Episode 54: The First 3 Systems You Need to Implement to Scale

Get ready, because everything is about to change. There's a new way of living life and doing business that will blow your mind. This is a podcast all about the timing of life and the timing of success. It's what we call the Right On Time life. And you are listening to the Right On Time podcast with Amber McHugh. Today's guest is Sarah Noked, founder of the Sarah Noked obm. Sarah works out of her home office in Israel. Amazing. She's living the dream and working from anywhere. Helping business owners and online service professionals plan and implement the right systems to achieve their goals. Sarah shares her passion for online business management through her confident OBM programs and online communities, where she empowers and educates VAs and OBMs worldwide to transition into the online service industry confidently, effectively and successfully. Today's episode is brought to you by Sarah Noked and the Online Business Management School. No thriving business got to where it's at without solid systems in place. They're the key to scaling up, generating more revenue and having the freedom you deserve as a business owner. Start systematizing your business today by checking out the OBM school's free resource@obmschool.com SOP Sarah, it's so great to be here on the podcast with you. Thanks for hopping on.

It's always a pleasure. I always love catching up with you, so it's just honestly, such a pleasure.

Same, same, same, same. Right before we started recording, we were talking about where we're located. You run your business from basically wherever.

I mean, mostly Israel. But yeah, I mean, my family's back in Canada. I mean, Covid has thrown a wrench into my plan, but I actually was just in Canada not too long ago, about a month ago. And it was a bloody nightmare getting back and getting there with all the quarantining and all that fun stuff. But I needed to go. Cause I had a family emergency.

Yeah.

So luckily I'm back and in action. But it was. It was pretty rough. It was rough leaving my husband with three kids for three weeks.

Yeah.

I mean, he's a superstar. Legit. Because I wouldn't have, you know, I wouldn't have taken the transatlantic journey if he wasn't all that and a bag. But still, you know, three weeks.

Three.

I was like, really in minus with him. I was like, oh, I owe you big time. And I don't like that feeling. I don't like that feeling. I went to Greece, then he went to Greece for nine days by himself. So I was like, we're even now we're even.

You were so even.

Oh, my God. So even now.

Yeah. That's hilarious. I bet your karma bank was already pretty full, though, on just like what you do every day in life.

Three kids, a full time business. I know you guys can relate. This is not an easy thing we do.

It is not an easy thing we do. And it's funny, Sarah. When I started my business, I had just one daughter, Lily, and she was easy. Like, I was spoiled. And I was like, oh, it's easy to run a business with kids. And then I had my second daughter.

Yeah.

Yeah, she was not easy. So I got a whole new like, okay, so when people ask me, how do you run business with children? What do I need to be thinking about? Or I'm. When people are in that phase where it's no sleep, I don't know what my schedule is.

What's my name again?

What's my name? Where are we do these children?

What does everyone want from me? Oh, my God. Totally. Like, so. Yeah, I can absolutely relate to that. I. Yeah, because I remember also Ella, my first was also easy peasy. I was like. I mean, she didn't crawl until she not crawl, but like, walk until she was over, I think a year and three months. I was like, this is great. You know, she barely crawled until she was like a year old. I was like, how fabulous. And I've got two boys after that who are like terrorizing my house.

I hear this about boys. I have all girls. I'm like, oh, sorry. Thank you.

Oh, it's not easy.

Oh, that's amazing. You know, and it's interesting because we hadn't even planned to talk about this element of children in our businesses and in our lives. But for so many, some people, it's children. For other people, it's running their businesses as a side hustle. There are so many elements of things that happen and come up in life. Children being just one of those things. Chronic illness is another thing I've dealt with. So whatever we are doing in our business, one of the things, and this is your specialty, that helps us get through all of this with sanity, with a little bit more ease.

Gracefulness.

That's like the goal. Okay? And it is having, number one and you focus in these two areas. Either, number one, getting some help and some support for yourself, please, through an obi.

