We need more women in leadership. In this week’s episode, we discuss how Dr. Julianna Hynes helps other break the glass ceiling in organizations and what it truly means to be a leader.
In your career as an entrepreneur, you need to see yourself in the CEO chair. However, it might not be always clear to you to establish your presence as a leader in your organization or small business owner. In this week’s episode with Dr. Julianna Hynes, author of Leading on Purpose and CEO of Julianna Hynes and Associates, we discuss why we need more women leaders, as well as how she developed her recent book.
Obstacles to female leadership
What do you think is the #1 barrier to females in leadership roles? During this portion of the podcast, we discuss how mindsets and limiting belief can hold you back from the next step in your career. When it comes to choosing to become a leader, one must acknowledge that you already are. In this podcast, Julianna also describes her experience working in Silicon Valley as a young, black woman. She describes times when different perspectives and leadership styles weren’t always in alignment. In fact, she recalls that many leaders didn’t know exactly how to help her grow. Julianna also shares the importance of mentorship which is often lacking for many employees in organizations. Yet, thankfully she shares that there are many opportunities for growth and support for employees, especially for women.
In the podcast she shares several simple ways to develop your own unique leadership style.
Ask for feedback from multiple perspectives.
Recognize imposter syndrome.
Choose to step outside of your comfort zone.
Identify and act on your unique point of view as a leader.
Julianna encourages women leaders to lead from their own unique perspective because “when we don’t share our gifts, our point of view, we’re limiting not only something else but someone else”.
Advantages for female leadership
When women lead on purpose, others can thrive in a safe and supportive working environment. It’s essential to consider that a unique perspective is needed in order to change the way in which we conduct business both from a small business and large organization standpoint. Julianna shares much about the challenges facing women in leadership as well as opportunities and advancements in for women at the CEO and Corporate level in her recent book.
Conclusion
If you want to be successful in leadership, here are some key takeaways from this episode.
Celebrate wins (big and small).
Find masterminds and coachings. There is great value in having others provide accountability and encouragement.
Have a diverse group of mentors. Get relatable perspective, as well as a point of view you may not have thought about from someone on the outside looking in.
Thanks for listening to this week’s podcast with Dr. Julianna Hynes. I hope her advice provides motivation for you to take on more leadership roles in your career and entrepreneurial endeavors.
Guest Resources
Here’s where you can find more on Dr. Julianna Hynes and Associates as well as find useful information regarding her latest book.
Is tech holding you back from making money in your business? Ready to learn the funnels you can put in place to make earning simple and easy for your customers?
Join me in our live training (Friday, August 14th) on Systematic Funnels. Catch it now before the price increases in the future. The replay will be available if you can’t attend live.
Leave us a comment below and let us know your biggest takeaway from this episode? Missed the last episode, check it out here.
Let’s talk about content. Is it really king? I always tell my high ticket clients to have great online content to attract people to their digital products and/or services. In this week’s episode, I chat all things content, including marketing, with founder of Do You Even Blog, Pete McPherson. Listen below or check out the show notes to see where you’d like to start.
Pete has been blogging for 10 years, interviews top bloggers, entrepreneurs and creators and has made several courses, digital products and a membership group. Plus, if you actually check out podcast episode number three on web design tips, you’ll see that I have interviewed him in the past but I’m so excited to talk to Pete today about learning how to create valuable content.
Pete was super excited to discuss content with me. So much so that it took us less than 3 minutes to jump right into his massive AirTable content planning list where he keeps all his content ideas. Check out the video.
The overall takeaway that he wants you to grasp, is to create a system or workflow to create content quickly by having one place where you store all your content, including ideas for future content. Airtable, Google Sheets, a notebook, use whatever works best for you.
Why Content Marketing Matters for Small Business
Trying to figure out which content should come next? Here are 3 important questions that Pete recommends you ask as you review your content ideas list.
What’s the search viability?
Is this on brand? Do I have a unique take on this subject?
Am I motivated to create this?
Content Marketing Strategy
Pete recommends spending 5 minutes answering these questions first:
What is the topic? 2 – 3 words
Who’s it for?
What’s the problem/challenge/pain point?
What’s the solution/answer/end result?
If you think these are gems, make sure you listen as we discuss the remaining content workflow process. Have a blog, podcast, YouTube channel? You should definitely tune in with your notebook. TAKE NOTES!!
