, Spotify, Apple, we're self-produced podcasts, and the only way we can get the word out is if you guys help us. So if you can subscribe uh or even give us a share or a shout out, whatever it is, but subscribe would be great. The more subscribers we have, the more we get thrown into that algorithm, the more we get recommended, and the more people will see the show. And we're here to help small business owners. So by subscribing to the station, you're actually helping another small business owner. Uh, we would appreciate it if you could help us out with that. Thanks for listening. My name's Corey Harlock. I've been your host. And until next time, stop grinding, start growing up,