That can be also having somebody come and help you around the house. You know, I'm all for that. You know, that's like, you know, to. To my peeps out there that's like one of the first things you want to delegate because I, you know, when it comes to a business, delegating things in your business, I think because I know you can relate to this, you know, our business is our baby, you know, and it's sometimes hard to get into the delegation mindset. So you might not want to delegate pieces of your business, but at least if you can delegate the day to day, that will make time to do some of the things in your business for the short term at least.

Yes, it's so true. What was the first thing you shared, delegated, outsourced when you were starting your business?

I mean, definitely somebody to help me around the house. That was like the first thing. And then the second thing was a writer. Because I, I mean, I was looking for someone to sort of support me because, you know, content strategy is one of my biggest things of how I got my OBM clients, of how I was able to position myself as an influencer. So. And you know, even though I'm a humanities undergrad and I've written quite a few essays in my day, I was like, no more of that. No more of that. I know my zone of genius and it's not writing. So I hired a very detail oriented writer who went on to become my lead obm. And that's always something that I look for in all my team members is like, can you write? And are you a good communicator? That's my like. And are you detail oriented?

You know, this is fascinating because when, when we talk to our clients about hiring, you know, we look for obviously, what are those things that we're not good at that we want are complimentary. So I, I use that phrase, how to clone yourself. We don't need another you. Like, you're good at doing what you're good at. You need someone.

I need like someone who compliments like the, the yin to the yang.

Exactly.

I need my yang.

Yeah, but you did. You hired someone to support things you're good at, but you also look for the communication skills. Why is that?

Because I, I'm big on communication as a brand, as an obm, you know, who is, who is anticipating that my team will communicate with my clients. It's just an important thing. I think it's just something that is like, because I, you know, I've worked on plenty of team in my day. I find that if, if your communication sucks, then there's just a lot of, you know, it's even just about having an open dialogue, like, are you going to Come and bring something to my attention. If you're struggling with something or are you confident to ask those questions that might make you look stupid? You know, like, that's what I look for when I think about communication. Like, how good are you at just being available? So I'm really big on that because, again, I expect my team to communicate with my client. Yeah.

Do you think that when there's. Well, one thought that comes to mind is in our virtual environments, communication is so important?

Yeah.

And then do you think that communication serves us in those relationships? Like, as we're building teams, it's hard. Like, I don't find the right person. Okay. They're not showing up. Okay. This isn't what I wanted. And when you have strong communication, you can overcome those barriers.

Agreed. Agreed. I do think that that is a big piece of overcoming. And, like, the truth of the matter is. And I was actually just talking to my OBM coaching group about this because they're all wanting to hire VAs to support them with their client work. And one in particular was like, well, you know, I hired this one. Not so happy. Maybe I'm gonna hire another one. I'm like, look, first of all, you have to kiss a few frogs before you really find team members that you jive with. Like, sorry, but that's sort of the rite of passage. And then, yes, communication. Because as you were saying, like, our virtual space, the virtual office, there's so much. And again, I've had. I've had people go, am I, like, missing in action? On me A few times in my day, in my time, you know, in my day, in the digital space, I've had some people, like, totally ghost me.

Okay, so this is great, because when you have that ghosting situation, which I have happens, I. One of my biggest advice people and actually across the board on hiring is, what did I do wrong? I shouldn't manage it this way. Should I do this? Should I do that? To me, there's a big release of guilt. There's a big release of. And to separate from. Oh, my gosh, what's going wrong here? I'm like, well, let's look at that from the perspective of how do we hire going forward? Like, my brand of crazy. Like, I've got some quirks that happen, and my family knows what they are.

Well, I mean, we're visionaries, right? Yeah.

And then when things happen, like, okay, maybe it's my fault, but I don't need to be so hard on myself. It just is. And we're going to make Note of this for going forward.

Yeah, and I think that really comes back to that notion that, like, business is this personal growth journey that we are all on. And when you, when you step into this space, you have to realize that it's just such a personal growth experience that for better or for worse, you're going to feel great some days. And again, you know, it's like that, that meme that we all know with the ups and downs, you know, I'm on my high, I'm on my hi. I'm on my low. I'm amazing. I suck. I'm amazing. What's wrong with me? You know, how come I can't retain team members? But you know what? The thing that I have found over the years with working with OBM clients is that a lot of the tumultuous relationships and the sort of miscommunications really start from broken systems in their business. And when I'm. When I'm talking to a client and they're like, oh, you know, my VA ghosted me, or, you know, she was happy on the team for five hot minutes, and then she was like, gone. It's usually because they just, you know, people come on, or even an OBM comes on the team and they're like, well, I just don't know where to start because there's nothing documented, there's no systems. I don't know who does what.