We always have loads of great content over here for you at The Course Consultant!! Why should you miss out? Join us in our free Facebook group and you never have to again!!
Thanks for listening!! Don’t forget to leave a comment and let me know what new content planning ideas you will be implementing. And if you missed, last week’s episode on transformational learning, be sure to catch it here.
Also, if you missed our previous chat with Pete on web design, listen here.
In this week’s episode, I discuss tranformational learning with Couples Financial Counselor turned course creator, Adam Kohl. Adam worked with the Course Consultant to create his course, Financial Coaches Mindset. We both sat down to discuss his journey and the process involved with creating a transformational course. Take a listen to the podcast below or browse the shownotes to see where you would like to begin.
Adam H. Cole is a couple’s financial counselor who helps couples make sure that their money conversation doesn’t get in the way; leading to more peace, love and cash. Now that’s a business mission I can get behind. His credentials to lead such a mission includes over a decade of experience as a certified mediator, former tax attorney, and financial advisor.
In addition, Adam has a law degree from Duke, a Master’s in tax law from NYU, and has been a seasoned community organizer and lifelong musician. Find his Personal Finance Parodies on YouTube or his podcast, Equal Partners with Adam Kol on his website.
Create Tranformational Learning
Adam and I discuss the key elements required to build an environment of transformational learning. That includes:
being culturally competent,
always thinking about the customer (experience),
and being intentional about diversity and inclusion.
Adam practices this in his business by asking his clients about their experience with financial institutions because he understands that not everyone has had the same experience that he’s had as a white, Jewish boy who grew up in upper middle class. He also proactively makes decisions to ensure that his business and podcast has a diverse network of people. Listen to the podcast for more details on how he intentionally cultivates this environment.
One thing that I love that he asks, that I think all business should answer for themselves is: “How can my business contribute to a more equitable world?”
The Shift: From Coaching to Course Creator
Are you a coach trying to decide if creating a course is your next best step? Listen as Adam discusses when he knew it was the right time to make the shift. HINT: There is no perfect time.
About Adam's Course: Financial Coaches Mastermind
Adam worked with The Course Consultant to create a course that had the following objective for fellow coaches:
to be effective working with clients,
to have effective communication and listening,
and to manage confidence.
As a course creator, it is critical to know the effect that you want your course to have on the people who go through your training. Next, we discussed the perfect recipe (environment) for a successful and profitable course.
Keys to a Successful and Profitable Course
Do you have the right ingredients to create a course that will be profitable and successful? Adam and I discussed, 3 key elements that could lead to your course’s success. Here are three questions that you can ask about your current industry.
Is there a need for this information?
How many product offerings exist today?
What are people struggling with?
Listen to Adam and I discuss what his answers were to these questions when he decided offering a group coaching program was the answer and right solution for his business.
The Course Consultant Experience
During this part of the podcast, Adam and I discussed his experience with The Course Consultant. He began with easy and astute and finished with how I compassionately kept him in line. If those sound like traits that you would want in your course consultant, definitely setup your discovery call soon.
Adam also shared feedback from someone who completed the course and practiced his training in ‘real life’. It’s feedback like this that let’s me know that starting The Course Consultant was the right decision for me.
Course Creation Stages
Finally, we wrapped up with some of the course creation stages that have the biggest impact, including the sales page, copyright, and product marketing.
There are some gem questions that you should ask yourself if you want your course launch to be a success. Check it out on the podcast now, plus find resources below on how you can connect with Adam or the Course Consultant below.
Building an online membership sounds incredibly challenging, but Danielle makes it look easy. Here’s what she tells us about developing a thriving community online. Danielle Desir is an author, speaker, podcaster and the founder of WOC (Women of Color) Podcasters, the first community of its kind dedicated to supporting and amplifying the voices of women of color podcasters. WOC Podcasters has grown to a community of over 3,000 members in 2 years and recently launched a membership site offering mentorship, accountability and a resource library covering a variety of aspects in podcasting.
What to include in a membership site
When it comes to creating an online membership, you’ll need to create a solution for the challenges your ideal customer or client faces. Once you build out a solid sales funnel with your website, you can direct prospective customers or clients to your online digital solutions on a recurring subscription model. Danielle realized that accountability was missing and then created a membership with multiple monthly accountability calls. She also interviews experts and then adds their bonus training material content onto the Thinkific membership portal.