I have goosebumps galore because I definitely agree on the prioritization of the systems and I want to go there next because we want to dive into the top three systems and that you need to have in place prior to scaling. They're going to set you up to skyrocket, frick out of your business.

None of your business.

Before we dive into that, I want to ask, how do you define scaling? Because then that's going to be our bridge to our. Then these are the systems you need.

Oh, this. You know, I guess I think about this all the time, but I've never been asked that direct question. I think when it comes to scaling, it is about the entrepreneur focusing on what they're good at more so and being able to delegate. So to me, a scaled business is when the visionary CEO is focused on the things that only they can do in their business. And everything else is delegated. Yeah, everything else is streamlined and you're able to build on that. So the solid foundation, you know, team members in the right places, management intact, software intact, and then, you know, able to build on to that. That, to me is a Successfully scaled business.

I love it. Again, goosebumps. And a follow up question to this is, you know, this is the ideal, right. Even as I think about my corporate career, like we want all of these things to be working optimally. The tech, the team, the operation. Where do you find that most people, if you were to say like 0 to 100%, most of your clients, most of the clients of, of your OBM clients, if you were to just ballpark this, I know you didn't come with data, but if you were to ballpark it, what percentage of the way do you think that your most successful clients and the most successful business owners, do they get it to 100? Do they stay right at that 80% zone?

Yeah, I would say like immediately I was like 75% because I do feel like there is this, you know, there's obviously as human beings, you know, there's money mindset issues. And I think when it comes to hiring, people really fall short in the hiring department either because they are, you know, too focused on hiring in a reactionary mode. Like I needed that person on my team a year ago, so I'm hiring for that role instead of who I need to hire for first off. And also that they're not like, you know, I find a lot of the times clients don't really recognize the importance of having like a manager in place to like manage like whole parts of systems in their business. So they'll be like cheap. You know, it's like we had the beep, now we're having the cheap. They're too cheap when it comes to investing in their team. And to me I'm like, you know, I mean I'm, I would don't know where I would be without my OBM on my team. But I find a lot of the times, and she's a full time employee for me right now. I mean, it obviously didn't start like that, but I find that people have a lot of money mindset and you know, almost like, am I deserving of this team member or am I deserving to have a successfully scaled business that is supported by the right people in the right seats? You know, maybe some are contractors, some are employees, but I'm actually prioritizing my strategy around team growth.

Yeah.

And I think that's where people really lose their, you know, because they just feel that, you know, they need to have, I don't know, certain softwares or, you know, they need to be hiring that coach or taking that trip or whatever and they're not really focused on what's going to successfully scale their business.

I am wondering if any. If you're listening to this and you just felt called out, like, you just said, sarah, like, oh, I'm calling you out. I felt. I'm like, there was a point in my career where absolutely you said something key. Are you prioritizing building your team?

Right.

And. Or are you prioritizing, I need this coach? And I look at coaches can be part of your team also. Coaches, mentors, of going on that trip, going on that.

I don't mean, like, I don't mean that because I do really. I do really value coaching. But I just feel like it's more of this bright shine. It's more of, like, a lack of strategy. That's what it is. It's sort of like, you know, kind of like in the barrel, you know, kind of shooting what we can, but not really having, like, you know, it's one thing if you're like, okay, I've got my team growth strategy on lockdown and moving forward, I've hired a coach to help me and hold me accountable and keep me, you know, in line with my strategy.

Yeah.

You know, beautiful.

Yeah.

But I don't think that happens. And again, you know, I'm not saying that I've scaled my business in the most perfect way. Like, I've definitely. I relished in my solopreneur hat for far too long as a solopreneur. Like, I was like, I'm. I can do everything. I don't need anybody. Look at me. I've got, like, tens of thousands of. You know, I'm joking. But I was just. It got to a point where I was like, I was proud of myself for being the solopreneur. And then I got pregnant, and that was when it really became critical for me to hire team. So again, I was, like, in a position where I was like, okay, well, now I don't have a choice.

You don't have a choice. And so many. Like, I'm done having babies. There will be no more pregnancies. I'm not gonna have that moment.

Yeah, I feel you. But still, you know, I still wanna take a holiday. So now that I've had that experience, like, holiday, you know, I want to go on a caravan trip with my family. And also, again, I think being honest with ourselves, I mean, if you are a solopreneur, listening today, you might be thinking to yourself, wow, I'm so great at all of these things. And the reality is, is that you are great at a lot of Things, and you are able to put yourself out there. And to me, that's incredible. And that deserves a lot of merit and kind of that pat on the back. But also facing the fact that there might be things that you aren't, you know, that aren't in your zone of genius, you know, that really you don't need to be doing on a day to day or week to week basis, those are the things that you should delegate first.

Yeah, yeah. This is amazing. It's interesting too, because I'm sitting here reflecting on, all right, no more babies. Yes. Still want those vacations, still want those road trips. How do I create space for that? And it becomes easier to identify, like, this is not in my zone of g, oh, there's someone else who can do this expertly. I'm going to engage them and I catch it a lot faster now. But it's a practice.

Yes. I think it's just so easy to default to the, well, I'll just take care of this, you know, and like, because we can, we can. And again, I always say, like, you know, online business is amazing, but it's not brain surgery. You know, everything can be figured out with a YouTube tutorial. Like, I mean, I don't mean to downplay everything, obviously, if you're setting up a complicated funnel and you need, you know, a consultant, okay. But like, more of more than not, you can figure things out. And I feel like that is such a slippery slope for a lot of us, especially people coming from the VA and the OBM world. This is why I literally see OBMs with their hands tied behind their back because they're like, but, but, but, but I can do this. But, but, but I'm like, but should you be doing it? Like, is that going to get you to your scaled business?

Okay, so this is great. Transition to the first system you need to have in place prior to scaling.

Yes. Oh, man. My. So the first system. Drum roll please. Is your. It's like, it's like the funniest system ever. It is your SOP for creating SOPS system. So, you know, I know you're big on systems too, but like, I am all about delegating the ability to create. So when you, if you are an entrepreneur that is sitting, listening right now thinking, I need team members, tell me what, what I need to do to get this in place. You need to start thinking about the things that are recurring in your business. And if you can, you know, sit with a piece of paper next to your desk for two weeks or a month or Even just an afternoon with a glass of wine, and literally write down, here are the things I do recurring weekly, daily, monthly, yearly. It starts to paint this picture of the things that you can delegate. Then I literally want you to circle five of those beauties and be like, okay, now I'm going to download Sarah's SOP template. And because that's a free beauty that we give you guys over at Sarah, nocked.com forward slash, SOP, and you can start to create system. So that having a system in place for building the systems in a way that speaks to where are these systems living? You know, who's responsible for updating the systems? How do they. How do they merge in the project management tool. Right. Like, all that good stuff. So that's the first big one is really getting clear on how you're going to delegate the art of creating systems.

So to give this a little bit of a time constraint, because I find that people can go down the SOP path and spend a lot of time there when there are also other priorities in our business that we don't want to forget about. So how long would you say something like this should take, like identifying those things and designing that SOP for your SOP creation?

I feel like it can probably take, you know, so when we come into a client's business to create SOPs for them, it can take anywhere to six months. Realistically now, it's not like I want you to systematize your entire business. I want you to focus on those three or four tasks that can be delegated to a virtual assistant or somebody else on your team, another team member. So it's just about creating. So, I mean, with an SOP template, there's no reason why you can't bang those out. Like, I feel like creating a system for the first go is maybe two or three hours. So if you're spending, like, let's say, 10 hours creating these three systems, and now you can bring on a VA and you've just given yourself back two hours of time every week. Yeah, that's golden. And then you kind of move from there like it's baby steps. But without that initial SOP for creating SOPs and that and the system for creating your standard operating procedures and documenting your systems, it becomes very difficult to move on from there. Yeah.