Build a Community
Danielle excels at building communities online. Before starting the WOC Insider’s Membership, she created an online course and Facebook community about being financially savvy and traveling abroad. Building off of this experience Danielle shares that growing an online business is always a work in progress. She recommends preselling a product before one is completely developed to validate your offering before spending a substantial amount of time building out a digital product. Through Facebook groups, Danielle shares valuable free blog posts, videos, and other job opportunities to help support the podcasting process. “I know podcasting can be incredibly lonely at times, so I wanted to support others while they were podcasting,” Desir says.
Thinkific Membership
Danielle hosts all of her membership group content on the Thinkific platform. She uses a private Facebook group for those that pay a monthly subscription fee. Any bonus workshops can be paid for with an all access subscription or purchased individually. If a customer decides to stop or pause their account, access to the private Facebook group is limited. This ensures that the ongoing trainings are kept as a special bonus for those that pay the subscription fees. Desir says that this is to ensure that your solutions are scaleable because providing free content as a business owner still costs money. She also leverages paid and unpaid volunteers to assist with supporting the engagement of the free and paid Facebook group. For example, she has someone post weekly in each group.
Offer Workshops
Desir says that workshops are a great way to provide value in a shorter period of time. She includes her own training sessions recorded from Zoom meetings as well as expert co-led sessions. Subscribers also have access to an ever growing comprehensive library for her audience about growing and monetizing their podcast. She updates this with fresh content and special online training.
Ask for referrals
Desir says that one of the biggest ways that her brand has grown organically is through word of mouth and referrals. Other business journals and news outlets have written about WOC Podcasters and Desir says that sharing about the group on other podcasts has been helpful when it comes to growing an online membership. She says not to get discouraged when you don’t receive an immediate sale. By simply offering and sharing information that is valuable, people will spread the word and choose to purchase a membership if they find that it helps them reach their goal.
Use Discount code: courseconsultant for 25% of any online course / membership:
Creating an online membership takes time and commitment. If you are a small business owner that is ready to take on the next step in your online business with courses, don’t forget to check out our shop!
Andrea is an Online Marketing Strategist who owns and operates AM Creative, a boutique marketing agency located in Wollongong Australia. She started developing her course on Instagram Marketing last year and recently revealed the lessons she learned while developing her Master Course.
Identify Your Ideal Client
Andrea points out that by speaking to everyone, you speak to no one. This is one of the first things she learned while cultivating messages through social media channels in her agency. She also says that to create messages for your ideal client, you must think through the common things that are pain points for your clients or customers in order to show them the value that your business provides. She says that this is actually one of the first activities she includes as a Customer Avatar Worksheet in her Instagram Marketing class. Creating a course can be difficult, but this is something that Andrea worked on before developing her online course curriculum.
Complete Market Research
One of the biggest things she says that other marketing agencies aren’t speaking about is the importance of market research. Andrea discusses how powerful doing a competitor analysis is before creating any digital content for marketing, especially on Instagram. She says many people fall into the bad habit of developing posts simply out of necessity and not being strategic. She states that by setting SMART goals, you’ll be able to create small and large goals for your marketing campaigns that will drive awareness and revenue into your business.
Share Valuable Content
Andrea continues by saying that your Instagram posts should “Educate, Entertain, or Inspire.” By doing behind the scenes videos, documenting a live event, or promoting a digital product or new service or program, you can create a nurturing relationship with your audience and prospective customers. These kinds of posts can help you showcase your authority on a subject or topic and share the success your clients have. Building trust around your digital products is definitely something that is supported through an online marketing campaign.
Quality Isn’t Always Expensive
Andrea says it’s less important to have experience photos to show up on Instagram and more important to show up with your authentic self. She says that many of her photos are taken from her iPhone. She says that if you have the budget to take higher quality photos, that is wonderful but not required to show up online!
Use Strategic Hashtags
Andrea says that niche hashtags are a strategic way to gain more visibility online. Niche hashtags, especially local hashtags, act as an Instagram version of SEO (Search Engine Optimization). She says researching keywords for a list of hashtags that are local or niche based will help you gain visibility when you post photos through the social media channel. Key points: stay away from really popular hashtags that are too broad because posts can get easily lost in a sea of other competitors.