This is amazing. I love that you called out two to three hours. So if anyone dives into this and finds themselves spending a whole week. I've been working all week on my system. Okay. Did you get Sarah's SOP template? Start there and leverage that to reduce your time spent. And check ourselves, because Parkinson's law, the work will expand to fill the amount of time we give ourselves to do it. So give yourself that two to three hour window for this and then assess if you need more or less. But start with Sarah's guidance on this.

Yeah, I mean, I think it's just, it's just imperative to have that first system in place because the second big system that you're now setting up is the thing that happens the most in your business. So if you're a coach, it might be your onboarding and offboarding experience that you have your clients go through. So thinking about some of the core things that you do in your business, again, daily, weekly, monthly, that maybe you are the one doing. And you can't foresee this ever being delegated. That's okay. Because I mean, I remember when I was an obm, I was like, I'm never going to delegate doing my sales conversations. I'm the only one can do my sales. And then I brought on Emily and she was like, way better at doing my sales conversations. Like, wow, I suck. I suck. But I think starting to create systems for ourselves as the entrepreneur around the things that we do recurring that are our responsibility. Because I mean, I'll talk to a coach who's looking for an OBM and she'll be telling me how long it takes her to onboard and offboard clients or how every time she does it, you're doing it in like a new way. So thinking about recurring things in your business. Right. And starting to build out systems for like the bigger chunks that have to do with like the delivery of your products. Right. Or the delivery of your services. Those are important systems to put in place.

Yeah.

As a secondary thing. So like your delivery, your delivery stuff, like what is. Because that's like the sweet spot of. You know, I know as an, as a service based support provider, and I know a lot of your listeners can, are in this service based support professional realm. You know, our client experience has to be top notch. So when you can streamline that and then sort of plug things in to make it the best possible experience, then that's definitely a system that you want on lockdown. Because like, look, even as an obm, it wasn't as if I was onboarding a new client every month, but it certainly was every three months, you know, and every three months I'd be like, what did I do two months ago? Like legit. I have no idea what I did. And then here I Am spending like five hours figuring out what I did. And then also the client is like losing faith in me because I haven't followed up in an appropriate amount of time. And they've lost trust. Yeah, that's the other really big thing.

Yeah. Having a solid experience that is defined that you are guiding your client down amplifies that trust. Such a great point. You said something else there. Oh, oh, did I lose it? Dang it. I got interested in your next thought. I'm following, I'm following along with everything. Magic gold. Magic gold all over. This is awesome third system that we need to think about if we're going to scale, right?

Yeah. So when it comes to the third system that you want to be setting up in your business, the third system usually has to do with things that are operational in your business. So all of your operation systems, things like backing up your website and these are also things that kind of fall in line with that first, the first kind of can of like the sop standard operating procedure kind of system and the SOP of cream. But like this is, this goes down to things like, you know, where are the websites being backed up? Where you know, you know who's responsible for things like client care. So the, any kind of operational systems that you have in your business day to day. So anything from client care to backing up things. I'm trying to think of other, other things that come in our operations, you know, team meetings and stuff like that. Even though you might not have a team on, on, on like right in, you know, happening right now, but you want to be thinking in an ideal situation, what are operational things that happen day to day that I can start to systematize. Because things like client care again in my or sales conversations might be those things where you're like, wow, I'm not ever going to be able to delegate those things. But when you start to map them out, then you start to see, oh well, this part could be systematized or that part could be delegated. And so thinking about the operational day to day things in your business, those. I often find too that those are the things that many, many of my OBM clients will procrastinate about. So things like, even bookkeeping falls into that realm. Like, and I'm, I'm, I'm at fault for this. I. For years, I mean I used to have a landscaping company, probably a podcast for another time. My husband and I, we weren't married then, but my God, did we fight. Like we were, we weren't married then, but we had A landscaping company. And I just like, I don't even know. Like, I remember looking back at that and just fighting all the time with my husband. Like it was never ever ending. But you know, with, with the, with the operations, I like used to default to bookkeeping. Like, why am I bookkeeping? I shouldn't be bookkeeping. I was a landscape designer, I was schmoozing clients, I was keeping track of the team, doing all this crazy stuff. Like in the man's world. Yes. I was like cracking my whip on these guys. I was like, get to work, we've got some client work to do here. But I was still procrastinating with things around, like my bookkeeping. So I find, especially with our OBM clients, I will get into the situation. OBM clients being like, you know, people who should be delegating all the things in their business. And they're like, well, I really enjoy scheduling my email broadcast. I'm like, no, you don't. You just like doing that because it's mindless. It's more because yes, it's something to.

Check off on the list.

I get that. But those are those things that you're like, those are exactly the things that you can delegate to someone else if you just put a system around it. So and those, I think those things are a lot of them are like operational day to day things. And that's when you can bring in a va. You know, if you are, if you're making your first hire, bringing in somebody who can help to support and just knock off those day to day system things. So having those systems in place and actually thinking about what those systems need to look like.

You know, something occurred to me as you were talking about these second two steps in the process is these are things to do if you plan to grow this business long term, right. And if you're like, no, I'm just going to do one, one off client, okay, then you can operate like this is your first and only client. But right, you're going for a second. If you're going for a third, if this is a legitimate business, business that you want to grow and it's not just a, I'm helping a friend on this one project set up these systems because it is going to save you. I mean, all the things we talked about at the beginning, right? Sanity time. You're going to be able to scale, get leverage, right?

Get leverage and maybe be able to like, because you know, even with my journey, you know, in the online space, like it's, it's been a Decade already. But, like, I started off as a VA and then I moved into an OBM role and I started training OBMs, and, you know, it's evolved to, you know, certification and other sorts of training programs. And I love my journey, but, you know, had I have been stayed embracing my solopreneur mindset, I definitely would not have accomplished the things I have accomplished. So I think, you know, we have to really push ourselves outside of our comfort zone. And a lot of that has to do with, like, getting, you know, playing real with our business and. And actually treating it like its own separate entity. You know, the, like Michael Gerber, to quote the E. Myth. Because I feel like this is necessary right now, and I'm going to botch this to the high hills, high heavens. But, you know, he's. He talks a lot about systems and how, you know, when you are building a sustainable business, your system, your. Your business needs to be built on systems and not team. You know, the team runs the systems, but the systems are there. So, you know, I see this a lot with, you know, clients who are onboarding and offboarding team members. Like, or a team member falls ill or something happens, or the team member has a sick child and you need to swap somebody else in to kind of take on that role. If you've got systems in place, documented procedures, they're all nicely linked to your project management tool. You know, you're going to be golden because you're going to be like, okay, so Sally's sick. Okay, I can look at my project management tool and see all of Sally's tasks linked to the SOPs for her recurring tasks. Okay, I'm not. I'm not gonna, like, vomit. I'm okay. I don't need to drink my bottle of wine now. I'm gonna hold off till later.

I like. And having those things in place, like checking in on things, having a place to check in as a part of your systems without having to ask and wonder moves you out of that micromanagement role, which I find so many people getting stuck in. I feel like I'm micromanaging. They haven't communicated back to me exactly where you started at the beginning of this conversation. Like building communication processes.

Yes. And also, like, being like, hey, communication is a core part of our company culture. You know, if you need, like, my. I. One of the first things I tell my team members is like, there are no stupid questions. And if anyone's asking stupid questions, it's me. You know, there's notes. There's no such thing as a Question like everything can be asked. And I, you know, and also my other mode motto is no small babies were harmed. You know, like, again, back to like the beginning of the conversation. Like, we are not brain surgeons. My brother's an anesthesiologist, so I look at him and I'm like, you know, you go into work every day and you literally have people's lives on your hands. I, you know, what I'm doing is yes, I mean definitely we are impacting people and doing amazing things in the online space. But you know, I'm not, I'm not like, you know, helping people to that extent or putting people's lives in danger to that extent.