Create a Course Roadmap
Andrea discusses how important it is to create a course roadmap for your course including finding tech, finding course platforms, creating powerpoints, and finding the time. She says that outsourcing to professionals has significantly decreased the amount of time she needed to create her course to help while she runs her business.
Conclusion
Make sure you check out Andrea’s course to learn more about leveraging social media marketing through Instagram in her course Instagram Marketing Academy and use discount code “melody30” to save 30% at checkout. Need some help with putting your course together?
One of the things that I first started doing when working as a solo entrepreneur was conducting a lot of tests all on my own. I realized, though, that I wasn’t getting all the things done that I should be focusing more attention on. This also led to the realization that if I wanted to grow, I would need to invest a team to help with tasks that were taking up my time. I put in my own money upfront and took the first step toward building a team: a virtual assistant. I grew from there. Here’s how I motivate my team and continue seeing success across the board.
Understand Your Team Members’ Skills
The first step I take when I hire a new contractor is a needs assessment. I like to work with people who are good at what they do and who will be able to bring value to my business. By learning what their skills are and learning about the needs they have, I’m able to set them up for success from the start. Once I learn what they’re good at, I then compare it to where my needs are.
In the past, I was hired to do things similar to what I hire people for now. During that time, I found that I both loved and excelled at training. Creating materials, coming up with plans, and helping people learn was my jam. That’s why I turned it into my full-time business. But, there’s more that goes into this than just doing that. For that reason, I find contractors who can do the “other” while I focus on training. I hire someone who loves to do each of the other things that I need done and it’s like having an expert working on every aspect of the business. I motivate my team by giving them tasks that closely align with their goals, their values, and their skill sets.
Help Develop Potential
Continue developing talent. Always. When I’m working with contractors, I find out what they’re good at, but I don’t just leave it at that. I share training with them on things that I’m good at, I encourage them to learn more within their own skills, and I give them resources that will help them go farther than they would on their own. I also motivate my team by allowing them to help teach me or the other contractors about their skills. This helps create growth and transformation while also allowing people to keep focusing on what they’re good at. By sharing, it resonates with the type of work that they’re in and helps them reach new levels even outside of their own skills!
Celebrate Wins and Accomplishments
While it may not seem like a “big deal,” celebrating can go a long way. It’s important that your team knows that you’re recognizing their accomplishments. With this recognition, the team member will know that they’re on the right path and should continue doing it.
The benefits of celebrating wins are twofold. When you celebrate openly about a team member’s accomplishments, other team members will see that and will be motivated to work harder and get recognized too! Instead of just focusing on endless new tasks and new jobs for your team members to do, focus on what they’ve done right in the past!
Understand Organizational Needs
What are your needs as an organization and how can you reinforce cultural values? By getting to know your team members and making connections with them on a personal level. Take time to listen to emails and messages, understand their personal lives and what’s going on in them. And, above all understand that they are not only team members but they’re people. I motivate my team by being understanding and treating them like humans instead of worker bees. In turn, they provide me with high-quality work and I get to create lasting relationships with hard workers!
Want an easy way to streamline your business, create online webinar training, and more? You need a comprehensive template to do it and creating your own can be a huge waste of time. My Canva pack is jam-packed with goodies like sales webinar templates, coaching templates, mastermind templates, and even a media kit! It’s one of the tools I use to motivate my team. Grab yours here!
As a course creator, I’ve dealt with a lot of burnout. Not only do I deal with other people experiencing burnout, but I’ve also had to work through a lot of my own burnout. There’s a lot that goes into working from home and I get it. But, I’ve found some amazing tips that will help you avoid burnout when working from home.
Project Management
Running your own business is going to involve a lot of tasks. From marketing to creating deliverables, you’ll have so many things on your plate. Add in freelance work or service-based tasks and you’re bound to forget something or double book yourself. When you’re only handling a few things at one time, a simple spreadsheet can work great, but you’re going to outgrow it eventually. You need a project management tool and having one right out of the gate will allow your business to grow.
One of my favorites is Asana. The tool makes it easy to itemize tasks, create timelines, and assign each of the tasks out. It provides a great visualization of everything that you have going on and what work that’ll require in real-time. Whether you use a tool like Asana, Trello, or any other project manager, seeing the breakdown of tasks can make it easier to avoid burnout when working from home.