Yeah. And it's also as we think about, okay, we're running a business and it's not brain surgery and our team members may be running their own businesses. They have things going on in their life remembering, like, oh, okay, we got this. Whatever it is, whether it's lack of communication or this isn't the right fit from a team perspective or it's actually our systems that need to be fixed. Whatever it is, we've got this. Which got this leads me to, you know, you offer support for business owners and OBMs, correct?

Right, correct.

Yeah. So can you tell us about how you balance and what these two different business models that you're operating are?

Yes. So my core is the training of OBMs. Because what we've done on the other side of the agency. So I ran an agency for many years. I had full time team members. I mean that can be a podcast episode for a whole other time. Because I think that agency growth. And you've also had an agency. Right.

I thought about it. We operate more of an agency model in our photography business.

Right. But I mean, it's not for the faint of heart.

Yes.

And so I think one of the things I realized way back when was, yeah, I really want to support people who are especially entrepreneurs that are making an impact in this space. You know, find the right team members. So what we started to do in our agency was we sort of started to involve it more as an internship. So I would have my OBM students come into my agency and I would basically like match make them but like support them for like a three month period, making sure that they melded well with the client. And then it'd be like, peace out. So we've been doing that for a while and then in, in. And then I had my third child. He's going to be three years old. So for the last I'd say two years. We've really focused more on training OBMs and building out a directory. So while I do work with clients occasionally around systems and coaching, I find the right OBM for them because I just don't. It's just not something that is really in my zone of genius at this point anymore.

I love this, but you are amplifying and multiplying.

Amplifying impact. I don't want to because even as a full obm, I can only serve three max, four clients. And literally, I think it was until about a year ago, I kept on my favorite client. She's this Australian girl that is still like my biz bestie. And she has this photography business. You probably actually know her. And she sells photography courses and has for many, many years. And she has a phenomenal business that we built from low six figures to seven figures.

I love it.

She's a phenomenal human being that I love deeply. And that's why I worked with her for all those years, but got to a point where I love being an OBM in my own business. Even though I have my obm, I also, like, sometimes I default to getting in there dirty and, you know, having the team meetings I like. I love all that stuff. So it's like, hard for me to, like, stay in my zone of genius and also recognizing that, like, I've got three kids under eight, you know, and I need to, you know, be a mom, also be an entrepreneur. But I really want to serve, you know, women and some men, because there are some men that step into my programs, you know, really, really be able to offer services to clients in a way that is, like, aligned with themselves and really supports their own, you know, desires for their business. So, yeah, so, I mean, it's not. It's not an easy thing to balance. And I think that is why I had to sort of like, take my pedal off the gas of the agency a few years ago and sort of put it on more of like the trainings. Because, you know, the other thing that we started doing was we started bringing in, you know, more OBM mentors into, like, it's something, you know, when you have coaching programs, as you know, we know we can bring on the right people to effectively scale that. So when I do work with an OBM client, it's really because I desperately want to work with them, not because I. Not for any other reason.

You mentioned something as well. When you were in that OBM role, you could only work with two or.

Two to three or four max.

Okay, three or four Max. So if I'm someone who's looking for an OBM and listening to this, what recommendations would you have about thinking about how many clients my OBM is going to have? Like if they've got 10 clients, should I call?

Yeah, that would be a concern because a true OBM can only work with. Because again, you know, if I'm holding space for a client, I'm holding space around their vision, their goals, their team. I mean think about your own business. Even if you are, even if you're a solopreneur right now, like you have your own goals, then kind of multiply that by three or four. Now I'm like now I'm, when I'm falling asleep at nighttime, I'm not just worrying about my business, I'm worrying about four other businesses and thinking deeply and strategically and critically about how to make decisions. Because you know, part of what we do as a manager as obms is we are aware of the vision and aware of the goal so we can make decisions for on behalf of the client and we can, you know, create launch plans and do the strategic planning because we're aware of the strategy at large. But it's a lot of information to hold for more than three or four clients. So I think that if you had an OBM that was working with 10 or 15 clients, that typically happens when an OBM is transitioning from a VA role. Because in the VA role you can have 15 clients, no problem. Like I been there, been there, done that, you know, got the goddamn, you know, badge. Not fun, not fun. But I would say that, you know, there's, when you are, when you're working with a true obm, you want somebody who can lead you in your business and somebody who is, you know, has all these other businesses on their mind is not going to be able to deliver the kind of service or be as involved in your business as you need. Like I mentioned, my OBM is a full time employee, but of course I've worked with many OBMs over the years who were contractors as I was scaling my business. So you reach a certain income point where you might be in the multi six figures getting to seven figures where you're ready to bring on like more of a concrete employee in that role because then you can have them all for yourself, you know, and they're nice feeling.

There may likely come a point in your business as you're growing where you do need to transition from part time partner in your OBM to that full time. So if you're at that Point or you're wondering again, this is the place to release guilt and to get support around it. So, Sarah, if people are thinking about, okay, I need opium, what guidance and where can they find you and reach out to you about that?

Yeah, so we are actually, we have a directory over@obm school.com so they can definitely check out our directory of students who have trained with me and who are, you know, skilled online business managers. So they can definitely start there. They can absolutely email me or reach out to me on a DM on Instagram. Love it. They might have my team follow up. But, you know, we're definitely, you know, one of the things that I have made a promise. This is going to sound really lame and cheesy, but to me it's really about paying it forward. I feel so lucky to, you know, have had the support in my life to be where I am right now. Because, you know, I, I often say that, like, I think if I didn't find this online space, I, you know, I definitely wouldn't be able to live where I live and have the kind of freedom and flexibility that I do. So I'm always very aware of the fact that I feel very gracious for where I am and I don't. I also feel very inclined to pay it forward to other, especially women and mothers, you know, not to discriminate basically, but especially to moms who are like, I'm like, I can show you path to freedom. You know, you don't have to like. Because I look back at my nine to five when I was in corporate, I had just completed my MBA and here I am working a job where I only get to leave at 6pm how am I going to pick up my kids from school? I mean, then I didn't have kids, three kids later, you know, so that didn't like. I mean, I never went back after my mat leave because I needed to make this happen. But so I'm really all for paying it forward. So if you, you know, if you're thinking about you're stepping out of your 9 to 5 or you're like, I'm an entrepreneur and I'm drowning in all the things, you know, I'm definitely, I'm all for that.

This is awesome. I love your heart.

Thank you.

For anyone who is listening to this and like, oh, what's your Instagram handle? We'll put it in the show notes as well. But for the listener right now, what's your Instagram?

Aranoqued Sarah with an H N O K E D Soranoked. They can find me there. Yeah.

So good. And then absolutely. For anyone who's in a VA role, transitioning to OBM or who wants to step into an OBM role, gotta go to the OBM school. Because, Sarah, you are so knowledgeable. You've been doing this for so long. You've seen all the things, I am sure. And I couldn't imagine a better mentor to have on my path. So for anyone who's thinking about that, obmschool.com is the best place to go. Okay.

Yes, absolutely.

Oh, my goodness. Thank you so much for.

It's always a pleasure that, like, I feel like I haven't talked to you in a while, but, like, it still feels like yesterday.

I totally agree. It's such a blast. And, you know, this is why we're gonna be cranking up the interviews on the Right on Time podcast. Because I'm like, I told. I was so excited to get on this call with you. I'm like, we're gonna catch up, we're gonna get knowledge.

Bombs dropped.

And it did not disappoint.

Yeah. It was a pleasure always. Thank you, Amber.

Thank you. Love you. Talk soon. Hello. Hello. What an incredible conversation that was with Sarah. I just wrapped up with Sarah. We had a brief conversation and I wanted to come back here and say to you, you are doing awesome. You are rushing it. And I know this building a business journey can have all the ups and downs, as Sarah shared on our episode today. And I just want you to know that if you are in an up right now, I commend you, I congratulate you. And if you are in a down right now and you're on that uphill climb, I feel you been there. You are not alone. And if ever you need support, you heard Sarah say that she is paying it forward and she's got what you need to build the systems. She's got what you need to build and get the team support. And she's mentoring people on that journey as well. So you've got options, you've got support, you've got people around you who are cheering you on, including me. And I want you to know that you growing your business and you stepping into this next evolution of your life life and of your journey, it's right on time. I'll see you in the next episode.