Estimate Time Committed
From email management to social media management and even creating content for your website, you need to estimate the amount of time that you need to commit. This will give you a realistic way to plan each day that you’re working from home and give you a goal to work toward while completing the tasks. If you’re repeating tasks over and over again, you must understand how long it’s going to take to complete it. Once you know how long it takes you to complete each task, you’ll be able to determine if it’s worth it to keep doing yourself or if you should delegate the task.
Using a tool like Clockify allows you to not only track projects but also track tasks associated with that project. It will allow you to see how long it’s taking you to do individual projects and how long it’s taking you to do tasks associated with entire larger projects. You’ll also want to do this if you are working on larger projects for clients because it can have a big impact on retainers and fees.
Hire A Great Team
Hiring and training an executive team, especially when working remote, is a great way to make your business run smoother and focus on the things that you need to focus on. If you have a team of people who you can trust and who perform good work for your business, you can avoid burnout when working from home. This will also help make it easier to focus on the things that require your attention instead of doing tasks that can actually be delegated.
Many new entrepreneurs struggle with the idea of hiring a team especially because they like to put their time into the inside workings of their business and want to make sure that things are done right. To ensure that your team is right for your business, you should start building up a great network of people you know personally. If this is not possible, get referrals from other business owners who you trust. Hiring tools like LinkedIn can also be helpful if you don’t have other options.
Once you’ve found a good team, it’s important to make them understand the value of working with you. This includes investing in them professionally with things like tools, courses, and more.
Take Breaks
In a traditional position, your boss will tell you when to take your breaks and will often enforce that you need to take them at certain times, but if you don’t have a boss, it can be difficult to know when and if you need a break. It can be incredibly hard to force yourself to take breaks, but it is crucial to avoid burnout when working from home. Even though I struggle with this, I find that I am more productive and I am able to work from home better when I make myself take a break.
It is important to work hard and be persistent, but working longer hours also means that you need to take a break. The quality of your work can be impacted by burnout so make sure that you’re taking breaks to keep that from happening. Take a walk with your pet, play with your kids, or just step away from the screen for a few minutes and you’ll come back feeling refreshed and ready to tackle more work.
Start Your Day Strong
Even if you’re not a morning person, starting your day strong will impact your work and allow you to feel more accomplished throughout the day. Reading a scripture, meditating, or doing yoga are all excellent ways to start your day out strong. You can also practice mindfulness, go for a peaceful walk, or even do a challenging workout if that’s what gets your blood pumping.
Join a Support Group
If you choose to start with just one tip from this list, this is the one. The rest of the tips will fall into place easier once you’ve found your support group. People need their tribes and as a business owner, you need yours to help avoid burnout when working from home. In traditional positions, you have coworkers to commiserate with, but you don’t get that built-in support when you’re working from home. Find entrepreneurs who are similar to you (YES, even ones you might be inclined to think of as competitors) and built your support group. This will give you a place to vent about your struggles, celebrate your wins, and even do a little bit of collaborating. If you have a strong support group, you’ll be able to draw inspiration and a place to leave your frustration. You’ll be surprised how many others out there are hustling and grinding just like you. You’ll also be surprised that many of these people have gone through the same things as you and even have tips for fixing issues you might be experiencing.
Your support group doesn’t even have to be huge especially in the beginning. Start out with a friend or two then build that up. Don’t just look local, either. There are people just like you all around the country and even around the world. Look for people to be your support team in social media groups, at conventions, and more!
Now that you’ve got the tools to avoid burnout when working from home, it’s time to take the next steps in improving your business. Start streamlining your process so you can get back to running your business. Check out my Canva pack that’s now available. You can use it as a first step toward project management and itemize your tasks into bite-sized chunks!
5 Steps Towards Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace
Diversity and inclusion training for the workforce might not be the first thing that comes to mind when you think of race relationships, but here’s why it’s important. As more and more stories of tragic murders of people like Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and Ahmaud Abery begin to surface it calls to question not only the brutality of certain police tactics but of a system of socioeconomic and racial divide amongst the American population that goes beyond simple ties to political agenda or religious affiliation. Employees, contractors, and even customers and clients feel the weight of these significant historical events. Yet, many wonder what is the right action to take as an organization, agency, or even solo entrepreneur? In this blog and podcast, I’m going to outline several training and actionable recommendations you can consider when beginning the conversation about race and culture in the workplace.
Acknowledge Current Events
While it can be easy to disengage with the political climate and news coverage as an organization, it is better to consider the ramifications of not taking any action at all. By acknowleding current events, you take a stand towards change. Send an email blast to your community to express your values, what you plan to do, and how you want others to take action towards change. Allow people to message you directly via email, social media messaging, or via Zoom calls. Many people are hurting right now and it is imperative that an organization takes every measure to allow for honest conversations.
Encourage Conversations
Many people worry that by beginning to speak about topics like race, gender, and even sexuality will cause a ripple effect of larger problems within an organization. However, these concerns are already top of mind for many employees and customers. By refusing to have these critical conversations, not only will the morale of minority groups and individuals within an organization plummet but some may feel inclined to leave and other customers may consider taking their business elsewhere. Encourage managers and other leaders in the organization to provide open communication channels where contractors and employees can voice their concerns both privately and in group settings such as Q & A sessions.
Educate Yourself and Your Team
Diversity and inclusion training is not the complete solution. On an individual level, educate yourself and encourage your team to invest in books and other media about race and privilege in America. If your budget allows, invest in diversity and training initiatives that elevate the stories for people of color and other minority groups that feel comfortable sharing. Do not force people of color or minority members of your organization to fulfill a role of advocate if they do not feel comfortable doing so. Understand that bringing up traumatic personal experiences related to racism is painful for many and requiring someone to dig through years of systematic oppression to cater to my feeling of guilt is wrong. I feel that in some ways I may have done this in the past, and for that I apologize to my error. For those that are willing to share their experiences and stories, allow them to do so and expres your support.
Create a Plan Of Support
Continue to cultivate a culture of support and inclusivity. Qualified leaders from all walks of life, should be represented in your staff. Marketing messaging, images, and values should be communicated to your internal and external partners. Consider your price structure and ask yourself how you can contribute either personally or through your organization to nonprofit organizations making a difference in antiracist efforts and diversity initiatives. Ask for feedback from staff about measures that can be taken to ensure that the workplace is inclusive and an enjoyable place to work. Provide support systems of mentorship and training for employees and contractors that are looking to advance and need guidance.
As more and more of the workforce continues to work from home, this proposes a dilemma for how to train employees for managers especially. While training techniques for employees normally consists of having in-person training seminars as well as on-the job conversations, training a remote workforce can be difficult especially when employees or contractors are completely new to an organization. Small business owners especially may find that best practices for training new employees is an important part of the puzzle when growing a small business online.
Best Practices for Training New Employees
Training new employees requires that you understand the project’s scope, deadlines, and the estimated time to complete specific tasks. A best practice is to ensure that the employee or contractor has what they need in terms of training for company software, procedures, as well as organizational history, values, and internal communication channels. For example, if you require that your employee update their project status within a project management software such as Asana, Monday.com, JIRA, Trello, or other software, it’s important that their training incorporates how to navigate the system properly especially if they are completely new to the software. Recently I hired on several new contractors and created a series of online video trainings recorded through Loom and hosted the video in Vimeo to provide them with an adequate amount knowledge to navigate the system and update the progress of tasks within the software.
Keep Training Videos Short and Sweet
When supporting the ongoing efforts of training for your team, keep video lengths short, preferrably 7 minutes or less. This helps to keep the attention span of your employee as well as miniminize the associated time affiliated with developing training curriculum. This is especially true with training for software that often changes rapidly with software updates. Additionally this will help your staff, employees, and other contractors to quickly complete their daily tasks as well as complete their trainings without adding extra hours onto their workday. Let’s be honest, nobody likes to add an additional 2 hours to their workday when they have much more higher priority tasks to complete.
Provide Space For Feedback
There should always be a way to improve your training so that employees can effectively implement the tasks you require them to complete, so provide space for feedback either through an anonymous survey or through a different avenue. For example, when I created my Samepage Online Tutorial Training, I asked contractors within Samepage what was working and what wasn’t. I also asked them in 1:1 meetings if they could provide me with feedback on the training to help me better understand any necessary changes that needed to be completed for the project.
Give Access To Resources
I often find that with small business owners hiring their first contractors that a certain amount of knowledge about the company or organization is helpful. Here are the items that small business owners should provide to their contractor or employees when they begin working on small short-term projects. The better your contractor understands your company, the better your business projects will flow.
A brief history of the company
An overview of the company’s primary services and programs and the people they serve
An overview of the company values
Designers should also have access to company branding guides, logos, and images of the company founder
A contract outlining your expectations, deadlines, and non-disclosure agreements
Create a Skills Assessment
After your candidate moves forward and begins to work with you, make sure to properly assess their abilities by creating a skills assessment based on their role. Make sure to understand their experience with certain software programs and skillsets as well as get to understand their preferred types of tasks. This is especially true when it comes to working with contractors or employees on a longer term basis. For example, you could find out that your Web Designer only creates WordPress Websites and understands how to design using Elementor, Beaver Builder, or Brizy. Or you could find out that your copywriter can create marketing campaigns in Convertkit, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, and Mailerlite. Allowing your contractors and employees to provide that information up-front will help to better assign more projects and tasks based on their skills and expertise rather than asking each contractor or employee individually.
Conclusion
Training new team members can take a considerable amount of time, so it’s important to assess your level of availability before bringing someone on as a contractor. As a CEO, your job is to grow and expand your business and you should feel confident in your hiring decisions to hand off certain tasks. That being said, a certain level of training is needed up front to deliver a quality work that you need to run your company, agency, or small business. Once you create a repeatable online training program, it’ll be easier to continue to hire without worrying about answering the same questions time and again. If you’re worried that you don’t have enough time to commit to growing your team, make sure you reach out to ask your training questions by scheduling a brief 1:1 call.
Figuring out a work from home routine during quarantine is anything but normal, especially if you have a growing family and business. In this episode I interview online consultant Kristin Arilus, a veteran, business owner, and mother. Working from home during quarantine is something that we are all trying to understand how to navigate the “new normal”. Kristin recommends that the best way to help your kids and your business is to create a repeatable routine, even if it’s something small at first. She recommends that finding small “sandwhich” moments will help you break up the different responsibilities you have as a parent and a business owner. During some moments you might be the role of a parent and the other moment you might put on the hat of a salesman or customer service agent. No matter what type of business you run, trying to manage these expectations is anything but easy! Kristin says a typical day for her starts at 6 or sometimes 4 am with a quick read in her Bible and then focusing on the top three things in her business before the kids wake up. While that may not always be something that all parents can apply, she created a system that worked for her.
Have Teachable Moments
For most parents running a full-time business from home and managing your children’s homework is something you’re tackling for the first time. If that’s the case, your’e not alone. According to a Gallup poll, 42% of parents worry that the pandemic will have some negative consequences to their children’s education. Kristin recommends that you create teachable moments in the midst of a hectic day. Counting numbers and creating special individual moments for each of your children will make your time at home special, even if things aren’t ideal.
Automate Your Processes
Save time by automating processes that are repeated consistently. Kristin says one of the most repeated tasks she does in her business is send emails. That’s why she created a series of emails or automations that will outline her background, ask for referrals, as well as showcase her services and digital products. Kristin utilized much of this same system to automate her client’s workload within her go-to favorite tool Kartra, an all in one marketing platform for website, emails, digital products, and more. She believes that having systems in place for your business will help create sustainable solutions for you while you try to manage the many hats of a business owner.
Utilize Technology
Technology plays a huge part of our work day. Zoom in particular, the online webinar platform, has been the go-to platform for many business owners. One easy way I’ve helped scale my business is through an automated system for scheduling client calls, podcast interviews, and Facebook live streams through Calendly and Zoom. It’s so much easier to followup with clients with email and SMS reminders without manually doing this on my own. Because really, who has time for that?
Create Repeatable Systems
Repeatable systems for contractors, inquiries, and other internal operations are incredibly valuable to save you time and headache. It’s something that has taken me awhile to understand myself. But finding a repeatable system comes with time and experience. As a freelancer, now agency, I’ve had to find things that I repeated over and over again such as proposals, invoices, and client deliverable timelines to see what worked and what didn’t. That’s why it’s important to create a system that is truly unique and works for you. Finding your rhythm takes time to figure out, especially when working from home with family. What systems do you have in place to keep yourself sane during this time?